Cognitive load theory uses the immense size of human long-term memory and the significantly limited capacity of working memory to design instructional methods. Five basic principles: information store principle, borrowing and reorganizing principle, randomness as genesis principle, narrow limits of change principle, and environmental linking and organizing principle explain the cognitive basics of this theory. The theory differentiates between three major types of cognitive load: extraneous load that is caused by instructional strategies, intrinsic cognitive load that results from a high element interactivity material and germane load that is concerned with activities leading to learning. Instructional methods designed in accordance with cognitive load theory rely heavily on the borrowing and reorganizing principle, rather than on the randomness as genesis principle to reduce the imposed cognitive load. As learning fractions incorporates high element interactivity, a high intrinsic cognitive load is imposed. Therefore, learning fractions was studied in the experiments of this thesis. Knowledge held in long-term memory can be used to reduce working memory load via the environmental linking and organizing principle. It can be suggested that if fractions are presented using familiar objects, many of the interacting elements that constitute a fraction might be embedded in stored knowledge and so can be treated as a single element by working memory. Thus, familiar context can be used to reduce cognitive load and so facilitate learning. In a series of randomized, controlled experiments, evidence was found to argue for a contextual effect. The first three experiments of this thesis were designed to test the main hypothesis that presenting students with worked examples concerning fractions would enhance learning if a real-life context was used rather than a geometric context. This hypothesis was tested using both a visual and a word-based format and was supported by the results. The last two experiments were intended to test the context effect using either worked examples or problem solving. The results supported the validity of the previous hypothesis using both instructional methods. Overall, the thesis sheds some light on the advantages of using familiar objects when mastering complex concepts in mathematics.

A showup identification is the presentation of a single suspect to an eyewitness. I used a simulated theft paradigm and subsequent showup identification to examine the effects of stolen property, suspects’ verbal behaviour, and target-presence on eyewitness identification performance. I used a 2 (suspect: innocent, guilty) X 2 (stolen property: present, hidden) X 3 (verbal behaviour: denial with explanation, denial, silence) between-subjects factorial design. Binary logistic regression analysis indicated that both the target and stolen property, independently, and significantly predicted the accuracy of identification decisions. Surprisingly, the presence of stolen property facilitated more accurate identification decisions from eyewitnesses. / UOIT

Cognitive load theory uses the immense size of human long-term memory and the significantly limited capacity of working memory to design instructional methods. Five basic principles: information store principle, borrowing and reorganizing principle, randomness as genesis principle, narrow limits of change principle, and environmental linking and organizing principle explain the cognitive basics of this theory. The theory differentiates between three major types of cognitive load: extraneous load that is caused by instructional strategies, intrinsic cognitive load that results from a high element interactivity material and germane load that is concerned with activities leading to learning. Instructional methods designed in accordance with cognitive load theory rely heavily on the borrowing and reorganizing principle, rather than on the randomness as genesis principle to reduce the imposed cognitive load. As learning fractions incorporates high element interactivity, a high intrinsic cognitive load is imposed. Therefore, learning fractions was studied in the experiments of this thesis. Knowledge held in long-term memory can be used to reduce working memory load via the environmental linking and organizing principle. It can be suggested that if fractions are presented using familiar objects, many of the interacting elements that constitute a fraction might be embedded in stored knowledge and so can be treated as a single element by working memory. Thus, familiar context can be used to reduce cognitive load and so facilitate learning. In a series of randomized, controlled experiments, evidence was found to argue for a contextual effect. The first three experiments of this thesis were designed to test the main hypothesis that presenting students with worked examples concerning fractions would enhance learning if a real-life context was used rather than a geometric context. This hypothesis was tested using both a visual and a word-based format and was supported by the results. The last two experiments were intended to test the context effect using either worked examples or problem solving. The results supported the validity of the previous hypothesis using both instructional methods. Overall, the thesis sheds some light on the advantages of using familiar objects when mastering complex concepts in mathematics.

The proposed research explores a contextual perspective in multiple object situations. Specifically, I focus on the context effect created by an object associated with strong attitude on the subsequent evaluative judgment of a target object. Through five studies, I find that the context effect of a strong attitude object is greater for objects with neutral-strength attitudes than for the objects with very strong or very weak attitudes, which result in a curved relationship between the magnitude of the context effect and the strength associated with attitudes towards targets. In addition, I find that the direction of the context effect of a strong attitude object is determined by the valence of the attitudes towards the target objects: targets with positive attitudes become less positive, and those with negative attitudes become less negative. That is, the results of the context effects represent as a form of decreased extremity of the attitudes towards targets. More importantly, it is found that these differing magnitudes and directions of the context effect of an object with strong attitude finally result in evaluative space distortion. I trace the underlying process mechanism of theses effects and find that: 1) the divergent magnitudes of the context effects are the result of the differing level of comparison difficulty between a contextual object and target objects; and 2) the divergent directions of the context effects are the product of perceived uncertainty about the attitude towards target objects.

Cette recherche vise à étudier l’influence du contexte et du territoire et plus spécifiquement celle de la ruralité sur la trajectoire scolaire des filles issues des milieux ruraux. Elle a été conceptualisée grâce aux théories de la Reproduction, des recherches sur le genre et sur une étude longitudinale d’une cohorte de 2400 élèves depuis 1999 effectuée par l’Observatoire de l’École Rurale. C’est à travers une méthode expérimentale que l’étude a été construite. Une enquête par questionnaire a été effectuée en incluant les résultats du diplôme du brevet national des collèges. Des données ont été recueillies auprès d’un échantillon de 315 élèves afin d’effectuer une comparaison de deux groupes distincts. Le premier groupe est issu du milieu urbain et l’autre des milieux ruraux. Cette étude montre que les filles s’orientent plus que les garçons en seconde générale et technologique. Le résultat confirme l’effet du genre sur l’orientation. Mais elle montre que l’écart entre les élèves garçons et les élèves filles est supérieur aux données statistiques au niveau national. De plus, l’étude permet de conclure que les filles issues des milieux ruraux en fin de troisième s’orientent majoritairement plus en seconde générale et technologique que les filles issues du milieu urbain. Le contexte territorial influerait donc sur l’orientation des filles en leur faveur. Ces résultats sont une étude à un instant donné, elle compare deux régions distinctes. Est-il envisageable de les généraliser ? Le contexte étant un facteur important de cette étude, on ne peut conclure pas sans reproduire cette étude à d’autres territoires. Toutefois, elle interroge sur les raisons de cette réussite des filles dans ce milieu. / This research aims at studying the influence of the context and the territory And more specifically that of the rurality on the school trajectory of the girls stemming from rural areas. It was conceptualized thanks to the theories of the Reproduction, the researches on the genre and on the longitudinal study of a troop of 2400 pupils since 1999 made by the « Observatoire de l’École Rurale ». It is through an experimental method that the study was built. A survey by questionnaire, was perform by including the results of the diploma of the « brevet national » of middle schools. Data were collected with a sample of 315 pupils to make a comparison of two different groups. The first group arises from the urban area and other one of the rural areas. This study shows that the girls turn more than the boys in second general and technological. But she shows that the gap between the pupils boys and the pupils girls is upper to the statistical data at the national level. Furthermore, the study allows to conclude that the girls stemming from rural areas at the end of third turn mainly more in second dress rehearsal and technological than the girls stemming from the urban area. The territorial context would thus influence the orientation of the girls in their favor. These results are a study at the given moment, he compares two different regions. Is he possible to generalize them? The context being an important factor of this study, we cannot end without reproducing this study in other territories. However, he questions about the reasons of this success of the girls in this environment.

This dissertation focuses on the development of three classes of brain-inspired machine learning classification models. The models attempt to emulate (a) multi-sensory integration, (b) context-integration, and (c) visual information processing in the brain.The multi-sensory integration models are aimed at enhancing object classification through the integration of semantically congruent unimodal stimuli. Two multimodal classification models are introduced: the feature integrating (FI) model and the decision integrating (DI) model. The FI model, inspired by multisensory integration in the subcortical superior colliculus, combines unimodal features which are subsequently classified by a multimodal classifier. The DI model, inspired by integration in primary cortical areas, classifies unimodal stimuli independently using unimodal classifiers and classifies the combined decisions using a multimodal classifier. The multimodal classifier models are be implemented using multilayer perceptrons and multivariate statistical classifiers. Experiments involving the classification of noisy and attenuated auditory and visual representations of ten digits are designed to demonstrate the properties of the multimodal classifiers and to compare the performances of multimodal and unimodal classifiers. The experimental results show that the multimodal classification systems exhibit an important aspect of the “inverse effectiveness principle” by yielding significantly higher classification accuracies when compared with those of the unimodal classifiers. Furthermore, the flexibility offered by the generalized models enables the simulations and evaluations of various combinations of multimodal stimuli and classifiers under varying uncertainty conditions. The context-integrating model emulates the brain’s ability to use contextual information to uniquely resolve the interpretation of ambiguous stimuli. A deep learning neural network classification model that emulates this ability by integrating weighted bidirectional context into the classification process is introduced. The model, referred to as the CINET, is implemented using a convolution neural network (CNN), which is shown to be ideal for combining target and context stimuli and for extracting coupled target-context features. The CINET parameters can be manipulated to simulate congruent and incongruent context environments and to manipulate target-context stimuli relationships. The formulation of the CINET is quite general; consequently, it is not restricted to stimuli in any particular sensory modality nor to the dimensionality of the stimuli. A broad range of experiments are designed to demonstrate the effectiveness of the CINET in resolving ambiguous visual stimuli and in improving the classification of non-ambiguous visual stimuli in various contextual environments. The fact that the performance improves through the inclusion of context can be exploited to design robust brain-inspired machine learning algorithms. It is interesting to note that the CINET is a classification model that is inspired by a combination of brain’s ability to integrate contextual information and the CNN, which is inspired by the hierarchical processing of visual information in the visual cortex. A convolution neural network (CNN) model, inspired by the hierarchical processing of visual information in the brain, is introduced to fuse information from an ensemble of multi-axial sensors in order to classify strikes such as boxing punches and taekwondo kicks in combat sports. Although CNNs are not an obvious choice for non-array data nor for signals with non-linear variations, it will be shown that CNN models can effectively classify multi-axial multi-sensor signals. Experiments involving the classification of three-axis accelerometer and three-axes gyroscope signals measuring boxing punches and taekwondo kicks showed that the performance of the fusion classifiers were significantly superior to the uni-axial classifiers. Interestingly, the classification accuracies of the CNN fusion classifiers were significantly higher than those of the DTW fusion classifiers. Through training with representative signals and the local feature extraction property, the CNNs tend to be invariant to the latency shifts and non-linear variations. Moreover, by increasing the number of network layers and the training set, the CNN classifiers offer the potential for even better performance as well as the ability to handle a larger number of classes. Finally, due to the generalized formulations, the classifier models can be easily adapted to classify multi-dimensional signals of multiple sensors in various other applications.

Cette thèse se situe dans le prolongement direct des travaux de recherche de l'« Observatoire de l'école rurale », dont l'auteur est membre depuis 2002, qui a étudié la scolarité de près de 2400 élèves du rural français depuis l'année 1999/2000 correspondant à la classe de CM2 pour tous jusqu'à l'année 2006/ 2007 correspondant à la classe de terminale pour ceux qui n'ont jamais pris de retard. Elle aborde une thématique jusque là peu traitée par les membres de l'OER : une approche croisant genre et typologie des territoires au niveau des trajectoires scolaires des jeunes ruraux. L'objectif est de déterminer s'il existe des « effets de territoire » qui impactent de façon distincte la scolarité des filles et celle des garçons et de mesurer leur incidence sur celle-ci. Pour y parvenir, deux types de milieux ruraux ont été étudiés : le « rural isolé » et le « rural sous faible influence urbaine ». L'étude s'est appuyée sur six variables de la scolarité des élèves ruraux : les résultats scolaires ; le goût pour les études ; les ambitions scolaires ; l'opinion des élèves sur leur propre niveau scolaire ; les pratiques culturelles ; le potentiel de mobilité. Cette recherche a l'ambition d'ouvrir de nouvelles pistes de recherches prenant en compte l'évolution d'un milieu en perpétuelle mutation et l'espoir de contribuer à nourrir les débats éducatifs autour de « l'école rurale » au sens générique du terme. / This thesis is situated in the direct continuation of the research works of the Monitoring Observatory of the rural school the author of which is member and which studied the schooling of about 2400 pupils of the French countryman for the year 1999/2000 corresponding to the 5th year of primary school for all until year 2006/2007 corresponding to the final year of high school for those who have never taken delay. It approaches a theme to there little treated by the members of the OER: an approach by kind(genre) and typology of the school trajectories of the young countrymen. The objective to determine if there are « effects of territory «which impact in a different way on the schooling of the girls and on that of the boys and to measure their incidence on this one. To reach there, two types of rural circles were studied: the isolated countryman and the countryman under low urban influence and the study leaned on six variables of the schooling of the rural pupils: The school results; the motivation for the studies; the school ambitions; the opinion of the pupils on their own school level; the cultural practices; the potential of mobility. This research has also the ambition to open new avenues of research in connection with the evolution of an environment in perpetual transformation and the hope to contribute to feed the educational debates around «the rural school" in the generic sense of the term.

[pt] Nesta tese, trabalhou-se com a modelagem Rasch visando a apresentar alternativas mais práticas e de melhor qualidade em termos de medida, para dois cenários distintos. O primeiro está relacionado ao fato de que medir conhecimento é algo muito complexo e de difícil entendimento para profissionais que não são da área da psicometria. Por meio de experimentos envolvendo modelos da família Rasch, apresentamos a aplicabilidade e as potencialidades dessa modelagem para atender a novas demandas de avaliação em larga escala no Brasil. O segundo cenário relaciona-se à busca de medir, de modo o mais imparcial possível, itens de produção escrita, em que a nota recebida pelos alunos é influenciada pela subjetividade dos corretores, ou seja, corretores lenientes beneficiam alunos e corretores severos penalizam alunos. Diante desses dois cenários, esta tese tem os seguintes objetivos: (i) trazer para o âmbito das avaliações realizadas no Brasil uma modelagem matemática mais simples que aquela atualmente adotada, visando uma melhor comunicação com os professores, e; (ii) a possibilidade de operar não apenas com itens de múltipla escolha, corrigidos de forma automática, mas também com itens de produção escrita, em que a subjetividade dos corretores (severidade) é controlada pelo modelo psicométrico, gerando medidas de melhor qualidade. Para isso, utilizou-se a modelagem Rasch com multifacetas, abordando, por meio de casos práticos, as vantagens dessa modelagem em relação a outras metodologias atualmente adotadas no país. Assim, para a alcançarmos o primeiro objetivo, confrontamos a modelagem Rasch com multifacetas com a modelagem de três parâmetros logísticos em um estudo de efeito contexto em testes compostos por diferentes modelos de cadernos e com mais de uma disciplina avaliada por caderno e, para o segundo, comparamos as medidas de proficiência através da Rasch com multifacetas com as notas médias das duplas correções dadas pelos corretores aos alunos em testes do tipo redação. A partir dos resultados encontrados, concluímos que a Rasch com multifacetas pode ser utilizada de forma alternativa ou concomitante com as avaliações que utilizam a modelagem de três parâmetros logísticos, produzindo resultados mais rápidos e de entendimento mais fácil por parte dos professores e que, no caso de redações, as proficiências obtidas pela Rasch com multifacetas apresentaram medidas com melhores indicadores de fidedignidade e validade, quando comparadas com as medidas de notas via Teoria Clássica do Teste, sendo, portanto, uma alternativa mais viável para esse tipo de avaliação. Conclui-se essa tese apresentando situações de empregabilidade das metodologias estudadas. / [en] In this thesis, we worked with Rasch modeling, aiming to present more practical alternatives and better quality in terms of measurement, for two different scenarios. The first one is related to the fact that measuring knowledge is something very complex and difficult to understand for professionals who are not in the psychometrics area. Through experiments involving the Rasch family models, we present the applicability and the potentiality of this model to adequately comply with the new demands of the large-scale evaluation in Brazil. The second scenario is related to the search of measuring, in the most impartial way possible, written production items which grade received by the subjectivity of the raters (severity), that is, lenient raters benefit students and severe raters penalize them. In view of these two scenarios, this thesis has the following objectives: (i) to bring to the scope of the evaluations carried out in Brazil a simpler mathematical modeling than the currently adopted, aiming at a better communication with the teachers; and (ii) the possibility of operating not only with multiple choice items, corrected automatically, but also with written production items, in which the subjectivity of the raters (severity) is controlled by the psychometric model, generating better quality measures. For this, Many-Facet Rasch Measurement was used, approaching, through practical cases, the advantages of this modeling in relation to other methodologies currently adopted in the country. Thus, in order to reach the first objective, we confronted Many-Facet Rasch Measurement with the modeling of three logistic parameters in a study of context effect in tests composed by different models of test books and with more than one discipline evaluated by test book and, for the second one, we compared the measures of proficiency through the Many-Facet Rasch Measurement with the average scores of the double corrections given by the raters to the students in tests of the essay type. From the results found, we conclude that the Many-Facet Rasch Measurement can be used in an alternative or concomitant way with the evaluations that use the three logistic parameters model, producing faster results and easier to understand by the teachers and that, in the case of essays, the measures of proficiency obtained by Many-Facet Rasch Measurement presented measures with better reliability and validity indicators, when compared to the grading measures through the Classical Theory of Testing, being, therefore, a more viable alternative for this type of evaluation. This thesis concludes with situations of usability of the methodologies studied.

Das Gedächtnis speichert nicht nur Informationen, sondern mitunter auch die Umstände, in denen diese Informationen erworben wurden, sogenannte Kontextinformationen. Die vorliegende Arbeit hat daher zum Ziel, anhand von Laboraufgaben und anhand einer komplexen sporttechnischen Fertigkeit den Einblick in die Wirkweise von Kontextinformationen im motorischen Bereich zu vertiefen und theoretische Modelle zu prüfen. In zwei Experimenten wurde zunächst der Frage nachgegangen, ob in-zidentelle Kontextinformation eine diskriminative Funktion einnehmen und den Abruf zweier ähnlicher Sequenzen erleichtern kann. Es wurde ein Ausbleiben der Interferenz-Effekte aufgrund der inzidentellen Kontextinformationen vermutet. Beide Experimente erfolgten im Labor im Design des Interferenzparadigmas. In Laborexperiment 1 (N = 30) lernten die Probanden der Experimentalgruppen an zwei aufeinanderfolgenden Tagen je eine dynamische Bewegungssequenz. Die Probanden der Kontrollgruppen lernten entweder nur die erste Sequenz (KG1) oder nur die zweite (KG2). Für alle Probanden waren die Sequenzen jeweils mit einer Kontextinformation verknüpft. An Tag 3 wurden Retentions- und Transfertests durchgeführt. Durch inzidentelle Kontextinformation alleine konnte keine Kontextabhängigkeit erzielt und retroaktive Interferenzeffekte nicht verhindert werden. In Laborexperiment II (N = 20) stellte sich für die zweite Bewegungssequenz durch zusätzlich erzeugte Intention eine höhere Wiedererkennungsleistung sowie Kontextabhängigkeit ein, dennoch wiesen die Probanden retroaktive Interferenzeffekte auf. Zusätzlich trat proaktive Interferenz auf (Experiment II). Zum anderen ermöglichte es eine umfangreiche Regeländerung im Basketball, eine mögliche Kontextabhängigkeit in einer komplexen sporttech-nischen Fertigkeit zu untersuchen. Im daraus entwickelten Feldexperiment mit N = 20 Basketballern mit hoher Expertise zum 3-Punkte-Wurf konnte gezeigt werden, dass Bodenmarkierungen als inzidentelle Kontextinformationen zu begreifen sind und Einfluss auf die Leistung haben. Die Ergebnisse der Arbeit werden in Beziehung zu aktuellen Ergebnissen der Literatur sowie in Bezug auf das perception-control-Modell von Glover (2004) und dem MOSAIC-Modell von Wolpert und Kawato (1998) diskutiert. Praktische Ableitungen werden dargestellt. / Our memory not only stores information that seem important to us but also circumstances, surroundings where information are gathered – so called contextual information. The present work therefore aims to sharpen the understanding of the mechanisms underpinning this phenomenon in the field of motor learning and to investigate different theoretical models by two experiments with sequence learning tasks and additionally by a complex sports skill. Two experiments were conducted to investigate any discriminative character of incidental context information which would facilitate the recall of two similar movement sequences. An absence of interference-effects was hypothesized. Both experiments took place in accordance with a pro-/retroactive interference design. In experiment 1 (N = 30) subjects of the experimental group (EG) learned two dynamic sequences (S1 and S2) on two successive days while members of the control groups only learned either S1 or S2. Incidental Context information was provided by different background colors. On day 3 retention and transfertests were conducted for all groups. Results showed that incidental Context information alone could not avoid retroactive interference effect (Experiment 1). Directing participants’ attention towards the incidental contexts (Experiment 2) resulted in higher recognition performance and context dependency. Nevertheless, retroactive interference effects were found. Surprisingly, participants of the EG additionally showed proactive interference effects. A substantial change in Basketball rules provided the chance to systematically study the influence of visual context information on complex motor skill. In the first step of this experiment twenty Basketball players took 3-point-shots from the old distance. In a second step these experts took 3-points shots from the new, greater distance with either the old floor-markings or the new floor-markings. Results of this experiment show that floor markings do serve as incidental context information and do influence athlete’s performance. The Results of the present work are discussed in reference to other studies and two models, namely Glover’s perception-control-model (2004) and the MOSAIC-modell from Wolpert and Kawato (1998).

Existing research suggests that when consumers encounter hybrid products or boundary-spanning products with attributes belonging to multiple categories, consumers tend to generate inferences based on only a single product category. Reliance on a single category for inferencing is termed as the “single category belief problem” which has been regarded as a vital marketing challenge because it leads consumers to underestimate the true utility of a hybrid product as certain product attributes are ignored. Our objective was to explore whether single category beliefs manifest in consumer choice for a hybrid product when strategically placed within varying contexts. The research used discrete choice experiment (DCE) to test hypotheses. Our research confirms that the single category belief is evident in consumer choice. We also found that the context the hybrid product is placed within has a major influence on what consumers preferred the most. Depending on the context a hybrid product was seen in had significant influence on how consumers evaluated product attributes and made purchase decisions. The findings for this research may be very beneficial for marketers.