Assimilative learning is understood as integrating new information into existing knowledge or cognitive structures without restructuring the current schema. If new information causes inconsistencies, cognitive efforts are necessary to reorganize or to accommodate the old knowledge. Thus, assimilative learning is more efficient and economic. Nonetheless a stable and most notably a correct memory...

This paper reports on a comparative study of the use of asynchronous (bulletin board) and synchronous (chat) discussion on three learning units based on the cognitive maps developed by the learners. Cognitive maps have been found to be an effective tool for learners for discussion in a distributed learning environment. Cognitive maps provided learners a way to organize their understanding of th...

Cognitive mapping is a qualitative decision modeling technique developed over twenty years ago by political scientists, which continues to see occasional use in social science and decision-aiding applications. In this paper, I show how cognitive maps can be viewed in the context of more recent formalisms for qualitative decision modeling, and how the latter provide a firm semantic foundation th...

Primary school selection is actually a decision making problem that should be supported with several source of information. Parents usually handle this problem in an unstructured manner which is indeed a fuzzy mental ranking of schools with respect to the effectiveness. In this study, an analytical hybrid multiple criteria decision making (MCDM) model is proposed and explained with details for ...

Fuzzy Cognitive Map (FCM) is a soft computing modelling methodology for complex systems. Beyond the mathematical formulation of the FCM theory, there was a need of developing a software tool to facilitate the implementation of FCMs. This paper describes the use of a software tool that was developed to construct FCM models. Some theoretical elements of Fuzzy Cognitive Maps are presented. Then, i...

Concept maps can represent individual knowledge by the set of concepts and relations between them. The representation is fast, telling and natural, and besides the structural, relational knowledge that can be expressed by means of set of propositions (explicit knowledge), it is usually possible to find additional, hidden knowledge in the concept map structure (implicit knowledge). This hidden k...

The network of reference frames theory explains the orientation behavior of human and non-human animals in directly experienced environmental spaces, such as buildings or towns. This includes selflocalization, route and survey navigation. It is a synthesis of graph representations and cognitive maps, and solves the problems associated with explaining orientation behavior based either on graphs,...