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Small & Vorgan :: Meet Your iBrain (2008)
published in a October/November 2008 issue of popularisation review Scientific American Mind
mentions the fMRI study (c.f. next slide), but only in the state where 3 Net Naive volunteers were recruited (c.f. page 45)
quite techno-pessimist terminology: "continuous partial attention", "heightened state of stress", "a sense of constant crisis", "digital fog" (p. 47), "techno-brain burn-out is threating to become an epidemic", "impair cognition, lead to depression ..." (p.48)
little bit of techno-optimism at the end: "technological experiences sharpen some cognitive abilities" (p. 49)
summing up: "all of us... will master new technologies and take advantage of their efficiencies, but we need to maintain our people skills and our humanity"
Small et al. :: Your Brain on Google (2009)
serious scientific article published in February 2009 edition of a peer-reviewed journal Geriatric Psychiatry
compares statistically significantly different groups of Net Naive (N=12) and Net Savvy (N=12) seniors
Main result :: "The most striking finding was in the direct comparison of the Internet versus text reading tasks for the Net Naive and Net Savvy groups, which found that the Net Savvy group had more than a twofold greater spatial extent of activation than did the Net Naive group during the Internet task".
Positive opinion: "present results are encouraging that emerging computerized technologies designed to improve cognitive abilities and brain function may have physiologic effects and potential benefits for middle-aged and older adults" (p.125)
Negative opinion: "constant use of such technologies have the potential for negative brain and behavioral effects, including impaired attention and addiction"
Definition of "cognitivism" and definition of "mind"
"cognitivism" = "behaviorism" + "mind"
"An auto-organising set of structures and processes determining the characteristic behaviour of an individual." (Prolegomena Peadagogica, 2019, p.2)
Cognitive / mental processes
perception
decision-making
problem-solving
... what else ?
attention / awareness
a little awareness tests ...
cognitive biases etc.
A cognitive bias is a systematic pattern of deviation from norm or rationality in judgment. Individuals create their own "subjective social reality" from their perception of the input. An individual's construction of social reality, not the objective input, may dictate their behaviour in the social world. Thus, cognitive biases may sometimes lead to perceptual distortion, inaccurate judgment, illogical interpretation, or what is broadly called irrationality.
Some cognitive biases are presumably adaptive. Cognitive biases may lead to more effective actions in a given context. Furthermore, allowing cognitive biases enable faster decisions which can be desirable when timeliness is more valuable than accuracy, as illustrated in heuristics.
Given an equal number of exposures, distributed (or spaced) practice at a skill is almost always superior to massed practice.» (Tomasello, 2009; Prolegomena, 2019, p. 102)