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Open Access Publications from the University of California

Scholarly Works (9 results)

  • Article
  • Peer Reviewed
Proceedings of the Annual Meeting of the Cognitive Science Society, Volume 20 (1998)
This paper provides empirical evidence that multimodal signals are produced and understood as integrated units of communication called composite signals, rather than being independently interpretable "channels" of communication. I propose that using composite signals relies on two communicative norms, co-expressivity and consistency: - co-expressivity: each element of a composite signal refers to the same underlying referent • consistency: elements of the same composite do not contradict each other. This paper will show that these norms are consistent with data comprising a set of explanations of how locks work in which participants spoke while gesturing, drawing diagrams, and manipulating a sample lock. Co-expressivity is supported by the fact that co-expressive speech segments can be found in nearby speech for communicative nonverbal behaviors but not for non-communicative nonverbal behaviors. Consistency is evidenced in inferences that maintain number and modality consistency in cases of apparent contradiction.
    Cover page: Not Channels But Composite Signals: Speech Gesture, Diagrams and Object Demonstrations Are Integrated in Multimodal Explanations
    • Article
    • Peer Reviewed
    Proceedings of the Annual Meeting of the Cognitive Science Society, Volume 19 (1997)
      Cover page: How People Produce Understandable Multi-Modal Explanations
      • Article
      • Peer Reviewed
      Proceedings of the Annual Meeting of the Cognitive Science Society, Volume 24 (2002)
        Cover page: Categorization of Emergent Processes by Students at Different levels of Expertise
        • Article
        • Peer Reviewed
        Proceedings of the Annual Meeting of the Cognitive Science Society, Volume 16 (1994)
        This paper reports research into how mathematical explanations are constructed during conversation based on videotapes of pairs of student math teachers collaboratively writing explanations in geometry. In particular, we analyzed how disagreements about parts of their explanations were managed in these conversations. In contrast to research on disagreement in everyday conversation, explanation disagreements were more likely to overlap with preceding turns and to be stated baldly without prefaces, token agreements or qualifications. However, the observed frequencies of different kinds of disagreements were not consistent with a model favoring explicit substantive disgreement either. Instead, it is proposed that both the interpersonal concerns that would motivate a preference for agreement and the conceptual concerns for a quality explanation that would motivate a preference for substantive disagreement are being managed by participants. Disagreements are co-constructed, and conversants are seen to jointly employ complex devices for introducing and managing disagreement across turns that can satisfy both kinds of concerns with much less conflict betweeen them than might have been expected.
          Cover page: Managing Disagreement in Intellectual Conversations: Coordinating Interpersonal and Conceptual Concerns in the Collaborative Construction of Mathematical Explanations
          • Article
          • Peer Reviewed
          Proceedings of the Annual Meeting of the Cognitive Science Society, Volume 17 (1995)
          We propose three analytic representations of collaborative problem solving. Activity nests, a generalization of goal-subgoal trees, represent functional decompositions of task activity into components, using nesting to indicate operations that satisfy task functions. Semiotic networks, an extension of semantic networks, represent meanings as refers-to relations between symbolic expressions and other signifiers, and relations in situations and situation types, along with general relations between these meanings. Contribution Vagrants, an adaptation of contribution trees (Clark & Schaefer, 1989), represent how turn sequences collectively achieve task components. W e developed these representations to analyze how pairs of middle-school students constructed tables to represent quantitative properties of a simple physical device that models linear functions. Variations between activity nests of dififerent pairs support an explanation of activity in terms of attimement to constraints and to affordances and abilities, rather than following procedures. The semiotic networks support a hypothesis that task components are completed through accomplishing alignments of refers-to relations.which is a generalization of goal satisfaction. Similarities between the contribution diagrams support a general pattern that we call the turn structure of collaborative operations, in which task information is recognized and task operations are initiated, performed, and accepted. Interaction is organized into this structure in order to support mutually aligned intentions, understandings, actions, and agreements.
            Cover page: Combining Analyses of Cognitive Processes, Meanings, and Social Participation: Understanding Symbolic Representations
            • Thesis
            • Peer Reviewed
            UC Berkeley Electronic Theses and Dissertations (2011)

            In the United States, children from families of lower socioeconomic status (SES) generally enter kindergarten with significantly less mathematical knowledge than children from families of middle SES. Research reveals that this discrepancy is present, although to a lesser degree, at age three years, the age many children enter preschool for the first time (Starkey & Klein, 2008). This mixed-methods correlational study explores relationships between elements of the home learning environment and the mathematical knowledge of three- and four-year-old children from lower and middle SES families in order to better understand the potential reasons for this discrepancy. First, I compare responses from 179 parents, balanced for child's age and family's SES, on a questionnaire designed to capture aspects of the quantity and quality of mathematical support children receive in the home. The questionnaire contained items about the frequency and range of activities children engage in to support the development of informal mathematics, parent practices supporting their children's mathematical development, and parents' beliefs and knowledge about typical early mathematical development in the United States. Next, I analyze videos obtained for a subset of the sample (n = 26) of parents and children engaging in activities at home, believed by parents to support early mathematical development. Specifically, I examine differences in the amount, type, and complexity of math content included in each activity, as well as differences in parents' teaching behavior as they assist their children with mathematical tasks. Correlational relationships between both the questionnaire and video data are and children's scores on a comprehensive mathematical assessment are explored.

            Results from the questionnaire component indicate very few differences in the amount and types of mathematical support three- and four-year-old children in both SES groups receive in the home, but very clear SES differences in parents' beliefs about early mathematical development and how it is best supported, as well as SES differences in parents' knowledge about early mathematical development. Compared to lower SES parents, middle SES parents of children at both ages hold higher expectations in terms of skills they expect children to possess by age 5, as well as a more accurate understanding of which mathematical skills are within the developmental range of most children by age 5. Both of these constructs have predictive value, as evidenced by multiple regression models, for children's mathematical knowledge as measured by the math assessment. Middle SES parents are also more likely to provide support for the development of these skills by embedding math in the home routine, encouraging made-up games involving math, and by reading books with mathematical content to their children.

            The video analyses suggest that parents of children in both age and SES groups focus on similar mathematical concepts when engaging in math activities with their children, but there are qualitative differences in parents' teaching behavior that are predictive of children's performance on the math assessment when the child's age and family SES is held constant. Specifically, middle SES parents tend to structure the demands of activities in such a way that the children successfully respond to approximately 80% (three-year-olds) or 90% (four-year-olds) of the math included independently, compared to lower SES parents, who tend to structure the demands of activities such that children are only responding to approximately 50% (three-year-olds) or 70% (four-year-olds) of the math independently. Furthermore, the type of assistance provided for the problems or tasks that children do not respond to independently, appears to both vary by age and SES, and predicts unique variance in children's mathematical knowledge.

              Cover page: The Influence of the Home Learning Environment on Preschool Children's Informal Mathematical Development: Variation by Age and Socioeconomic Status
              • Article
              • Peer Reviewed
              Proceedings of the Annual Meeting of the Cognitive Science Society, Volume 32 (2010)
                Cover page: Initial Evidence of the Effects of Linguistic Framing on Transfer
                • Article
                • Peer Reviewed
                Proceedings of the Annual Meeting of the Cognitive Science Society, Volume 15 (1993)
                We report analyses of the construction and interpretation of mathematical symbols that refer to quantitative properties and relations of a physical system. Middle-school students solved problems that involved contracting tables, equations and graphs to represent linear functions of a device where blocks are moved varying distances by turning a handle that winds string around spools of different sizes. Previous research analyzed activities of reasoning about quantities of this system as attunement to constraints and affordances, a characterization of students' imphcit understanding of concepts of variable and linear functions. This report concerns activities of representing quantitative properties and relations using mathematical notations. W e are developing analyses of constructing and interpreting tables, equations, and graphs in terms of attunement to constraints and affordances of the represented system, the system of notations, and relations between the constraints of the notations and the represented domain. W e present examples that illustrate concepts of semantic clumps, groups, and morphisms; descriptive and demonstrative representations; multiple referent domains; and constructions of meaning in contributions to conversational discourse.
                  Cover page: Understanding Symbols: A Situativity-Theory Analysis of Constructinf Mathematical Meaning
                  • Article
                  • Peer Reviewed
                  Proceedings of the Annual Meeting of the Cognitive Science Society, Volume 20 (1998)
                  We present a view that conceives of conceptual learning as changes in discourse practices. This view focuses on interactions in which people construct understanding collaboratively, either as deliberate conceptual inquiry or to facilitate accomplishing something else. Our analysis combines concepts and methods from ethnography (e.g., Jordan & Henderson, 1995), linguistic discourse analysis (e.g., Lemke, 1990), cognitive analyses of conceptual growth (e.g., Keil, 1994), and theories of information structures in comprehension and reasoning (e.g., Kintsch & van Dijk, 1978). In this view, conceptual understanding is considered mainly as an interactional process. The view focuses on how concepts are created and built up when people engage in activity, especially when they communicate about the things they are doing and trying to understand. Participation in a community includes using its concepts according to practices in which members communicate, coordinate their action, and achieve mutual understanding. Our view of concepts is illustrated with examples drawn from a study of two FCL science classes.
                    Cover page: Considering Conceptual Growth as Change in Discourse Practices
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