Understanding How the Arts Can Enhance LearningMagsamen, Susan H.; Battro, Antonio M.
2011 Mind, Brain, and Education
doi: 10.1111/j.1751-228X.2011.01101.x
Understanding how the arts can enhance learning has long been discussed and debated among educators, students, parents, artists, art historians, and philosophers. Many anecdotal examples reference the value and benefits of the arts in a range of fields and learning domains. Emerging methodologies in the brain sciences have added new perspectives and research‐based approaches to better understand the role the arts might play in learning. Psychologists, cognitive scientists, and now neuroscientists are approaching this topic by exploring memory, sensory systems, and other biological measures. The interdisciplinary and potentially interdependence of these fields to work together to identify the neurological mechanisms involved in the arts may offer educators, parents, and child care providers with important information about how we learning takes place. By bringing together uncommon and divergent thinking from a wide range of disciplines, there is an opportunity to change the way we teach, parent, and serve children using the arts to help enhance learning. This issue of Mind, Brain, and Education celebrates the range of approaches that are emerging to shed light and insight in this field.
The Neuroscience of Art: A Research Program for the Next Decade?Changeux, Jean Pierre
2011 Mind, Brain, and Education
doi: 10.1111/j.1751-228X.2011.01102.x
Works of art can be viewed as elements of a human‐specific nonverbal communication system, distinct from language. First, the cognitive abilities and skills required for art creation and perception are built from a cascade of events driven by a “genetic envelope”. Essential for the understanding of artistic creation is its epigenetic variability. Second, artistic contemplation and creation may be tentatively viewed as a discrete and singular conscious synthesis taking place within the personal global neuronal workspace of external perceptions, internal memories and stored emotions. Third, there is a need for rules that constrain and restrict in a top‐down manner the selection of representations generated by the artist's brain. Finally, artistic creation is a part of the personal history of the artist and stems from an anterior historical evolution.
The Challenges of Interdisciplinary Epistemology in NeuroaestheticsCroft, James
2011 Mind, Brain, and Education
doi: 10.1111/j.1751-228X.2011.01103.x
Neuroaesthetics is a burgeoning new interdisciplinary research space in which cognitive science, psychology, neuroscience, and philosophy intersect in order to better inform our understanding of aesthetic experience. The purpose of this study is to analyze high‐profile work in neuroaesthetics in the light of recent research into interdisciplinary epistemology, asking “Do current attempts to use neuroscience to explore art meet rigorous interdisciplinary quality criteria?” I suggest that current approaches in neuroaesthetics frequently fail in a number of ways: they fail to meet disciplinary standards in either aesthetics or neuroscience, they fail to blend disciplines in a generative way, and they add little new that could not be investigated more fruitfully at other levels of analysis. In response to these potential pitfalls, I recommend that future researchers embrace a form of “problem‐focused epistemological pluralism” in their neuroaesthetic endeavors. I end with a consideration of the educational implications of these issues.
Put a Brain in Your Camera: Nonstandard Perspectives and Computer Images in the ArtsReggini, Horacio C.
2011 Mind, Brain, and Education
doi: 10.1111/j.1751-228X.2011.01104.x
Ever since the geometry of central perspective (conical projection) was developed in the XV century, it has been observed that mechanical application of the procedure leads to effects of distortion and exaggeration of shapes and sizes, which often make the result look unnatural. Similar observations are made with the optical projections obtained in photography and video. Artists have intuitively corrected these perceptual shortcomings of perspective. In standard perspective, each point of an object or scene is projected upon a plane by means of a bundle of straight projection rays departing from a viewpoint. In the nonstandard perspective that I have developed, I follow a similar procedure, except that I replace the straight projection rays of standard perspective with special curved ones. This model has been validated by visual experiments in the open field. The next step will integrate the nonstandard perspective into a new kind of digital camera which will allow the user to select a preferred perspective by changing an index from i = 0 (conical) up to i = 1 (parallel).
Envision and Observe: Using the Studio Thinking Framework for Learning and Teaching in Digital ArtsSheridan, Kimberly M.
2011 Mind, Brain, and Education
doi: 10.1111/j.1751-228X.2011.01105.x
The Studio Thinking Framework (STF) focuses on habits of mind taught through studio arts rather than disciplinary content or media‐specific techniques. It is well suited to integrate studies of arts learning and teaching in a range of contexts, and it provides a framework for understanding how visual arts participation is dramatically changing with the advent of digital tools and the Internet. This study focuses on two habits of mind, observe and envision and analyzes how they are taught in high school arts classrooms using traditional media compared with a digital context of an informal educational class using 3D computer modeling and animation. The STF facilitates detecting learning patterns, sustaining pedagogical reflection, and providing structure for the design of studies of learning in and through the arts.
The Arts as Part of Our Everyday Lives: Making Visible the Value of the Arts in Learning for FamiliesMagsamen, Susan H.
2011 Mind, Brain, and Education
doi: 10.1111/j.1751-228X.2011.01107.x
Family engagement, in many forms, has been shown to be an essential component to successful learning for children. A child's first exposure to the arts is often through family rituals and traditions. New research suggests these activities can form the basis for personal exploration and skill development and reinforce in‐school learning. Because public schools continue to reduce art programs due to budgetary contraction, families and communities need to enhance and increase their commitment to informal arts and learning opportunities. These experiences can occur at home, in youth and arts museums, and in libraries and family‐based organizations as evidenced by a range of events already underway throughout the country. Communication and outreach about the relevance and the science of arts and learning for families needs to be expanded. By recognizing the important role families hold it is possible to enhance learning through the arts at home and in the community. More targeted research is required to better understand how families can use the rich array of arts‐integrated experiences in age‐appropriate ways to enhance literacy, numeracy, social‐emotional skills, and more.
Toward a Science of Learning GamesHoward‐Jones, Paul; Demetriou, Skevi; Bogacz, Rafal; Yoo, Jee H.; Leonards, Ute
2011 Mind, Brain, and Education
doi: 10.1111/j.1751-228X.2011.01108.x
Reinforcement learning involves a tight coupling of reward‐associated behavior and a type of learning that is very different from that promoted by education. However, the emerging understanding of its underlying processes may help derive principles for effective learning games that have, until now, been elusive. This article first reviews findings from cognitive neuroscience and psychology to provide insight into the motivating role of uncertain reward in games, including educational games. Then, a short experiment is reported to illustrate the potential of reward‐based neurocomputational models of behavior in the understanding and development of effective learning games. In this study, a reward‐based model of behavior is shown to predict recall of newly learned information during a simple learning game.
Representations of Fractions: Evidence for Accessing the Whole Magnitude in AdultsSprute, Lisa; Temple, Elise
2011 Mind, Brain, and Education
doi: 10.1111/j.1751-228X.2011.01109.x
Proficiency with fractions serves as a foundation for later mathematics and is critical for learning algebra, which plays a role in college success and lifetime earnings. Yet children often struggle to learn fractions. Educators have argued that a conceptual understanding of fractions involves learning that a fraction represents a magnitude different from its whole number components. However, it is not well understood whether adults represent a fraction's magnitude similarly to whole numbers. This study investigated the distance effect during a comparison task using fraction pairs that discouraged comparing a fraction's components. Accuracy improved and reaction times decreased with greater distance between fraction pairs, showing a distance effect similar to that seen with whole numbers. This study suggests that a representation of a fraction's magnitude is present in the fully developed number system.