How Do People Generalize Causal Relations over Objects? A Non-parametric Bayesian Account

How do people decide how general a causal relationship is, in terms of the entities or situations it applies to? What features do people use to decide whether a new situation is governed by a new causal law or an old one? How can people make these difficult judgments in a fast, efficient way? We address these questions in two experiments that ask participants to generalize from one (Experiment 1) or several (Experiment 2) causal interactions between pairs of objects. In each case, participants see an agent object act on a recipient object, causing some changes to the recipient. In line with the human capacity for few-shot concept learning, we find systematic patterns of causal generalizations favoring simpler causal laws that extend over categories of similar objects. In Experiment 1, we find that participants’ inferences are shaped by the order of the generalization questions they are asked. In both experiments, we find an asymmetry in the formation of causal categories: participants preferentially identify causal laws with features of the agent objects rather than recipients. To explain this, we develop a computational model that combines program induction (about the hidden causal laws) with non-parametric category inference (about their domains of influence). We demonstrate that our modeling approach can both explain the order effect in Experiment 1 and the causal asymmetry, and outperforms a naïve Bayesian account while providing a computationally plausible mechanism for real-world causal generalization.

Concepts, abstractness, and inner speech

We explore the role of inner speech (covert self-directed talk) during the acquisition and use of concepts differing in abstractness. Following Vygotsky, inner speech results from the internationalization of linguistically mediated interactions that regulate cognition and behaviour. When we acquire and processabstract concepts, uncertainties about word meaning might lead us to search actively for their meaning.Inner speech might play a role in this searching process and be differentially involved in concept learning compared to use of known concepts. Importantly, inner speech comes in different varieties – e.g., it can be expanded or condensed (with the latter involving syntactic and semantic forms of abbreviation). Do we useinner speech differently with concepts varying in abstractness? Which kinds of inner speech do we preferentially use with different kinds of abstract concepts (e.g., emotions vs. numbers)? What other features of inner speech, such as dialogicality, might facilitate our use of concepts varying in abstractness(byallowing us to monitor the limits of our knowledge in simulated social exchanges, through a process we term inner social metacognition)? In tackling these questions, we address the possibility that different varieties of inner speech are flexibly used during the acquisition of concepts and their everyday use.

Hierarchical Concept Learning by Fuzzy Semantic Cells

Concept modeling and learning have been important research topics in artificial intelligence and knowledge discovery. This paper studies a hierarchical concept learning method that requires a small amount of data to achieve competitive performances. The method starts from a set of fuzzy prototypes called Fuzzy Semantic Cells (FSCs). As a result of FSC parameter optimization, it creates a hierarchical structure of data–prototype–concept. Experiments are conducted to demonstrate the effectiveness of our approach in a classification problem. In particular, when faced with limited training data, our proposed method is comparable with traditional techniques in terms of robustness and generalization ability.

The Intentional Selection Assumption

There exists a rich literature describing how social context influences decision making. Here, we propose a novel framing of social influences, the Intentional Selection Assumption. This framework proposes that, when a person is presented with a set of options by another social agent, people may treat the set of options as intentionally selected, reflecting the chooser's inferences about the presenter and the presenter's goals. To describe our proposal, we draw analogies to the cognition literature on sampling inferences within concept learning. This is done to highlight how the Intentional Selection Assumption accounts for both normative (e.g., comparing perceived utilities) and subjective (e.g., consideration of context relevance) principles in decision making, while also highlighting how analogous findings in the concept learning literature can aid in bridging these principles by drawing attention to the importance of potential sampling assumptions within decision making paradigms. We present the two behavioral experiments that provide support to this proposal and find that social-contextual cues influence choice behavior with respect to the induction of sampling assumptions. We then discuss a theoretical framework of the Intentional Selection Assumption alongside the possibility of its potential relationships to contemporary models of choice. Overall, our results emphasize the flexibility of decision makers with respect to social-contextual factors without sacrificing systematicity regarding the preference for specific options with a higher value or utility.

The effects of age on prototype- and exemplar-based categorization

The need to learn new concepts and categories persists through the lifespan, yet little is known about how aging affects concept learning and generalization. Here, we trained young and older adults to classify typical and boundary category members and then tested category generalization to new stimuli. During training, older adults had increased difficulty compared to young adults learning category labels for boundary items, but not typical items. At test, categorization performance that included new items at all levels of typicality was comparable across age groups, but formal categorization models indicated that older adults relied to a greater degree on generalized (prototype) category representations than young adults. These findings align with the proposal that older adults are able to form category representations based on central tendency even when they have difficulty learning and remembering individual category members. More broadly, the results contribute to our understanding of multiple categorization strategies and the limited strategy flexibility in older adults. They also highlight how reliance on

About the Concept “Learning” in Russian-language Academic Discourse

Being one of the basic didactic terms, “learning” is frequently translated by Russianspeaking researchers as either “obuchenie” or “uchenie”. It seems strange, as these two words are not synonyms in Russian. Moreover, in Russian conventional didactics they denote two different phenomena: “obuchenie” refers to the entire educational process consisting of both the teacher’s and the learner’s activities while “uchenie” corresponds to the latter one. Successful international academic communication presupposes that any terms accepted by English-speaking professionals should be adapted to the national didactic concepts of this or that country. Taking this requirement into account, the author concludes that the only possible equivalent of “learning” in Russian is “uchenie”, not “obuchenie”, while the phrase “the shift from teaching to learning” and the term “student-centred learning” should be translated as “sdvig / perekhod ot prepodavaniya k ucheniyu” and “studentotsentrirovannoe uchenie” respectively. The author comes to the conclusion that student-centred learning (SCL) opposed to student-centred teaching can be considered the highest point in the development of student-centred approach currently prevailing in European countries. SCL as a new type of learning means that the student becomes an active participant in educational process having his (her) own needs and interests in the focus of attention. The substitution of the word “uchenie” by the incorrect variant “obuchenie” existing in the Russian academic discourse nowadays prevents Russian-speaking researchers from seeing clearly the essence of SCL.

INOVASI GURU MADRASAH DINIYAH DALAM MENGATASI PROBLEMATIKA PEMBELAJARAN BACA TULIS AL-QUR’AN DI ERA COVID 19

The phenomenon of online learning has resulted in problems for the environment for administering Madrasah diniyah education by pursuing various innovations to create and implement quality Al-Qur'an reading and writing learning as a form of the existence of institutions in the Covid-19 era. This research was designed with a descriptive qualitative method. Data collection is done by collecting books or references that are relevant and accurate, as well as reading and studying to obtain data or conclusions related to the discussion. While the validity of this research data using observation and document analysis. The results of this study include several innovations that teachers can create and implement during the online learning concept: Learning from Home: Collaboration between Schools and Parents, Online Learning as an Opportunity as well as a Challenge and Blended Learning Learning Models in the Covid-19 Pandemic. Keywords: Innovation, Learning, Coronavirus Desease (COVID-19)