The “I”s do not have it.

Posted on September 15, 2015 by knlistman

15-07-05-Schloß-Caputh-RalfR-N3S_1712People assume that others who often talk about themselves are egotistical.  But, if you really want to find out how people view their own status,  pay attention to pronouns that they use.

There is a reason that kings, queens and various heads of state use “we” rather than “I” because it indicates the power to speak for others. You might run into an ordinary Joe who makes a habit of using the royal “we” such as, “That’s the way we’ve always done it around  here.” That person wants you to believe they speak for the group and have control over others. They are more likely to be egotistical than a person who offers the more humble explanation, “But, that’s the way I’ve always done it.”

You may also recall teachers in school using the patronizing form of “we,” saying such things as “We don’t run in the halls.” This is another way to sound superior. Think about your reaction to the following directives in which the only change is the pronoun:

  • “You raise your hand before your speak.” This is basically saying Do what I command and sounds like a person showing positional power.
  • “We raise our hands before we speak.” This is like saying Child, you should know how to follow the rules. It sound like the speaker is patronizing you.
  • “I raise my hand before I speak.”  This sound like Look at what I am doing voiced by a person who uses “I” to bring attention to their own proper behavior.

That last example actually sounds as if the speaker does not have the authority to enforce the rule. People who use “I” more frequently are typically of lower status. Students use “I” more than teachers, subordinates use “I” with their bosses and women use “I” more than men. Also, depressed people use “I” more frequently.

If you hear the complaint “That person is always saying I, me or my–always talking about themselves,” you should gently remind the person that the use of those pronouns is not a matter of self-focus. A person frequently using “I” indicates a lone opinion, a single voice, and the lack of power to speak for others.

photo of painting “15-07-05-Schloß-Caputh-RalfR-N3S 1712” by Ralf Roletschek
https://hbr.org/2011/12/your-use-of-pronouns-reveals-your-personality
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/you-are-what-you-say/

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Easily deceived

Posted on September 7, 2015 by knlistman

Hendrick_ter_Brugghen_blame 4Our eyes may deceive us. Two witnesses of the same event rarely, relate tell the same story. On a smaller scale, we often misread words. If two words have a similar spelling, we may read the one that we think should go into a sentence rather than the one that is actually there. Our ears may deceive us. Research has shown that when people listen to a recording in which an occasional syllable is replaced by white noise, they think that they have heard the word they expected to hear. Most people do not even recall that part of the word was replaced with non-phonemic sound. [1]

However, most troubling if that other people deceive us and often we do not catch on to their lies. Despite believing that we can discern when people are lying, most people are not very accurate at this. The typical signs that we look for–eyes shifting, indirect eye contact, fidgeting or a stammer–may simply be evidence of nervousness. The more frequently a person lies, the better they are at looking and sounding confident about what they are saying.

However, no matter how proficient a person becomes constructing a lie, it is still more work than telling the truth. Typically while the mind is working harder, the body is less active. Often, the person who is lying may blink and fidget less than the person who is telling the truth. So you might look for such signs as a person pausing while speaking or appearing to think in between sentences. [2] But then pausing for emphasis is what good speakers are supposed to do.

On the other hand, you might just want to actually listen to the words people say. For example a person who uses “I” more often is more likely to be speaking from experience, and less likely to be intentionally lying. People that are not telling the truth use “we” or no first person noun at all. The equivocator is not likely to respond directly to a question, such as “Did you take my book from the desk?” with a simple “I did not take your book.” This person might respond with “We have not been near your desk.” A person who refers to “they” rather than naming specific names is more likely to conceal what actually occurred.

Negative people use negative words, right? Words like “but,” “no,” “none,” and “never.” Actually people who are more honest use these words much more frequently. People who are unwilling to answer a questions directly with a negation might be attempting to deceive you. Ask an experience equivocator and book thief about stealing your book and the initial response may be “There was a book on your desk?’’ or “What would I do with your book?”[3]

So what do you do if you suspect that someone is lying to you? Looking directly in their eyes really won’t help. You have to make them work harder to keep up the lie. Continue to ask for more specific information on events, or question the person on events out of order. The person who created the fiction must now keep up with the details. However, you, too, have to keep up with the details to identify the contradictions. Remember that exhibition of nervousness under this kind of interrogation is not an admission of lying. You must not be fooled by the calmness of someone who excels at lying.

[1] Cell Press. “Auditory illusion: How our brains can fill in the gaps to create continuous sound.” ScienceDaily. ScienceDaily, 27 November 2009. www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/11/091125134655.htm
[2] Robert Trivers. The Folly of Fools: The Logic of Deceit and Self-Deception in Human Life, 7 January, 2014) http://time.com/77940/detect-lying/
[3] Gareth Cook. The Secret Language Code: Psychologist James Pennebaker reveals the hidden meaning of pronouns, August 16, 2011http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/the-secret-language-code/

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Failing to allow failure

Posted on August 28, 2015 by knlistman

nineteen graduation (2)At the beginning of my son’s senior year we went on a mad rush of college visits trying to find the most elite school offering a computer science degree where he would actually have a shot at getting accepted. MIT was out of the question.

In his early years of high school my son had pushed himself in some areas, such as progressing to calculus by his sophomore year and skipping the initial computer science class, but he struggled to get good grades in calculus and neglected other areas. Although he managed to make it to the top 10% he was nowhere near the top of his class. However, what caught the attention of some recruiters college recruiters was a computer science student that had been co-president of the debate team.

This occurred almost by accident. While in ninth grade, he was scheduled to attend classes at the senior high school, which was on a trimester schedule. The pre-calculus class was was not offered in the first trimester, so he took speech instead. Disappointingly, he described a class full of unmotivated seniors who loved to goof off and talk, except when it was time to present their speeches. However, the teacher realized this class was a waste of time for the few good students. So she offered my son and three others credit for work with her struggling debate team.

I did not believe this was a good match for a quiet boy who had a hard time expressing himself in front of crowds. My son came home from his first debate feeling like a failure except for a kind note from one of the judges stating that his problem was simply nervousness and he would improve if he kept at it. So, now it was his senior year and he had kept at it, making his mark in improving the high school debate team.

As we went from one college to another, we frequently heard recruiters repeat the riddle of whether it was better to take the on-level class and make an A, or take advanced course and make a B. Their answer was the perfectionist view–take the advance course and make an A. But my son’s unusual combination of competing in computer science meets and in legislative debate was due to the fact that he had tried something he did not do well.

As students advance through the world of academics, too fearful to experiment in areas in which they may not succeed, they will emerge on the other side with one-sided skills. They may be highly proficient in a technical area or excellent communicators, but rare is the individual with both skills. The chance to try something new and fail is also the chance to develop. If we do not allow it in education it is to our own detriment.

 

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Did you actually read what you thought you read?

Posted on August 19, 2015 by knlistman

457px-Théophile_Emmanuel_Duverger_Two_children_reading cThe first few years my daughter was in grade school, she would sit at the table in the breakfast nook and do homework while I prepared dinner. One evening while I stirred cracker crumbs into a meatloaf mix, she sat reading a passage too softly for me to hear. Then she suddenly cried out “They can’t be big and strong! They are dwarf horses.”

That was my cue to subtly look over her shoulder and identify the error. “It says draft not dwarf. Remember those big horses with the hair over their hooves that pulled us around on the wagon ride?” I did not tell her then, but I saw that recognition of conflict with what she thought she read as an accomplishment. Her dyslexia made it necessary to deduce what a sentence said though recognizing a couple of letters in each word. Her mind did not always put the letters in the same order each time she read the same word. So, she had learned to read based mostly on context.

However, context is actually what adults tend to do. Have you seen paragraphs in which interiors of words have scrambled spelling or numbers replace similarly shaped letters? A mature reader can usually find enough clues to surmise the meaning and read these correctly as their brain fills in the gaps for them. However, the longer the words, the harder they are to decipher[1].  Basically this puts the average reader on equal footing with my dyslexic daughter.

What we think we see, is often not what we really see. We learn to process visual information quickly because our brain takes short cuts. Our brains want to make sense of the world and without consciously thinking about it we fill in what is missing based on past experience. The reason visual illusions work is that past experiences shapes our minds so that even when we know something to be true or false, an illusion can force us to experience it the other way.

Unlike my daughter I assume I can read well and just let my mind correct what doesn’t make sense. So what if I am not aware of a misspelled or omitted word. Haven’t I read what the author intended to write? But how often do I actually misread a passage because I am expecting it to say something else?

[1] cwww.mrc-cbu.cam.ac.uk/people/matt.davis/cmabridge/
Art based on painting by Théophile Emmanuel Duverge

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The mystery behind the motivation to learn

Posted on August 13, 2015 by knlistman

Picture 012a3 No matter how much we describe the function of the brain to illuminate how people learn, the biggest mystery is what causes people to want to learn. Typically when someone dives into why certain people excel at learning they come back up with “intrinsic motivation.” However, this explains nothing as an intrinsic motivation is simply another way of saying a person has as a strong internal drive. What causes this drive?

Let’s step back from the realm of learning to answer this question, “Why are people motivated to do anything?”

Typically it is because:

  • they think they must do it, or they will suffer
  • they believe they will gain from doing it
  • everybody else is doing it, and they want to fit in

Thinking that one must do something is accompanied by threat of loss. For example a man believes he must have a job because otherwise he would suffer due to poverty, or even die of starvation. However, a man may decide he must steal for the same reason.

Believing one will gain something emphasizes working towards a goal more than avoiding a loss. A man may go beyond what is expected of him at work because he believes he can gain a promotion which gives him more money and a higher status. On the other hand the motivation to gain the promotion may lead to him deceiving his boss and backstabbing other employees.

Finally, following what others is both a way of fitting into a group, and away of avoiding ostracism which is basically a combination of avoiding loss and achieving gain. The tricky thing is no clear cut line exists avoiding poverty and gaining wealth in this example. Both motivations may occur at the same time.

Let’s return to the motivation for learning. People learn because they think they have to avoid a failing grade, which might antagonize their parents or prevent them from completing education needed for a job. However if a person learns because of the belief that this will lead to some kind of gain, it really is not intrinsic. Students may study to make the grades to get into an Ivy League college to earn money, or status or feeling of superiority over others. In each case there is an outside motivation.

Steven Reiss, a professor of psychology at Ohio State University, has proposed that there is no such thing as truly intrinsic motivation. This concept has arisen because the goals that motivate students to learn vary widely. One may be motivated to get good grades to please parents, another may be competing with fellow classmates and a third may satisfy curiosity and a need for novelty by learning new things. However, we should not force the idea on educators that all students should be learning to satisfy their curiosity. Some simply do not have the need for novelty that others do.

Finally, consider the people who proudly announce how much they love to learn. This announcement shows that their learning is not just based on an internal drive. A person who learned just for the sake of learning would not find the need to tell anyone else. So I suppose if a truly intrinsically motivated learners actually existed, we would never know who they were.

http://researchnews.osu.edu/archive/inmotiv.htm/

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Feeling and knowing

Posted on August 5, 2015 by knlistman

ink1007 sunsetAlmost all articles on brain based learning will emphasize the importance of emotions in learning. Emotions are supposed to direct our attention and aid our memory. Learning accompanied by emotional impact lasts far longer than a lecture that goes in one ear and out the other. How exactly do emotions affect our ability to learn?

Our emotional state (often referred to as affect) may motivate us to learn, but emotions are not information stored in the same way as cognitive learning. Cognition involves cortical processing from what we learn of the outside world through our senses. It is harder pinpoint precisely where emotions come from.

There are theories that emotions develop as a method of protection, an instant unconscious warning of danger based on past experience. But the instantaneous impulse of flight or fight do not serve us in the modern world very well. We often lash out in anger in response to a danger that that is not yet detected. As we grow older most people learn to suppress displays of fear while they figure out the source of danger. Basically we “mull over” or rehearse the event repeatedly until the sensory input is encoded into the part of our memory that responds with emotion. 

Because we remember emotional content better, there have been many attempts to use this relationship to increase learning. But, there are draw backs. When mulling over information that causes stress rather than listening to neutral facts, retention goes down. Also, people tend to suppress the memory of events causing unpleasant emotions. Therefore, being presented with a reminder of such an event may interfere with our ability to retrieve a memory. How do we know if an emotional reference will result in the suppression of an unpleasant memory? Basically we don’t. As wonderful as it sounds to be able to increase learning through emotional impact, the realization that this requires emotional manipulation that may backfire puts a bit of a damper on creating “emotional memories” to enhance learning.

Illustration by S.L. Listman
Panksepp, J. The Affective Brain and Core Consciousness How Does Neural Activity Generate Emotional Feelings? In M. Lewis & J. M. Haviland-Jones (Eds.), Handbook of emotions (3rd ed., pp. 742-756). New York: Guilford Press.
Christianson, S. The Handbook of Emotion and Memory: Research and Theory. Psychology Press.
Levy, B.  & Anderson, M. (2002). Inhibitory processes and the control of memory retrieval.  Trends in Cognitive Sciences. 6(7), 299-305.

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Neat little boxes

Posted on July 31, 2015 by knlistman

Dec 026 c copyNot all research on how the brain functions comes to the same conclusions. In fact one of the major problems with applying brain-based theories in actual instruction is that the findings are frequently contradictory. The cellular structure of the brain is complex and changes as we learn. But the tendency of the human mind is often to simplify information into easily identified compartments. In fact pattern finding is measured as a kind of intelligence. It is one of those intellectual skills that students practice to ace their College Board exams. The brain is complex, the brain seeks patterns. Are these two ends of a spectrum or parallel characteristics?

Considered prejudice, the concept of using a few superficial things about a group of people to make a large number of preconceived conclusions. The very fact that most people are unconsciously prejudice shows how much we like to sort data into neat little boxes. This is basically an attempt to simplify the complexity of humanity into a few easy patterns. Researchers have shown that people who are not comfortable with ambiguity are more prone to clump humans into prejudicial patterns. These people are quick decision makers who have a higher need for cognitive closure. They want to find the right answer by boiling down masses of data down to their essence.

So how do you teach people to accept ambiguity? You don’t. What you do is introduce them to people in a group that they have negative preconceived concepts about. If they form friendships with a few of these people then there will be less negative prejudice, but there will still be prejudice.

The need for an authoritarian figure, or willingness to submit to authority has also been linked to greater prejudice, specifically racial prejudice. But few would promote the teaching of rebelling against authority as the antidote to this.  So we try to examine the human brain to find out about prejudice and discover it seems to fulfill a basic human need for cognitive closure. We know what causes the problem, but have no answer.

And that is the conundrum of implementing brain based learning.

Side Effects of Multiculturalism: The Interaction Effect of a Multicultural Ideology and Authoritarianism on Prejudice and Diversity Beliefs. Pers Soc Psychol Bull March 1, 2013 39: 305-320
Adorno, T.W., Frenkel-Brunswik, E., Levinson, D.J., & Sanford, R.N. (1950). The Authoritarian Personality. New York: Harper

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Learning from inside out

Posted on July 20, 2015 by knlistman

London__map2

The instructor in my high school English class was rather dry. She would drone on about difference between past and subjunctive verbs, and participles and gerunds. However, she was a well-read and well-traveled person. On the side wall she had tacked up a poster of the London subway system, brought back as a souvenir. It had exotic named stations like Piccadilly Circus and Knights Bridge that seemed far more interesting than dissecting English grammar. So, when my eyes started to glaze over, I would stare at the poster and try to absorb the feeling of what it would be like to travel in London.

The real difficulty with applying education on the latest brain research is knowing exactly how to manipulate the environment outside the student in order to affect what occurs on the inside. Proponents of brain-based learning have done scant studies on what kind of manipulation actually works. Instead they hone in on a few facts about how the brain works and stretch conclusions as far as possible to redesign education. One study I read recently honestly admitted “After a very selective summary of what is known from brain research about how the brain learns, implications were drawn concerning the influence this new knowledge may have…” (1) So we are supposed change the classroom environment based on mere implications and hope it works?

Think about some of the conclusions reiterated in brain based learning schemes… such as brains are unique. In fact some research has found so that what we consider an “average brain” of normal intelligence without any learning disabilities actually exists in less than 20% percent of the population.(2) But how exactly do we implement education in large classrooms if being different is the norm? No one is ready to scrap public education and let everybody get their own tutor. Educators are encouraged to differentiate, a word which basically means students will learn the same objectives by doing different activities. That is not nearly as easy as they make it sound.

Another finding shows how a large portion of learning is done unconsciously. We gather new information when we are not trying and we do not realize it. We pick up peripheral sights and sounds all of the time and tuck these away in our brains. That presents a real challenge as far as developing strategies for brain based learning. If the students do not realize when they are learning how easy will it be for someone on the outside to determine when this unconscious act of learning is occurring?

Finally, we come to the research showing that that brains learn more in sensory rich environments. So educators are encouraged to redecorate the rooms frequently, but they better make sure that these decorations actually reinforce what they want students to learn. Surroundings that are too interesting can distract students from listening to the instructor. I recall the English class with a map of London, including pictures of all the well-known tourist sites. I left knowing more about how to vacation in London than how to apply the rules of English grammar.

(1) http://www.designshare.com/Research/BrainBasedLearn98.htm
(2) https://feaweb.org/brain-based-learning-strategies
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Learning in the eye of the beholder

Posted on July 14, 2015 by knlistman

Picture 057During a post graduate course in learning design, one of the students attempted to present instruction on the solar system without the use of any visuals. After the professor gave a curt lecture on importance of multi-sensory instruction, she asked the student to at least draw the solar system on the board.  Seeing the embarrassed student cringe and apologize for complete lack of artistic ability, I agreed to illustrate the planets.

Astronomy is not one of my strengths, and the college classroom did not have the latest in drawing materials. In fact it was a rather archaic one with real slate blackboard. Grasping a quartet of pastel chalk, I began to illustrate Mercury as dusty yellow, Venus as a swirl of colors, and the earth in pastel blue and green. The red planet, Mars, I rendered in pink and then began working on the gas giants. I realized any drawing of the solar system to scale would be tiny dots of planets on an immense blackboard. But my vastly exaggerated planet sizes and vastly diminished distances still provided relative information to reinforce the instruction.

Hearing words and seeing images simultaneously increases our ability to learn not because people prefer one over the other, but because we increase our comprehension when we use multiple senses.

It is not distracting to receive visual and auditory stimulus at the same time, if one reinforces the other. A theory called dual coding attempts to explain this phenomenon as resulting from using both hemispheres of the brain, the left for language and the right for visuals, to store information. Evidently storing new data in multiple area of the brain lessen cognitive overload in over-activated areas.[1]

You are probably familiar with Edgar Dale’s Cone of Learning which illustrates how much we learn.

Edgar_Dale's_cone_of_learning

Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported

Please note that this data has not been scientifically tested and is apparently inaccurate.

If you want to test it for yourself, try watching an unfamiliar video that has a narrator without the sound, and then listening to another similar video without seeing the video. Most of the time you will be able to perceive more of what has occurred if you listen to the sound only. People actually learn more from what they hear because less visual information is presented in most instruction.

According to dual encoding theory people will recall a lower percentage of what they have heard due to cognitive overload. They will remember a higher percentage of visual information, because there is less of it to remember.[1] Here is another test to try. Present a rapid string of illustration at the same speed that we move from sentence to sentence. People’s eyes will soon glaze over from overload.

Let’s return to my experience with illustrating the planets based on verbal input. I was actually able to remember more of the instruction than the other students. If you think about it logically people really do not learn by doing. Without hearing or seeing instruction they have no clue of what to do. However, they remember more by performing actions based on what they have been taught. The act of converting one output into another output uses even more areas of the brain, and evidently the more you use, the better you remember.

[1] https://www.sciencebasedmedicine.org/brain-based-learning-myth-versus-reality-testing-learning-styles-and-dual-coding/

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Tinkering with the mind of man

Posted on July 8, 2015 by knlistman

055 monitor brainThe idea of the left brain being logical while the right is creative has been disproved in studies which show that during creative activity people are more likely use both half of their brains. According to Dr. Jeff Anderson, director of the fMRI Neurosurgical Mapping Service at the University of Utah, “It is not the case that the left hemisphere is associated with logic or reasoning more than the right… Also creativity is no more processed in the right hemisphere than the left.”[1]

But when it comes to our outlook is does seem like the left side of the brain supports optimistic thinking while the right brain supports pessimistic ideas. More specifically physiological activity in the left-hemisphere tends to increase self-esteem and the assumption of a good outcome. While the right side of the brain supports the parasympathetic nervous system. This system kicks into high gear when we sense danger and controls the flight or fight response. A right brain viewpoint will tend to focus on possible dangers and consider how to avoid them.  Experiments which are aimed at manipulating people’s perception of whether or not they cannot control a situation demonstrate a difference in activity on each side of the brain. There are greater physiological changes in the left half of the brain when people are led to believe that they can control a negative situation, while the right half has a greater neurophysiological response if people are told they are powerless to enforce a change.[2]

However the left-hand and right-hand sides of the brain do not work in isolation, nor would we want them to. The constant flow of information between the two sides input what seems to us to be a unified experience to us. This allows us to avoid risky behaviors due to an optimistic sense of invincibility, while not succumbing to gloom in the face of negative events.

While all of this may make up interesting conversation at a convention of neurologists, the truth is understanding particular brain functions doesn’t really help us alter the way people think. It is simply too dangerous and costly to be performing brain surgery just to tinker with a person’s level of optimism. However, the idea keeps appearing that our increasing knowledge of how the brain works will allows us to make great strides in promoting mental health and learning. One of the recent findings about our brains in how much they differ between each person. Having what is considered an abnormality or learning disability is basically normal. Also, as we learn the brain changes and adapts in ways that we still do not comprehend. How much will all the new things we have learned about the brain enable us to improve ourselves? Stick with me for a few weeks while I look into brain-based learning.

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[1] Wanjek, Christopher. Left Brain vs. Right: It’s a Myth, Research Finds (accessed Feb 17, 2014)
[2] Hecht, David. The Neural Basis of Optimism and Pessimism. Experimental Neurobiology. 2013 September; 22(3): 173–199. Published online 2013 September 30
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