Drawing Diagrams in the Head and with Technology: Benefits, Cognitive Mechanisms, Artificial Intelligence, Apps, and Sleep Onset Dreaming

When they think about note-taking, most people think about textual notes. But it’s also often important to take graphical notes. It’s tricky to develop cognitively productive workflows for note-taking in general, and graphical note taking in particular. An example of the latter point is the following topic on the Mac Power Users forum:
Adding diagrams to Zettelkastens: (Luhmann) Note-taking App that can form a Quick Access Knowledge Base.

This blog post sheds some light on the importance of diagramming from a cognitive science perspective. It discusses problems in understanding mental representations underlying the interpretation and production of diagrams. It explains why people don’t take as many graphical notes as they should, and what they can do about it. And then it goes (or you go) to sleep.

That’s a lot of ground to cover in a brief blog post. However, the post contains links to some extremely interesting articles. If you read the source materials, I’m sure you will find they stretch your imagination.
Continue reading Drawing Diagrams in the Head and with Technology: Benefits, Cognitive Mechanisms, Artificial Intelligence, Apps, and Sleep Onset Dreaming

A Musical Celebration of Spring and Love Chez Nous

Our friends, Huguette Lacourse and Michèle Desponts, blessed us at home on Saturday with their wonderful performance of wonderful (mostly French) music.

Edith Piaf’s La vie en rose

Here Huguette sings Edith Piaf’s, “La vie en rose”, accompanied by Michèle:
Continue reading A Musical Celebration of Spring and Love Chez Nous

Why Most People Don’t Take as Many Notes as They Should, and What They Can Do About It

I claim that people don’t take as many notes as they should, and that this interferes with their cognitive productivity. This article elaborates on the claim, and points to a CogSci Apps® invention my colleagues and I developed to address these issues. Continue reading Why Most People Don’t Take as Many Notes as They Should, and What They Can Do About It

Un samedi printanier musical: Oeuvres de Piaf et autres (chez nous); de Mozart, Morlock et autres (à l’annexe)

Samedi le 18 mai, nous célébrerons le printemps (cette verdeur qui nous entoure!) et l’art, dans toutes ses formes. Le jour, nous serons imprésario (ou au moins hôtes) d’un événement musical français. Le soir, on ira à un spectacle musical du Vancouver Symphony Orchestra: Mozart, Morlock et autres.

Entre temps, CogSci Apps et CogZest s’apprêtent à lancer de nouveaux produits.

Continue reading Un samedi printanier musical: Oeuvres de Piaf et autres (chez nous); de Mozart, Morlock et autres (à l’annexe)