CUP’A and The Future of Text: On Assessing and Selecting Information

Earlier this week I submitted a brief chapter called “Beyond the CRAAP test and other introductory guides for assessing knowledge resources: The CUP’A framework” for publication in the 2nd edition of the Future of Text book edited by Frode Hegland. Here’s Table 1 of the chapter:

Table 1

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Our Paper in Sleep Medicine Reviews on Pre-sleep Cognitive Activity: A Systematic Review

Our systematic review of the literature on pre-sleep mental activity has been accepted for publication as a Clinical Review by the prestigious, high-impact journal, Sleep Medicine Reviews:

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Draft Manifesto for Integrative Design-oriented Cognitive Science and AI

This post briefly describes an approach to studying minds and designing artificial ones; the need to name this approach; the term integrative design-oriented as the name for the approach; and the need for a manifesto regarding the approach. In the main, it points to a draft manifesto.

For many years I was dissatisfied with the name I used to refer to a certain approach to human mind (cognitive science and AI). How we name scientific concepts is actually quite important. In Cognitive Productivity: Using Knowledge to Become Profoundly Effective, I referred to the approach as “broad cognitive science”.[1] I used the term “broad” to convey an attempt to understand a wide spectrum of capabilities that are often treated in isolation from each other under the banners of “cognition”, “affect” (“emotion” / “attitudes”, “moods”), “motivation”, “volition”, “executive functions”, etc. The approach means not to study these functions in isolation from each other, but as interacting and often blended mechanisms. By “cognitive science” I also meant an expansive approach to understanding human mind — one that is truly interdisciplinary and computational.

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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

Presenting the Cognitive Productivity Research Program at CogSci 2015 in Pasadena

Earlier this year I described a grant proposal to research knowledge workers’ cognitive productivity. Tomorrow (July 25, 2015), I will present my second CogSci 2015 poster (in Pasadena, California). This one is co-authored with Prof. Geneviève Gauthier of the University of Alberta and Prof. Philip H. Winne of Simon Fraser University. It is humbly called “Cognitive Productivity Can Cognitive Science Improve How Knowledge Workers Use IT to Learn from Source Material?” If you read this blog, you know the answer is “yes”. So the questions really are:

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Presenting Preliminary Results on the Cognitive Shuffle at CogSci 2015 in Pasadena

This afternoon, we will present preliminary results on the cognitive shuffle at CogSci 2015 in Pasadena (that’s the annual conference of the Cognitive Science Society). This is research with Professor Nancy Digdon from MacEwan. I’m looking forward to receiving feedback from our peers on this research.

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Good Things to Come in 2013

The CEO of Apple, Tim Cook, mentioned at D11 last week that Apple’s “customers love surprises”.  Our clients at CogZest have had the benefits of some of our products and a window into the future of cognitive productivity.  However, coincidentally, CogZest has been rather coy on this web site about our own direction. Continue reading Good Things to Come in 2013

Collaborative Productive Practice for Professional and Personal Development

At the Simon Fraser University (Education) Learning Together Conference May 17-18, 2013,  I will present some of the ideas from my upcoming book on developing professionally and personally from knowledge resources using cognitive science and technology.  By “knowledge resource”, I mean documents, podcasts, audiobooks, presentations and other learning materials. In keeping with the social theme of this conference, in my session, we will explore collaborative aspects of productive practice. The title of my talk is “Collaborative productive practice for professional and personal development: Socializing a new deliberate-practice framework.”
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Why Managing One’s Reading is Challenging

Managing one’s reading today is more challenging than ever. In order to capitalize on knowledge, we need to understand and resolve these challenges to our cognitive productivity. Here are some of them.

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Paper on Expert Learning Honouring Prof. Aaron Sloman

As a student and in my career, I have sought to work with and learn from the best of minds. I have had exceptional academic mentors: George Fouriezos, Claude Lamontagne and Aaron Sloman. The opportunity to work with Jim Roche (now head of Stratford Managers) led me out of academia into the Newbridge Newbridge Networks spin-off ecosystem (Tundra Semiconductor Corporation and Abatis Systems Corp.), where I worked with three of R.O.B.’s Y2000 “Top 40 under 40”  and several other truly top-caliber Canadian high tech people.
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