Cognitive Discourse Analysis: accessing cognitive representations and processes through language data

Creativity is increasingly considered to be an important goal of education. While creativity can be influenced by many noncognitive factors (eg, personality and motivation), creative thinking remains the most important source of creativity. Creative thinking combines several cognitive processes leading to the generation and selection of new and useful ideas or solutions. Divergent thinking or the ability to generate a range of alternative ideas, is a necessary component of creative thinking. Research has explored cognitive strategies to activate divergent thinking. However, such strategies are often abstract and difficult to implement. This study proposes a computer‐based cognitive mapping approach to improving divergent thinking as a response to this challenge. The approach enables students to build a computer‐based cognitive map that can foster divergent thinking by associating unrelated concept, object or situation (COS), by decomposing a COS into rich details for viewing it from divergent perspectives, and by combining and changing COSs. A quasi‐experiment was conducted with high school students. The results have shown promising effects of the approach on improving students' performance and perceived competence in divergent thinking. Practitioner Notes What is already known about this topic Divergent thinking is an important part of the cognitive processes that may lead to creativity. Divergent thinking can be enhanced by training in cognitive strategies, but these strategies involve complex cognitive processes that are abstract and difficult to implement. Cognitive mapping can facilitate complex thinking and cognitive processes. What this paper adds This study proposes a computer‐based cognitive mapping approach as a divergent thinking tool that may help students visualize the process of applying divergent thinking strategies (association, decomposition, and combination and adjustment) when performing creativity‐related tasks. The approach is effective in improving high school students' divergent thinking performance in terms of idea fluency, flexibility and originality, in addition to perceived competence in divergent thinking. Implications for practice and/or policy It is important to provide learners with effective thinking tools that facilitate the complex cognitive processes of applying divergent thinking strategies. Divergent thinking processes can be facilitated by associating unrelated concept, object or situation (COS), by decomposing a COS into rich details for viewing it from divergent perspectives, and by combining and changing COSs.

What to expect from Cognitive Discourse Analysis? A book presentation In 2020, Thora Tenbrink (University of Bangor) published a synthesis on Cognitive Discourse Analysis (CODA hereafter). She defines the book as “the result of twenty years of engagement with a seemingly simple idea: we use language to express our thoughts” (Preface, §1). While this claim and the resulting research program might not seem new, as Tenbrink confesses herself, it remains that the question could receive much more...

Online learning courses in higher education have increased steadily in popularity in recent years, with many higher education students and educators wondering about their direct value in terms of social and cognitive gains. This study reports on a careful examination of educational processes in an exclusively online asynchronous discussion of a university course in three consecutive years. The researcher used NVivo software as a tool for the qualitative analysis and as a way to establish performance profiles. The study first establishes a framework to identify social and cognitive aspects of online learning based on three models of interaction and then refines the framework to better understand these processes of interaction. The themes that emerged as social processes were categorised as affective, cohesive or interactive. The cognitive processes were categorised into five types of interaction: sharing/comparing information, experiencing cognitive conflict, negotiating meaning, testing/modifying and applying knowledge. This paper focuses on the type of social and cognitive processes that learners experience in a semester long asynchronous discussion environment. The qualitative and quantitative analyses (performance profile) derived from the frequency of responses suggest that students tend to use more lower-level cognitive processes and fewer higher-level cognitive processes in spite of the fact that the course was designed to maximise the opportunities to establish higher-level learning in a socially interactive community of learners. However, the data revealed that when the higher-level cognitive processes were achieved, these were powerful and significant for a small but passionate number of learners.

Motor imagery (MI), sharing similar neural representations to motor execution, is regarded as a window to investigate the cognitive motor processes. However, in comparison to simple limb motor imagery, significantly less work has been reported on brain oscillatory patterns induced by compound limb motor imagery which involves several parts of limbs. This study aims to investigate differences of the electroencephalogram (EEG) patterns as well as cognitive process between simple limb motor imagery and compound limb motor imagery. Ten subjects participated in the experiment involving three tasks of simple limb motor imagery (left hand, right hand, feet) and three tasks of compound limb motor imagery (both hands, left hand combined with right foot, right hand combined with left foot). Simultaneous imagination of different limbs contributes to the activation of larger cortical areas as well as two estimated sources located at corresponding motor areas within beta rhythm. Compared with simple limb motor imagery, compound limb motor imagery presents a network with more effective interactions overlying larger brain regions, additionally shows significantly larger causal flow over sensorimotor areas and larger causal density over both sensorimotor areas and neighboring regions. On the other hand, compound limb motor imagery also shows significantly larger 10–11 Hz alpha desynchronization at occipital areas and central theta synchronization. Furthermore, the phase-locking value (PLV) between central and occipital areas of left/right hand combined with contralateral foot imagery is significantly larger than that of simple limb motor imagery. All these findings imply that there exist apparent intrinsic distinctions of neural mechanism between simple and compound limb motor imagery, which presents a more complex effective connectivity network and may involve a more complex cognitive process during information processing.

Propositional Representations in Psychology

The present study positions itself within the research tradition based on the cognitive process and focuses the research lens on young writers, investigating the composing processes of six students at three proficiency levels in their final year in high school. Cognitive-based previous research is generally limited to describing how cognitive strategies interact during writing and how these strategies spell the difference between good and poor writers. There is a need to look at the writing context and varying experiences among writers, which help account for the differences in the cognitive processes among writers and their sources of difficulty. Hence, the present study seeks to describe (1) how secondary graduating students in a product-oriented writing context approach the writing task; and (2) how they are different or similar in terms of cognitive strategies, metacognitve models, emotions while writing, and sources of difficulty. The study underscores that writing should be viewed as multiprocesses including cognitive and emotional processes analyzed within the classroom context and experiences of writers. The findings lead to tentative conclusions and suggest implications for pedagogy and research.

The purpose of this study was to understand the cognitive processes and procedures employed by an expert and a novice engineer in a realistic radio frequency (RF) systems engineering design challenge by using verbal protocol analysis (VPA). The engineering design challenge encompassed engineering, political, and social constraints. The audio data were then transcribed, segmented, and coded for analysis. The processes and strategies of the expert and novice were juxtaposed for analysis. The expert and novice shared some similarities in their cognitive processes and strategies. However, the expert’s domain knowledge and experience was vastly distinct from that of the novice.

Chapter 27 - Mental Representations of Persons and Personality

Background. Recently, there has been a growing interest in the personal attributes of raters which determine the quality of cognitive processes involved in their rating writing practice. Purpose. Accordingly, this research attempted to explore how the rating experience of L2 raters might affect their rating of integrated and independent writing tasks. Methods. To pursue this aim, 13 experienced and 14 novice Iranian raters were selected through criterion sampling. After attending a training course on rating writing tasks, both groups produced introspective verbal protocols while they were rating integrated and independent writing tasks which were produced by an Iranian EFL learner. The verbal protocols were recorded and transcribed, and their content was analyzed by the researchers. Results. The six extracted major themes from the content analysis included content, formal requirement, general linguistic range, language use, mechanics of writing, and organization. The results indicated that the type of writing task (integrated vs. independent) is a determining factor for the number of references experienced and novice raters made to the TOEFL-iBT rating rubric. Further, the raters’ rating experience determined the proportions of references they made. Yet, the proportional differences observed between experienced and novice raters in their references were statistically significant only in terms of language use, mechanics of writing, organization, and the total. Conclusion. The variations in L2 raters’ rating performance on integrated and independent writing tasks emphasize the urgency of professional training to use and interpret the components of various rating writing scales by both experienced and novice raters. nced and novice raters.

Does an individual’s inner cognitive sensitivity influence his /her recalling of dreams? Do girls recall more number of dreams than boys? This paper is an attempt to address these two questions through an empirical study conducted with 40 school children. Recent studies in dream research are enabling the scientific community to go deep into the complex cognitive processes, including the functioning of the whole personality. The dream recall questionnaire and the Cognitive Process Survey (CPS) designed and developed by Raymond F. Martinetti were circulated among the children and their responses were processed and analyzed. The data about dream recall were also crosschecked with dream diaries that were maintained by the children during the study period. It is found that boys and girls differ significantly with respect to the recalling of dreams and the most interesting finding of this study is that girl’s recall more number of dreams compared to boys. Further, the Cognitive Process Survey (CPS) assessed children’s inner cognitive sensitivity like, degree of imaginal life, orientation toward imaginal life and defensiveness. This study also discovered a strong and positive correlation between dream recall and the inner imaginal sensitivity of children. The findings of this study are consistent with the studies conducted by cognitive psychologists and clinical psychologists in the field of dream research.

This study investigated the cognitive strategies employed by dyads when utilizing ChatGPT's examples to generate ideas in creative tasks. Fourteen university students generated ideas for both function-first and form-first creative tasks in interaction with ChatGPT. Their 591 turns were analyzed using both self-reports and coded transcripts to categorize cognitive strategies such as conceptual combination, inspiration, improvement, and repetition. The results indicated that students less frequently employ cognitive strategies focusing on human-AI interaction (e.g., inspiration, improve, combine), but that most of the ideas were produced by repeating ChatGPT's idea. This tendency suggests that, when given freedom, students may rely heavily on AI-generated suggestions rather than actively engaging in more complex cognitive processes. A key practical implication of these findings is the importance of educating students on different cognitive strategies they can adopt in collaboration with AI tools. By guiding students to employ more diverse and active cognitive strategies, ChatGPT has the potential to become a more effective tool for enhancing creative thinking in higher education.

For this study the researchers designed learning activities to enhance students’ high level cognitive processes. Students learned new information in a classroom setting and then applied and analyzed their new knowledge in familiar authentic contexts by taking pictures of objects found there, describing them, and sharing their homework with peers. An experiment was carried out in which 58 junior high school students were divided into a control (n = 30) and an experimental (n = 28) group. The control group studied and completed learning activities with traditional textbooks while the experimental group used electronic textbooks and a learning system, Virtual Pen for Tablet PC (VPenTPC), in order to gauge the feasibility of the proposed approach. The post-test results show a significant difference between the control and experimental groups. In our analysis of the various approaches students took to complete the task, we were able to identify thirty cognitive and metacognitive strategies for using mobile technology, from which we selected the ten most frequently used ones. The results show that low ability students make better use of strategies than their high ability peers, resulting in significant learning gains. The results also show that most students perceive VPenTPC positively. Based on these results, we suggest some implications along with conclusions and directions for future research.

이 연구는 인지언어학에 기초하여 신어 합성어의 의미 구성과 해석에 관해 살펴보는 데 목적을 두었다. 지금까지 신어에 대한 연구는 조어론적 관점이나 통사론적 관점에서 주로 어종에 따른 분류를 하거나 합성과 파생의 관점에서 이루어져 왔다. 하지만, 인지언어학의 기본 입장에 비추어 보면 언어표현의 의미는 언어 단위 자체에 내재하는 것이 아니라 언어사용자의 정신 속에서 구성된다. 신어 합성어의 의미도 구성요소의 개별 의미와 그 합으로부터 결정되지 않으며 인지 과정에서 구성되고 해석된다. 이 연구는 신어 합성어의 구성에 대한 분석이 의미 특히, 인지언어학적인 관점에서 이루어져야 할 필요가 있음을 주장하였다. 인지언어학적 관점에서 신어의 의미 해석기제로 은유와 환유, 개념적 혼성을 통해 신어 합성어를 분석하였다. 은유는 추상적인 개념 영역(목표영역(target domain))을 다른 구체적인 개념 영역(근원영역(source domain))을 통해서 이해하는 것이다. 은유에 기초한 신어는 선행어가 은유인 신어, 선행어와 후행어 간의 관계가 은유인 신어, 후행어가 은유인 신어, 전체가 은유인 신어롤 나눌 수 있었다. 환유는 매체라는 한 개념적 실체가 동일한 이상적 인지모형 내에서 목표라는 또 다른 개념적 실체에 정신적 접근을 제공하는 인지 과정으로 환유는 형식적 환유와 내용적 환유로 나눌 수 있었다. 형식적 환유는 한 형태소나 단어의 일부가 전체 단어를 대표하는 과정을 나타내는 것으로 한 단어의 어근이나 일부가 합성어의 전체를 대표하는 경우인데 그 예가 다양하게 나타난다. 내용적 환유는(내용적 환유를 기반으로 신어들은) 선행어가 환유인 신어, 후행어가 환유인 신어, 전체가 환유인 신어, 두 구성소의 관계가 환유인 신어로 나눌 수 있다. 은유나 환유만으로는 신어에 나타나는 의미 구성이나 해석이 되지 않는 것은 개념적 혼성 이론으로 설명할 수 있다. 이 연구를 통해 은유와 환유, 개념적 혼성이 신어 구성과 해석의 핵심 기제로 작동한다는 것을 볼 수 있었다.The purpose of this study is to examine newly-coined compounds’ meaning construction and interpretation based on cognitive linguistics. Previous studies on new words have often categorized word types from the perspective of word formation or have otherwise taken a syntactic view, with a focus on synthesis and derivation. In light of cognitive linguistics’ fundamental position, linguistic expressions’ meanings are not embedded in linguistic units themselves, but rather in language users’ minds. Moreover, the meanings of newly-coined compounds are not determined by their components’ individual meanings or the compounds’ conjunction; rather they are constructed and interpreted during cognitive processes, suggesting that their construction can be analyzed based on meanings, especially from the cognitive linguistic perspective, which analyzes newly-coined compounds through metaphor, metonymy, and conceptual mixture, as the mechanisms of semantic interpretation. The metaphor facilitates understanding abstract concept (target) domains through other specific concept (source) domains. Metaphor-based newly-coined words can be divided into those with metaphor antecedents, those in which the antecedent-consequent relationship is characterized by metaphor, those in which the consequents are metaphors, and those in which both the antecedents and the consequents are metaphors, respectively. The metonymy, which is a cognitive process in which the conceptual substance of media provides mental access to another of the objectives within the same ideal cognitive model, can be either a formative or a content metonymy. The former refers to the process in which a morpheme or a part of a word represents the whole word, and the root or another part of a word represents a whole compound. There are a variety of examples for this. Based on the latter, newly-coined words can be divided into those with metonymy antecedents, those with metonymy consequents; those in which the antecedent-consequent relationship is characterized by metonymy, and those in which both the antecedents and the consequents are metonymy, respectively. The conceptual mixture theory cannot account for why the meaning construction or interpretation of newly-coined words cannot be completed with only metaphor or metonymy. This study demonstrates that metaphor, metonymy, and conceptual mixture act as core mechanisms for the construction and interpretation of newly-coined words.

Identifying the set of cognitive processes (CPs) a student can go through during computer programming is an interesting research problem. It can provide a better understanding of the human aspects in computer programming process and can also contribute to the computer programming education in general. The study identified the presence of a set of 42 CPs in computer programming (C language). The study used Verbal Protocol Analysis (VPA) in identifying these CPs. It is a qualitative study on the Verbal Protocols (VPs) of 19 students. Some of the CPs have been inferred by referring to the literature and some have been additionally identified by this study. The additional CPs found are confusion, hypothesis, interrogation, iteration, monitoring, recollection, recurrence, and translation. It is observed that programming involves the interplay of lower and higher CPs and needs various cognitive skills, which increase the processing load on the brain and make the programming process difficult and complex to learn and practice. The same set of CPs was found in both the effective and ineffective subjects. The research results can provide deeper knowledge to teachers on cognitive aspects of programming and the cognitive behavior of students during the programming process.

7. M. Bassok, L. Wu, and K.L. Olseth, Judg ing a book by its cover: Interpretative effects of content on problem solving transfer, Memory & Cognition, 23, 354-367 (1995). 8. D.A. Hinsley, J.R. Hayes, and H.A. Simon, From words to equations: Meaning and represen tation in algebra word problems, in Cognitive Pro cesses in Comprehension, M.A. Just and P.A. Car penter, Eds. (Erlbaum, Hillsdale, NJ, 1977). 9. M. Bassok and V.M. Chase, Adding apples and oranges: Semantic constraints on application of for mal rules, manuscript submitted for publication (1995). 10. For a notable exception, see K. Kotovsky, J.R. Hayes, and H.A. Simon, Why are some prob lems hard? Evidence from tower of hanoi, Cogni tive Psychology, 17, 248-294 (1985); J.R. Hayes and H.A. Simon, Psychological differences among problem isomorphs, in Cognitive Theory, Vol. 2, N.J. Castellan, Jr., D.B. Pisoni, and G.R. Potts, Eds. (Erlbaum, Hillsdale, NJ, 1977).