Chairs
Professor Tetsuro Matsuzawa, Kyoto University, Japan
Professor Tetsuro Matsuzawa, Kyoto University, Japan
Matsuzawa has been studying chimpanzee both in the laboratory and in the wild. The laboratory work is known as 'Ai-project' in the Primate Research Institute of Kyoto University since 1976: a female chimpanzee named Ai learned to use Arabic numerals to represent the number (Matsuzawa, 1985, NATURE). The field work has been carried out in Bossou-Nimba, Guinea, since 1986, focusing on the tool use in the wild. Matsuzawa tries to synthesise the field and the lab work to understand the mind of chimpanzees to know the evolutionary origins of human mind. He published the books such as 'Primate origins of human cognition and behavior', 'Cognitive development in chimpanzees', 'The chimpanzees of Bossou and Nimba'. He got several prizes including Jane Goodall Award in 2001, and The Medal with Purple Ribbon in 2004, The Person of Cultural Merit in 2013.
14:00-14:30
Talk title TBC
Professor Marco Zorzi, University of Padova, Italy
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Professor Marco Zorzi, University of Padova, Italy
Professor Marco Zorzi, University of Padova, Italy
Marco Zorzi is Full Professor of Cognitive Psychology and Artificial Intelligence at the University of Padova (Italy), and Senior Researcher at IRCCS San Camillo Neurorehabilitation Hospital (Venice-Lido). He received doctoral and postdoctoral training in Padova, Trieste, and London, and had previous faculty positions in Milan and Padova. In 2001 he set up the Computational Cognitive Neuroscience Lab, an interdisciplinary laboratory at the frontiers between cognitive science, computer science and neuroscience. Research is focused on the computational bases of cognition, from development to skilled performance and to breakdowns of processing in atypical development or after brain damage. Recent computational work has been supported by a prestigious award from the European Research Council and it is complemented by empirical research based on a combination of behavioral methods (reaction times and psychophysics), neuropsychology, and functional neuroimaging (fMRI, fNIRS, EEG). The main research lines are numeracy and number processing, attention and spatial cognition, reading and dyslexia.
14:30-15:00
Perceptions of number in Anindilyakwa-speaking Australian Aboriginal children: evidence of a universal cognitive prerequisite for early arithmetic
Professor Robert Reeve, The University of Melbourne, Australia
Abstract
The importance of visuo-spatial abilities for early numerical cognition in North American and European cultures raises the issue whether these abilities are similarly important for children in cultures that lack counting words. If the same visuo-spatial factors predict culturally-appropriate arithmetic, it would support the hypothesis that the same cognitive representations are deployed by individuals with and without counting words. In numerate societies, early arithmetic development is associated with visuo-spatial working memory, executive functions, nonverbal intelligence, and magnitude comparison abilities. Here we ask to what extent are these associations due to cultural practices or to general cognitive prerequisites? To answer this question, Anindilyakwa-speaking Aboriginal children living on a remote island in northern Australia, whose culture contains few counting words or counting practices, and non-indigenous children from an Australian city were administered standardised tests of cognitive abilities (Corsi Blocks, Raven’s Coloured Progressive Matrices, Porteus Maze). The indigenous children completed a non-verbal addition task, and the non-indigenous children completed a single-digit addition task. Consistent with previous observations, indigenous children exhibited superior spatial abilities. Nevertheless, correlation matrices among variables show similar patterns of relationships, and parallel regression analyses showed visuo-spatial working memory was the main predictor of addition performance, in both groups. The findings contribute to the growing body of evidence supporting the hypothesis that the same cognitive abilities are deployed by individuals with and without counting words. The implications of this hypothesis and of these findings for a more complete account of numerical cognition will be discussed.
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Professor Robert Reeve, The University of Melbourne, Australia
Professor Robert Reeve, The University of Melbourne, Australia
Robert Reeve heads the neuropsychology and cognitive development lab in the Melbourne School of Psychological Sciences at the University of Melbourne. He has conducted research in several areas of children’s mathematical development. Among other areas, he has investigated (1) numerical abilities in Australian aboriginal children, (2) the neurocognitive origins and development sequelae of dyscalculia and poor mathematical ability, and (3) individual differences in the emergence and development of mathematical ability in young children. He is particularly interested in the relationship between core number abilities, the nature of the visuo-spatial and perceptual factors associated with the development of mathematics and quantitative reasoning abilities.
15:30-16:00
The real preschoolers of Orange County, and their numerical abilities
Professor Barbara Sarnecka, University of California, Irvine, USA
Abstract
In recent years, researchers have become interested in the question of how children's innate, approximate numerical abilities are related to their mastery of symbolic (spoken and written) numbers, counting and mathematics. Some have even expressed optimism that interventions targeting the approximate number system may improve children's mathematics learning and achievement. In this talk, Professor Sarnecka will argue that while the connection between approximate and exact number representations is theoretically interesting, most children's struggles with maths do not stem from deficits in the approximate number system. And the most problematic gaps in maths achievement - those related to children's socio-economic status - have little or nothing to do with the approximate number system. Finally, Professor Sarnecka will argue that researchers' standard ways of measuring approximate-number-system acuity are invalid for use with children who have not yet grasped the cardinality principle of counting. All of these arguments support the conclusion that in the real world, variations in maths performance are much more likely to stem from differences in mastery of the symbolic number system than from differences in individuals' nonsymbolic numerical abilities.
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Professor Barbara Sarnecka, University of California, Irvine, USA
Professor Barbara Sarnecka, University of California, Irvine, USA
I am interested in questions about where concepts come from, and most of my work has looked at how young children acquire number concepts. Relatedly, I am interested in how early childhood education can support young children's understanding of numbers and lay the foundation for later learning in science, technology engineering and mathematics (STEM). I am also interested in language development, (particularly the role that language plays in conceptual change) and in social cognition (e.g., infants and children’s understanding of social hierarchies). I feel lucky to live and work in Southern California, which has an exceptionally diverse population and makes it easy to include participants from many different ethnic, racial, linguistic and socio-economic backgrounds in research. Finally, I believe in open science. I try to use my work as a researcher, author, reviewer and editor to support noncommercial, open-access publishers whenever possible.
16:00-16:30
Learning number sense from adaptive digital games
Professor Diana Laurillard, University College London, UK
Abstract
Neuroimaging studies show that for dyscalculic learners there is a local structural abnormality, with less activation in the parietal cortex for numerical tasks. These studies suggest that dyscalculics fail to understand basic number concepts, and this needs to be remediated before moving on to formal arithmetic. There is already some evidence that remedial interventions can improve performance, and can also modify brain structure and function.
However, although the findings from cognitive science and neuroscience have identified targets for intervention, they have not, so far, informed pedagogy. Typically interventions have used answer selection to rehearse facts and concepts already encountered. By contrast, an effective pedagogic design would recruit the way the brain learns about the world without a teacher, using prediction-error learning with informational feedback. For learning about numbers, this would mean learners engaging with a world in which numbers become objects whose properties the learner can predict, observe, and manipulate to achieve a goal.
Professor Laurillard will present examples of adaptive, constructionist, digital games that create such a world. They enable the learner not only to rehearse known facts and concepts, but also to develop new concepts.
A research programme for interventions for dyscalculia – and other types of low attainment in numeracy – should test their effectiveness against improved numerical competence, and also against predictable changes in neural structures and functioning.
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Professor Diana Laurillard, University College London, UK
Professor Diana Laurillard, University College London, UK
Diana Laurillard is Professor of Learning with Digital Technologies at the UCL Knowledge Lab, leading research projects on: developing the Learning Designer suite of tools, an online community for teachers and trainers, adaptive software interventions for learners with low numeracy and dyscalculia, and the use of MOOCs for CPD.
Previous roles include: Head of the e-Learning Strategy Unit at the Department for Education and Skills; Pro-Vice-Chancellor for learning technologies and teaching at The Open University; the Visiting Committee on IT at Harvard University; Royal Society Working Group on Educational Neuroscience.
Most recent book is Teaching as a Design Science, 2012. Previous book, Rethinking University Teaching, Routledge, 2002, is one of the most widely cited in the field.