Cognitive Mechanisms of Learning

Cognitive Mechanisms of Learning presents experimental research works on the issue of knowledge acquisition in Cognitive Psychology. These research works ? initiated by groups of researchers with academic backgrounds in Philosophy, Psychology, Linguistics and Artificial Intelligence ? explore learning mechanisms by viewing humans as information processing systems. Although the book is centered on research studies conducted in a laboratory, one chapter is dedicated to applied research studies, derived directly from the fundamental research works. Computer modeling of learning mechanisms is presented, based on the concept of cognitive architecture. Three important issues ? the methodology, the achievements and the evolution ? in the field of learning research are also examined.

Anh Nguyen-Xuan is a retired director of research at the French National Center for Scientific Research (CNRS). Her research works are mainly interdisciplinary (Cognitive Psychology, Artificial Intelligence, Didactics of Physics, Didactics of Mathematics) and focused on learning and cognitive development.

Chapter 0: Introduction to the book. Chapter 1: Useful concepts and some formalisms of representation. Chapter 2: Definition and Brief History. Chapter 3. Learn to solve a problem. Chapter 4. Learning a concept by example of concepts: induction. Chapter 5. Implicit learning. Chapter 6. The role of knowledge a priori in the construction of the representation of the problem. Chapter 7. Acquire the knowledge of a field of knowledge. Chapter 8. Causal learning. Chapter 9. Symbolic Processing System Models in Cognitive Psychology.