Types Of Knowledge Acquisition Research Articles

Acquiring musical knowledge increases music liking: Evidence from a neurophysiological study.

People possessing musical knowledge tend to enjoy music more, but the linkage remains to be determined. Based on the shared affective motion experience model for music appreciation, we hypothesized that acquiring musical knowledge about the music itself, for example, an analytical understanding of music elements and the related emotional expressions, would increase music liking. To test the hypothesis, we asked 48 participants to learn analytical or historical information about a piece of music by watching a pre-recorded teaching video. Learners' physiological responses, such as skin conductance and heart rate, were recorded during learning. The increase of music liking was observed after both types of knowledge acquisition, but more so for analytical knowledge. Notably, acquiring analytical knowledge made learners' skin conductance more similar, indicating the alignment of physiological responses. This physiological similarity, correlated with analytical knowledge similarity, could mediate the effect of knowledge acquisition on music liking. In sum, this study reveals the impact of analytical knowledge on music enjoyment and the associated neurophysiological mechanism. It extends the theoretical framework of shared affective motion experience to explain how musical knowledge influences music appreciation.

The role of domain-general cognitive resources in children’s construction of a vitalist theory of biology

Some episodes of learning are easier than others. Preschoolers can learn certain facts, such as “my grandmother gave me this purse,” only after one or two exposures (easy to learn; fast mapping), but they require several years to learn that plants are alive or that the sun is not alive (hard to learn). One difference between the two kinds of knowledge acquisition is that hard cases often require conceptual construction, such as the construction of the biological concept alive, whereas easy cases merely involve forming new beliefs formulated over concepts the child already has (belief revision, a form of knowledge enrichment). We asked whether different domain-general cognitive resources support these two types of knowledge acquisition (conceptual construction and knowledge enrichment that supports fast mapping) by testing 82 6-year-olds in a pre-training/training/post-training study. We measured children’s improvement in an episode involving theory construction (the beginning steps of acquisition of the framework theory of vitalist biology, which requires conceptual change) and in an episode involving knowledge enrichment alone (acquisition of little known facts about animals, such as the location of crickets’ ears and the color of octopus blood). In addition, we measured children’s executive functions and receptive vocabulary to directly compare the resources drawn upon in the two episodes of learning. We replicated and extended previous findings highlighting the differences between conceptual construction and knowledge enrichment, and we found that Executive Functions predict improvement on the Vitalism battery but not on the Fun Facts battery and that Receptive Vocabulary predicts improvement the Fun Facts battery but not on the Vitalism battery. This double dissociation provides new evidence for the distinction between the two types of knowledge acquisition, and bears on the nature of the learning mechanisms involved in each.

The importance of traditional ecological knowledge in agroecological systems in Peru

ABSTRACTThis study argues that a critical element in the success of an ecosystem service (ES) approach at any level is the higher qualitative valuation of local traditional ecological knowledge (TEK). As such, the objectives of this research were to illustrate the role of TEK in agroecological systems in Peru and to develop recommendations about this type of knowledge acquisition. The data were gathered using interviews and focus groups with subsistence farmers along with key informant interviews to elicit TEK at local and regional scales in five provinces in the Lake Titicaca region of Puno, Peru. Qualitative analysis revealed dominant themes of TEK provided by farmers and key informants, and how this knowledge can enhance the application of an ES approach for environmental management. Climate variability, predicting the timing of seasonal changes, water availability, and adapting the agricultural calendar and agricultural techniques were all central themes. This research concludes that environmental management decisions in the Puno region of Peru are being informed and improved through the use of TEK. Supporting previous research, we propose that agroecological systems, at their core, need to respect the integrity and sanctity of TEK and value it properly within any practical solution for environmental resource management.EDITED BY John Parrotta

ON GRECO ON TRANSMISSION

ABSTRACTGreco wants to understand the difference between knowledge generation and transmission. Doing so, he argues, will show that there are substantively different norms governing the two types of knowledge acquisition. I offer an alternative way of cashing out the difference between transmission and generation in non-normative terms.

Uso popular de plantas medicinais e perfil socioeconômico dos usuários: um estudo em área urbana em Ouro Preto, MG, Brasil

Este trabalho teve por objetivo identificar as plantas medicinais de uso popular e o perfil socioeconômico de seus usuários em área urbana de Ouro Preto, MG. O levantamento utilizou entrevistas semiestruturadas e amostragem aleatória, perfazendo 10% das residências. O grau de conhecimento sobre plantas medicinais foi medido pelo número de espécies citadas. Analisou-se a relação entre o saber popular sobre as plantas medicinais e características socioeconômicas dos entrevistados (renda, escolaridade, sexo, idade e forma de aquisição do conhecimento). Foram questionadas 6.713 pessoas, onde mais de 90% usam plantas medicinais para se tratarem. Identificou-se 342 espécies, reunidas em 94 famílias. Para cada espécie foram referidos os nomes populares, hábito, procedência, uso medicinal, parte usada, e forma de preparo. As principais moléstias tratadas com plantas foram: diarreia, insônia, gripe, hidropisia, distúrbios hepáticos, renais e do trato respiratório. Há um grande número de espécies nativas utilizadas. Dentre as exóticas, a maioria é de origem europeia. O uso místico de espécies, embora presente na cultura popular do município, foi pouco citado. Algumas espécies identificadas figuram na lista das espécies ameaçadas de extinção. O grau de conhecimento sobre plantas medicinais pela população de Ouro Preto independe, tanto do nível econômico, como da escolaridade ou do sexo. A idade e a forma de aquisição do conhecimento influenciam no saber popular das ervas medicinais. As pessoas com maior saber popular sobre as plantas adquiriram esses conhecimentos principalmente pelo costume familiar, por livros, ou por outras pessoas. Pessoas mais jovens conhecem menos espécies medicinais que as mais idosas, sugerindo risco de perda desse conhecimento tradicional. A grande riqueza de plantas citadas neste trabalho denota a importância de estudos etnobotânicos no resgate do conhecimento tradicional em áreas urbanas, tanto pelo seu valor histórico-cultural, como pela importância científica.

Implicit learning of what comes when and where within a sequence: The time-course of acquiring serial position-item and item-item associations to represent serial order.

Much research has been conducted aimed at the representations and mechanisms that enable learning of sequential structures. A central debate concerns the question whether item-item associations (i.e., in the sequence A-B-C-D, B comes after A) or associations of item and serial list position (i.e., B is the second item in the list) are used to represent serial order. Previously, we showed that in a variant of the implicit serial reaction time task, the sequence representation contains associations between serial position and item information (Schuck, Gaschler, Keisler, & Frensch, 2011). Here, we applied models and research methods from working memory research to implicit serial learning to replicate and extend our findings. The experiment involved three sessions of sequence learning. Results support the view that participants acquire knowledge about order structure (item-item associations) and about ordinal structure (serial position-item associations). Analyses suggest that only the simultaneous use of the two types of knowledge acquisition can explain learning-related performance increases. Additionally, our results indicate that serial list position information plays a role very early in learning and that inter-item associations increasingly control behavior in later stages.

External knowledge sourcing: science, market and the value of patented inventions

AbstractThis paper analyzes the choice between alternative sources of knowledge in patented inventions. Inventors can use scientific and/or market‐oriented sources of knowledge. We formally test whether these two types of knowledge acquisition are complementary or substitutable in the value of patented inventions. The results suggest that simultaneous exploitation of different knowledge inputs is ‘subadditive’ since inventors would have to manage assimilation and integration of disparate items of external knowledge stemming from distant technological contexts. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.