2012年2月13日 星期一

Epistemic Cognition


Even though I have come to and gained more benefits from various social network, like renren, youku, and any other types of website environment through the interactions with other members or groups, I’m lack of systemic knowledge of this field. The following are what I have obtained from this subject in lecture 1 to 3.
1.     Basic theoretical knowledge. Such as the definition of social network, social networking and social media, as well as the relationship among them.
2.     The development of social network related technologies and applications, in addition, the present situation.
3.     How our brain works in the cognitive processing and memory and how our mind is engaged in social networking environment.

In the last point, Epistemic Cognition left a deep impression on me.

So what is Epistemic Cognition? It is the process of knowing and, more precisely, the process of being aware, knowing, thinking, learning and judging.


































A three-level model of cognitive processing to account for complex monitoring when individuals are faced with ill-structured problems, i.e., problems on which opposing or contradictory evidence and opinion exists, is proposed. At the first level, cognition, individuals compute, memorize, read, perceive, solve problems, etc. At the second, metacognitive level, individuals monitor their own progress when they are engaged in these first-order tasks. At the third level, epistemic cognition, individuals reflect on the limits of knowing, the certainty of knowing, and criteria of knowing. Epistemic assumptions influence how individuals understand the nature of problems and decide what kinds of strategies are appropriate for solving them. While cognitive and metacognitive processes appear to develop in childhood and are used throughout the life span, current research on adult reasoning suggests that epistemic cognitive monitoring develops in the late adolescent and adult years.

A very important feature of the human cognitive architecture, and probably an essential feature of any cognitive architecture able to function efficiently in a complex and rapidly changing environment, is that beliefs and decisions need not be the product of explicit reasoning. Suppose I toss an apple to you and you catch it. How did you do that? You certainly did not do it by measuring distances and velocities and computing parabolic trajectories. Perhaps you could have done it that way, but it would have been much too slow and you would not have caught the apple. Instead, humans and higher animals have a built-in cognitive module whose purpose is to rapidly produce predictions of trajectories. We rely upon that in forming beliefs about where the apple is going to be when we try to catch it.

That epistemic cognition is interest driven is the simplest way in which it is influenced by practical cognition. Epistemic cognition and practical cognition are not separable modules. Only the lowest level of epistemic cognition can proceed without the intervention of practical cognition, and even then our epistemic pursuits are interest-driven. Architecture for epistemic cognition cannot be evaluated independently of its interactions with practical cognition. They jointly form a cognitive architecture, and what makes the epistemic parts of it good or bad is how they contribute to the functioning of the whole architecture. This cannot be evaluated by anything so simple as its propensity to produce true beliefs. At the very least, epistemic cognition must produce beliefs that are useful to agent, and what makes them useful is their role in facilitating the solution to practical problems. It is not obvious that beliefs must be literally true for this purpose, and it is clear that merely being true is not enough to make beliefs useful.

References:
wiki
video

A large part of students’ success in science education has been thought to depend on how they understand knowledge and knowing, considering relativistic-based thinking as a necessary achievement for science learning. Therefore, knowing how our mind works will help ourselves in the process of learning and creating new things.

12 則留言:

  1. you really did a good job!The example you used to illustrate the "epistemic cognition" is quite interesting!
    I also agree with you about that it is very significant to realize the importance of practical cognition.You can find the same idea at fengyimingcuhk.blogspot.com.
    Here is my question:can you help me come out some ideas about how to apply something in social network on epistemic cognition level?

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    1. Firstly, thanks for your reply and question.
      At the very least, you may know the basic theory and definition related to social networking explicitly, I reckon.
      Then, it’ll be better to point out what problems, in other words, which aspects you want to know deeply driven by practical cognition.
      Lastly, based on the understanding of the nature of problems, it’s your turn to decide the appropriate methods to deal with them. Maybe you couldn’t get the precise answer due to rapidly changing environments, however, you can enjoy the whole process of thinking and cognition. That would be the best reward to you. Thanks again!

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  2. In our daily life cognition happens everywhere. As mentioned in the article, there are three levels of congitions. After reading your article,I have two problems that should we follow the setps to achieve the highest level-epistemic cognition, or there are some methods for us to get the epistemic directly. All people think their cognition had reached the highest level, how can we know what level we achieve in our daily life?

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    1. Think deeply with regard to practical cognition, then you may find the exist problems. Following the process of cognition, you will think out the matching strategy to solve your question. The last step is the level of epistemic cognition.

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    2. The moment when you think deeply, that's the time you achieve epistemic level,I think. :-)

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  3. Social networking gives us a good chance and platform to re-understanding ourselves. I think there will be more paradox in the era of social networking. And more advanced theory will be created to interpret them. So we can predict that subversive understanding will be more and more.

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    1. In the process of cognition, we can also know more about ourselves, what we want, how we are thinking, all of which will enhance the pace of discovery.

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  4. After the course, I am always thinking how to enhance them into a higher cognition level, apart from the examples that introduced in the class such as ‘Like’,’Timeline’,’Categorized’ in facebook and youtube. We can overlook Linkedin as a professional social networking tool which provide a media platform has allowed me to make connections, learn, get information and identify emerging practices and exchange view Social media tools already can act as a platform for exchange views with peers from around the world, knowledge. Social media tools provide a good platform for us to share ideas and reach the goal of knowledge advancement.

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  5. Thank you, Your pose is very informative. I think epistemic cognition has strong relationship with our daily reflection of our confucts and self-introspect. So I agree with you in that epistemic cognition has some equal meaning with practical cognition. If users on social network involves in epistemic cognition the flow of information will be much more complex. Some new ideas will be pushed forward.

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  6. In my opinion,everyone 's epistemic cognition is quite different. It depends on people's individual life experience,family situations, education backgrounds and so on. But epostemic cognition is not only independent but also related. Although one's epostemic cognition may be quite different from others, he or she may feel and study others' to change his own epostemic cognition. That is why the people is quite similiar if they are good friends or in a close group.

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  7. Well, I agree with your opinion about epistemic cognition. According to my real experience on social network, most replies at the end of a good article are information rubbish, like "good""worth reading" etc. But I think the reasons or deeper understanding behind every statement, or even arguments, are much more important. Only in this way can be touch the epistemic cognition level and really obtain useful knowledge.

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  8. Thank for your sharing. T agree with your command on this post. I think epistemic cognition is relative to practical cognition. The experience helps us to have information sharing with the others. By the way, the things happening around us make us see more, think more and get more knowledge from others.

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