Two Kinds of Knowledge

Why is the Republican Party now represented by red, when conservative parties in all other places Rosetta Stone software -- and even the United States, in the past -- were represented with blue? Ben Zimmer suggests (via The Language Log) "Democrats may have wanted to appropriate the positive connotations of blue (as in true-blue)" but I wonder whether it isn't deeper than that. Because I recall over the years studies saying that teams that wear red win more frequently. Perhaps Republicans have deliberately chosen red in order to generate a subconscious association of themselves as winners.That's speculation, but the association between political advertising and psychological preference is not. A recent Fast Company post describes the use of what they call "political neuromarketing" during the campaign. It's not really neuro marketing as it has nothing to do with neural connections. Rather, they "measure everything including the story line, level of the language, images, music. Using critical point analysis, [they] identify specifics that may drive voters away or attract them. The techniques are non-invasive, and include measuring muscle, skin and pupil response."The success of such techniques obviously has its implications in political theory, but is also relevant in learning theory. The general principle that "the brain reveals more than spoken answers to questions" tells us that knowledge, beliefs, and other mental states are much more fine-grained than our more traditional analyses suggest. Understanding that learning -- and persuasion -- is not simply "words in -- words Rosetta Stone Italian out" is the first step toward developing a more comprehensive theory of cognition and a more effective understanding of learning and instruction.A recent paper from a group of leading neuroscientists outlines the understanding of learning beginning to take form. The survey paper brings together the results of dozens of studies of learning and cognition. The authors write, "Neuroscientists are beginning to understand the brain mechanisms underlying learning and how shared brain systems for perception and action support social learning." In some cases, this understanding is very detailed, such as our understanding of the function of layers of neurons in the visual cortex. In other cases, our understanding is beginning to cover a broad range of psychological phenomena, such as Rosetta Stone Japanese those involved in language learning. It is tempting to use the analogy of a computer in an effort to understand human learning. That's why we see sentences like "the brain is a machine with limited resources for processing the enormous quantity of information received by the senses." But we should not even be talking about learning in such terms. As neuro-linguists will tell you "the brain does not store precise memories in specific locations.