In his seminal work Moral Notions, Julius Kovesi presents a novel account of concept formation. At the heart of this account is a distinction between what he terms the material element and the formal element of concepts. This paper elucidates his distinction in detail and contrasts it with other distinctions such as form-matter, universal-particular, genus-difference, necessary-sufficient, and ...

We describe the HR concept formation program which invents mathematical definitions and conjectures in finite algebras such as group theory and ring theory. We give the methods behind and the reasons for the concept formation in HR, an evaluation of its performance in its training domain, group theory, and a look at HR in domains other than group theory.

This study examined the effect that correlational attributes that promote concept formation gives to mere expsure effect for prototypes. Using the mere exposure (e.g., Zajonc, 1968) and the concept formation paradigms (e.g., Barsalou et al., 1999), Matsuda and Kusumi (2002, 2003) elucidated three points concerning. First, it was found out that concept formation with repeated exposure builds a p...

I argue that Vygotsky’s theory of concept formation (1986) is a powerful framework within which to explore how an individual at university level constructs a new mathematical concept. In particular, this theory is able to bridge the divide between an individual’s mathematical knowledge and the body of socially sanctioned mathematical knowledge. It can also be used to explain how idiosyncratic u...

Given its eminent role in student learning and development, it is important to understand how academic self-concept (i.e., how one perceives oneself in an academic context) is formed. Both internal and external comparisons are considered crucial antecedents: Students form their academic self-concept to a considerable extent by (externally) comparing themselves with others and by (internally) co...

Biochemistry courses at Seattle University have been taught exclusively using process oriented guided inquiry learning (POGIL) without any traditional lecture component since 1997. In these courses, students participate in a structured learning environment, which includes a preparatory assignment, an in-class activity, and a follow-up skill exercise. Instructor-designed learning activities prov...

This paper focuses on the application of intuitive game interfaces (including brain machine interfaces) to serious gaming, in particular real-time, interactive, and highly realistic environments for advanced concept development, experimentation and training.

This report describes a new procedure for measuring higher intellectual processes in the chimpanzee. The fully automatic equipment employed eliminates continuous monitoring by the experimenter and can be modified readily for conducting similar research during space flight.

The Wisconsin Card Sorting Task (WCST; Heaton, 1980) is commonly used to assess concept formation and set shifting. Cognitive research suggests that set shifting performance is enhanced by a match between a person's regulatory focus (promotion focus: attempting to earn an entry into a cash drawing; prevention focus: attempting to avoid losing an entry into the drawing) and the task reward struc...