Greeno & Riley (1987). Processes and development of understanding

Got this one done with the wind of typhoon Soulik howling on the outside all night... (God bless!)

What this paper is to me... a means to explain the hopefully differential degree of ability for me to detect and work with my psychotic symptoms (e.g., delusion) in my much younger years such as right around the onset and now.  All about my level of understanding of my symptoms.

Greeno, James G., & Riley, Mary S. (1987). Processes and development of understanding. In F. E. Weinert & R. Kluwe (Eds.), Metacognition, motivation, and understanding (pp. 289-313). Hillsdale, N.J.: L. Erlbaum Associates.

Process of understanding

Theoretical understanding

"Many cognitive procedures, at least to some extent, are based on general principles.  Many of the capabilities that are referred to as understanding relate to an individual's knowledge of such principles." For instance, do children's ability to count things correctly reflect their understanding in principles of number and quantity?" (p. 290-291)

• Explicit knowledge: Can you verbally state the principle and make explanations?  Whatever it is, I absolutely can't do it in Martian though might not be able to do it in any other languages either.
• Conformity: Does the performance conform to a principle?  There is this memorable exam that I took in junior high school.  I got a entire set of questions wrong.  For reasons unknown, for the entire section, I put down the correct answers (e.g., cuckoo bird) instead of the codes denoting the correct answer (e.g., a, b).
• Implicit understanding: One criteria is the ability to judge whether specific performance examples are consistent with the principle. The other is whether one can solve problems in a domain different from the one in which the procedure was initially acquired. 
• Analogical use of structure: The ability to transfer learning in one domain to solve problems in another.
• Transfer: Greeno (1983) hypothesized that "transfer is enabled by a schema that can be used to represent the structure of problems in the domain where a procedure is learned, as well as in the domain of transfer."

Intrinsic understanding

"Understanding a problem solution or problem-solving procedure would consist of constructing a representation of the solution or procedure, including meaningful relations among the various steps of the solution or the various cocomponents of the procedure.  Understanding of this kind may be analoguous to metacognitive knowledge, consisting of strategies for performance." (p. 295)

Knowledge for planning:

• "In the solution of a problem, understanding includes realizing the sets of problem steps that fit together in meaningful units.  It seems reasonable to classify the 'phrases' of a problem solution as sets of steps are related to a single major goal of the problem, or that are the details of a single global action. Newell and Simon (1972) used the term 'episode' to refer to such units" and distinguishes between essential and inessential problem features.
• Knowledge used in planning is metacognitive because it's about cognitive procedures.  "The metacognitive knowledge does not necessary include explicit representation of general principle, nor is it necessarily accompanied by any self-conscious processes that would constitute awareness of the cognitive organization that it determines."

So very synchronous and perhaps synchronicity is everywhere... as long as you look towards its direction.  I haven't taken a trip outside of Taiwan for over a year since everything is forbidden by my head as long as I don't get the book out (whether it is psychotic a nonsensical question to ask since I am psychotic).  Leave the notion of moving on with my life along since it seems to be a goal far too huge.  Let's take one baby step at a time and assume the problem to be solved today, 7/13/2013, is to plan a trip abroad (though I do walk around at large tripping on a daily basis).  The steps it takes is simple: a) make sure I have enough money to last me-->b) get the book done to the extend that my head permits me to plan to go anywhere-->c) (once authorized) make tentative plans--> d) (upon my head's authorization) buy plane tickets and pack up-->e) Go.

The biggest issue in this plan is part b (and of course a as well since Washington is very important) since part b was composed of multiple episodes each with their own subgoals and the steps it took to accomplish them given the constraints of my entire existence.  With what takes place in part b and what it might take to reach part c, how does the plans unfold?  As the sense of knowing, which could be called intuition, or delusions... an episode after another episode.  I can work on pushing the readings and writing through while living my life.

Does it mean that ying ying mei dai zi my life as an unemployed affords no nothing?  I am nothing.  The book might not sell too many copy.  Yet, I guess, I have the intent to contribute; I made my attempts to contribute and went through the whole 9 yards to get it done.  Whether anyone can get anything from it?  La forza. 

Something interesting about the notion of planning for me is that it requires the knowledge about how Is ams in order to move on with mes, myselves and Is... 

Though... looking at it from a different perspective... I surely won't be claiming that the theme song of my life is I've never been to me.. lol



(Speaking of tangential thinking... how on earth did the 3-paragraph section on Knowledge for Planning lead to all them words?! 8-O lol)

Integrated performance

Music example: "It seems reasonable to hypothesize that the understanding that results from practice includes appreciation of relationships within the piece that were not appreciated initially. (p. 296)
Algebra example: Practice result in the development of general schema, which might be "responsible for the ability to perform planfully, and therefore would constitute understanding." (p. 297)

Development of ability to understand

Theoretical framework and issues

Problem schemata and action schemata

Differences between younger and older children in problem-solving...

• Lack of action schemata? 
• Failure to activate the action schemata (three possible reasons ) 

1. not understanding the scenario (e.g., text comprehension issue) 
2. lack of connection between the problem and the action schemata 
3. lacking the problem schemata 

The authors were in favor of option 1 and 3... "regarding the problems analyzed, is that younger children have the general procedures needed to solve the problems, but the lack ability to coherently represent problem information." (p. 299)

What is the problem?  Identifying delusions for instance... I who didn't "know" delusions relating to supernatural power could not identify it. (Think I just mentioned similar comment yesterday... might be saturating what limited my existence can offer)

Evidence for action schemata

Young children's ability to answer how many birds won't get a worm but inability to answer the question of "how many more"?

Birds and worms

"An alternative interpretation of young children's difficulty is that they have not yet acquired procedures for representing the information in the "How many more?" problem, including the meaning of the question; that is, they do not yet have the schema for comparison needed to form representations that include comparative relationships between quantities. If it is assumed that the restatement of the question enables children to activate procedures for forming corresponding sets and counting the remainder without forming an intermediate schematized representation of the problem information, this interpretation is consistent with Hudson's finding." (p. 301-302)

Being able to perform one-to-one correspondence but not comparison.  An alternative way to look at how I could not catch my delusions about supernatural power.  

Analysis of developmental states

More about schema...

Conclusion

"the major developmental changes that enable older children to perform successfully is acquisition of procedures of understanding that construct representations of problem situations." (p. 311)
"Hudson's findings... show that a change in the wording of problems greatly facilitates young children's ability to solve them." (p. 311)
"older children have procedures for constructing general representations of quantitative relationships.  These schematized representations mediate between problem texts and problem-solving procedures.  They represent general structural features of problem situation."