Genuine expertise is not merely knowing a lot about a given area, but living in accordance with this knowledge — to recognize when a situation, or problem, calls for some particular set of knowledge one has acquired, and to apply said knowledge.
Continue reading A Key Feature of Genuine Expertise
Author: Luc P. Beaudoin
Head of CogZest.
Author of Cognitive Productivity books.
Co-founder of CogSci Apps Corp.
Adjunct Professor of Cognitive Science & of Education, Simon Fraser University.
Why, Where, and What I Write.
See About Me for more information.
AI Readings for Clinical Psychologists and Psychiatrists
While writing about the history of the Cognition and Affect project, I received a request for some readings on AI and psychotherapy. So, I thought I’d share a few readings here. Continue reading AI Readings for Clinical Psychologists and Psychiatrists
Shedding Some Light on Night Shift in iOS 9.3
Given that cognitive productivity is influenced by the brain’s circadian mechanisms, and that information technology and other technology can interfere with these mechanisms, you might be interested in a recent blog post of mine on mySleepButton.com. The post is a response to the introduction of a Blue Light Reduction setting in the Display & Brightness panel of iOS 9.3.
Continue reading Shedding Some Light on Night Shift in iOS 9.3
Report on Book Report on Kurt Palka (The Piano Maker, et al.): What if a Great Novel is Worth Re-reading?
I’ve been responding deeply enough to art since I launched CogZest to own up to the fact “it” has become a project of mine, beyond the one I committed to from the outset of CogZest, i.e., The Zest of Brel. My long term plan includes editing, publishing and contributing to a book provisionally called Cognitive Responses to Art. However, I’ve also made “it” a major focus of Discontinuities.
Continue reading Report on Book Report on Kurt Palka (The Piano Maker, et al.): What if a Great Novel is Worth Re-reading?
Is It a Good Idea to Enable the iPhone’s Predictive Keyboard and Auto-correction?
A couple of months before I started university, I spent some of my evenings learning to type on a typewriter. (A year or so before I purchased a Mac Plus.) My girlfriend of the day pleaded with me to engage in more pleasurable summer evening activities with her. However, I knew that I’d be writing documents for the next four years and beyond, and that I had better learn to type. I wanted to be able to focus on my ideas so they might flow as fluidly from my brain as they needed to. My playmate decompensated; but I Continue reading Is It a Good Idea to Enable the iPhone’s Predictive Keyboard and Auto-correction?
Why Is A Christmas Story — The Musical — So Hilarious? Inside Jokes, The Mating Mind and Mental Spaces We’d Rather Not Explore
“You don’t mean to say that this charming, clever young lady has been so foolish as to accept you?”
Lord Caversham to Lord Goring in Oscar Wilde’s, An Ideal Husband
“Evolution is an examination with two papers. To succeed demands a pass in both.”
Steve Jones, Darwin’s Ghost (p. 76)
The Arts Club of Vancouver’s performance of A Christmas Story—The Musical had me in stiches. But why?
Editing Tables of Contents with PDF Pen Pro: Delving Tips and Screencast
When they read, experts tend to seek out the gist and structure of a document. They pay attention to the table of contents. However, many PDF documents don’t have a table of contents. Fortunately, there are tools, like Smile Software’s PDFPenPro (coupon below), that enable you to add a table of contents while you’re reading. Continue reading Editing Tables of Contents with PDF Pen Pro: Delving Tips and Screencast
Are we Doomed to Read with Information Technology?
Reading contributes more to human excellence than any other form of knowledge acquisition. Reading comes so naturally to experts that they don’t tend to think much about the process. Yet reading is one of the most sophisticated mental activities.
Continue reading Are we Doomed to Read with Information Technology?
Psychology of the Base: Why Do Some Canadians Still Support the Harper Government?
I believe that all the important problems of war and peace, exploitation and brotherhood, hatred and love, sickness and health, misunderstanding and understanding, the happiness and unhappiness of mankind will yield only to a better understanding of human nature. […]
Psychology should be more humanistic, more concerned with the problems of humanity, and less with the problems of the guild.
A. H. Maslow. Toward a humanistic psychology
There will be a general federal election in Canada On Monday, October 19th. The international press and even the leading conservative Canadian newspaper, the Globe and Mail, have been extremely critical of our prime minister, Stephen Harper. According to polls, the vast majority of Canadians want to replace this government. But because of our “first past the post” electoral system, the Harper Conservatives might still be returned to power.
Given the glut of well publicized facts about the Harper Tory record, and given the viability of the Liberal Party and New Democratic Party (NDP), it is difficult for me to fathom how Canadians, some of them our esteemed friends, would still support the Harper Conservative government.
Continue reading Psychology of the Base: Why Do Some Canadians Still Support the Harper Government?
Is This Information Sufficiently Helpful?
In Cognitive Productivity I described several illusions and biases that interfere with our ability to leverage knowledge resources. The first set of illusions is to over-estimate or underestimate the “helpfulness” of a knowledge resources.
Illusions of Helpfulness of Information
Selecting the right resource to process is critical to the development of effectiveness. Continue reading Is This Information Sufficiently Helpful?