The aim of this study was to critically examine the role and function of emotions in primary school children's meaningful learning. Emotions that are commonly experienced by primary school children were identified and an indication was given of how they relate to meaningful learning. Factors that affect both emotions and meaningful learning were also discussed. In an empirical investigation that was undertaken, it was found that emotions influence meaningful learning of primary school children either positively or negatively. The following emotions pointed to both positive and negative significant correlations with regard to meaningful learning: anger, aggression, anxiety, fear, love, joy and affection. Factors like family size, gender and the environment (life world of primary school children) also influence meaningful learning. / Psychology of Education / M.Ed.(Psychology of Education)

Avec l’émergence des nouveaux médias, une nouvelle façon de raconter les histoires s’impose. Les structures connues de l’esthétisme classique semblent désuètes par rapport aux dispositions des nouvelles plateformes de diffusion. Mieux encore, ces plateformes propulsent le récit, lui permettent de sortir de la rigidité de la ligne narrative : elles intègrent la technique au logos. L’intermédialité devient omniprésente; la diversité des types médiatiques employés dans une œuvre sont rendus visibles et sont articulés par la mise en récit. Méchoulan dira que dans l’« être-entre », dans l’espace reliant chacune des unités sémantiques, que l’événement de la pensée advient; pour Rodowick c’est le « figural ». Une figure particulière s’impose : le labyrinthe. Multipliant les possibilités narratives spécifiques aux nouveaux médias, le labyrinthe fait converger les composantes intermédiales. Bleeding Through : Layers of Los Angeles 1920-1986, une œuvre dirigée par Norman Klein, pose le labyrinthe comme élément structurel en y tissant un réseau où s’inscrit une pratique intermédiale. On y adresse le temps comme une opération fragmentaire, qui se sectionne, se réorganise en rompant avec la linéarité classique. Il nous faudra alors voir comment le labyrinthe réfléchit dans l’étude du temps certains éléments de la mythologie grecque. Les réflexions de Gervais sur le labyrinthe permettront d’étayer pareille hypothèse. Nous analyserons Bleeding Through à la lumière de ces théories pour ainsi dégager l’essence de cette figure qui a infiltrée la narration contemporaine. En somme, le labyrinthe se présente dans l’écologie médiatique actuelle comme une figure inhérente à la mise en récit. / With the emergence of new media, a new way of storytelling becomes necessary. The known structures of classic estheticism become obsolete when confronted with the dispositions of the new broadcasted platforms. These so called platforms propel the plot structure, allowing an expansion of the rigid narrative line : they integrate technology into the logos. Intermediality becomes omnipresent ; the diverse media summoned in the different projects are made visible and articulated through narrative work. Méchoulan would talk about the « être-entre », the virtual space linking semantic units, that the occurrence of thoughts convene ; Rodowick would refer to this same spatial concept as « figural ». A particular figure then appears and seems to illustrate the workings of intermediality: the labyrinth. In multiplying the narrative possibilities specific to new media, the labyrinth interrelates the intermedial components. Bleeding Through : Layers of Los Angeles 1920-1986, directed by Norman Klein, establishes the labyrinth as a narrative backdrop to the intermedial practice. Herein, time is addressed as a fragmented function that can be segmented, reorganized, thus breaking with classic linearity. Subsequently, elements of Greek mythology tied to the labyrinth’s imaginary are highlighted, particularly through Gervais’s reflexions on memory and forgetting. To question the essence of the labyrinth’s figure, which infiltrates contemporary narration, Bleeding Through is analyzed under the scope of these theories. In short, the labyrinth is presented as an inherent figure to storytelling within the current media ecology.

La façon dont une information se répète au cours du temps a une influence sur la façon dont nous nous souviendrons de cette information. Les recherches en psychologie ont mis en évidence l’effet de pratique distribuée, selon lequel on retient mieux les informations qui se répètent avec des intervalles inter-répétitions longs que celles qui se répètent avec des intervalles courts. Nos travaux ont porté spécifiquement sur les situations où l’information se répète sur plusieurs jours, et nous avons comparé l’efficacité relative de différents types d’agencement temporel des répétitions. Un agencement uniforme consiste en des répétitions se produisant à intervalles réguliers, un agencement expansif en des répétitions se produisant selon des intervalles de plus en plus espacés, et un agencement contractant en des répétitions se produisant selon des intervalles de plus en plus rapprochés. Les Expériences 1 et 2 consistaient en une phase d’apprentissage d’une semaine et ont révélé la supériorité des agencements expansif et uniforme après un délai de rétention de deux jours. L’Expérience 3 consistait en une phase d’apprentissage de deux semaines, et les sujets étaient ensuite testés lors de trois délais de rétention différents (2, 6 ou 13 jours). La supériorité de l’agencement expansif sur les deux autres agencements est apparue progressivement, suggérant que les différents agencements induisaient des taux d’oubli différents. Nous avons également tenté de tester différentes théories explicatives des effets de l’agencement temporel des répétitions sur la mémorisation, en particulier les théories de la variabilité de l’encodage (Expérience 4) et de la récupération en phase d’étude (Expérience 2). Les résultats observés tendent à confirmer la théorie de la récupération en phase d’étude. Nous insistons sur l’importance de la prise en compte des apports des autres disciplines des sciences cognitives dans l’étude de l’effet de pratique distribuée. / How information is repeated over time determines future recollection of this information. Studies in psychology revealed a distributed practice effect, that is, one retains information better when its occurrences are separated by long lags rather than by short lags. Our studies focused specifically on cases in which items were repeated upon several days. We compared the efficiency of three different temporal schedules of repetitions: A uniform schedule that consisted in repetitions occurring with equal intervals, an expanding schedule that consisted in repetitions occurring with longer and longer intervals, and a contracting schedule that consisted in repetitions occurring with shorter and shorter intervals. In Experiments 1 and 2, the learning phase lasted one week and the retention interval lasted two days. It was shown that the expanding and uniform schedules were more efficient than the contracting schedule. In Experiment 3, the learning phase lasted two weeks and the retention interval lasted 2, 6, or 13 days. It was shown that the superiority of the expanding schedule over the other two schedules appeared gradually when the retention interval increased, suggesting that different schedules yielded different forgetting rates. We also tried to test major theories of the distributed practice effect, such as the encoding variability (Experiment 4) and the study-phase retrieval (Experiment 2) theories. Our results appeared to be consistent with the study-phase retrieval theory. We concluded our dissertation by emphasizing the importance of considering findings from other areas in cognitive science–especially neuroscience and computer science–in the study of the distributed practice effect.

No description available.

La mémoire de travail est un composant essentiel de la pensée qui est fortement impliquée dans les apprentissages et la réussite scolaires. Pourtant, elle est rarement étudiée chez l’enfant d’âge préscolaire, du fait notamment d’un manque de paradigmes adaptés. Cette thèse visait donc à étudier le fonctionnement de la mémoire de travail chez cette population, soit entre 2 et 6 ans. Pour cela, deux paradigmes originaux ont été utilisés. Ils ont été conçus pour être proches de situations de jeux, propices à aider le jeune enfant à focaliser son attention sur la tâche. Ainsi, il a tout d’abord été montré que les performances de rappel diminuaient au fil du temps, et ce, même en l’absence de tâche interférente. Les enfants de cette tranche d’âge opèrent donc un maintien passif de l’information, i.e. sans mise en œuvre spontanée de stratégie de maintien de l’information. De plus, le déclin de l’information était similaire au travers de l’âge. Pour la première fois, il a donc été mis en évidence que la vitesse d’oubli de l’information ne variait pas entre 2 et 6 ans. Finalement, aucun de ces deux facteurs, i.e. mise en œuvre de stratégie de maintien de l’information et modification de la vitesse d’oubli de l’information, ne peut être avancé pour expliquer l’augmentation des capacités mémorielles entre 2 et 6 ans. Ensuite, il a été montré que les caractéristiques intrinsèques de la tâche pouvaient conduire à une amélioration des performances de rappel, peut-être par la mise en œuvre d’une stratégie de maintien. Notamment, la réalisation d’une activité motrice, i.e. marche durant le délai de rétention, a permis à ces jeunes enfants de contrecarrer dans une certaine mesure l’oubli temporel de l’information. La mise en œuvre d’une activité motrice, en dirigeant l’attention du jeune enfant vers un indice visuel du but à atteindre, aiderait celui-ci à maintenir le but de la tâche en mémoire. Les ressources attentionnelles ainsi dégagées pourraient être mises au service d’une amélioration des performances de rappel, peut-être par la mise en œuvre d’une stratégie de maintien. / Working memory is an essential component of thought that is highly involved in learning and academic achievement. However, it is rarely studied in preschoolers, mainly because of a lack of suitable paradigms. Therefore, this thesis investigated the functioning of working memory in children between 2 and 6 years. For this purpose, two original paradigms were used. They were designed to be close to game situations which should help young children to focus their attention on the task. Firstly it was shown that the recall performance decreased over time, even in the absence of an interfering task. Children of this age therefore use a passive maintenance, i.e. without spontaneously implementing any strategy of maintenance. Furthermore, the decline of the information was similar through age. For the first time, it has been demonstrated that the rate of information forgetting did not vary between 2 and 6. Finally, none of these two factors, i.e. implementation of a strategy of maintenance and change in the speed of forgetting can explain the increase in memory capacity between 2 and 6 years of age. Secondly, it has been shown that the intrinsic characteristics of the task could lead to improved recall performance, perhaps by inducing a strategy of maintenance. Particularly, the implementation of a motor activity, i.e. walking during the retention period, has enabled these young children to counteract to some extent the temporal decay of information. Then, the implementation of a motor activity, by directing the attention of young children to a visual cue related to the goal of the task, help them to maintain in memory the purpose of the task. Attentional resources could be harnessed to improve performance of recall, perhaps by implementing a retention strategy.

Artificial neural networks have been widely used for machine learning and optimization. A neuro ensemble is a collection of neural networks that works cooperatively on a problem. In the literature, it has been shown that by combining several neural networks, the generalization of the overall system could be enhanced over the separate generalization ability of the individuals. Evolutionary computation can be used to search for a suitable architecture and weights for neural networks. When evolutionary computation is used to evolve a neuro ensemble, it is usually known as evolutionary neuro ensemble. In most real-world problems, we either know little about these problems or the problems are too complex to have a clear vision on how to decompose them by hand. Thus, it is usually desirable to have a method to automatically decompose a complex problem into a set of overlapping or non-overlapping sub-problems and assign one or more specialists (i.e. experts, learning machines) to each of these sub-problems. An important feature of neuro ensemble is automatic problem decomposition. Some neuro ensemble methods are able to generate networks, where each individual network is specialized on a unique sub-task such as mapping a subspace of the feature space. In real world problems, this is usually an important feature for a number of reasons including: (1) it provides an understanding of the decomposition nature of a problem; (2) if a problem changes, one can replace the network associated with the sub-space where the change occurs without affecting the overall ensemble; (3) if one network fails, the rest of the ensemble can still function in their sub-spaces; (4) if one learn the structure of one problem, it can potentially be transferred to other similar problems. In this thesis, I focus on classification problems and present a systematic study of a novel evolutionary neuro ensemble approach which I call cooperative coevolutionary mixture of experts (CCME). Cooperative coevolution (CC) is a branch of evolutionary computation where individuals in different populations cooperate to solve a problem and their fitness function is calculated based on their reciprocal interaction. The mixture of expert model (ME) is a neuro ensemble approach which can generate networks that are specialized on different sub-spaces in the feature space. By combining CC and ME, I have a powerful framework whereby it is able to automatically form the experts and train each of them. I show that the CCME method produces competitive results in terms of generalization ability without increasing the computational cost when compared to traditional training approaches. I also propose two different mechanisms for visualizing the resultant decomposition in high-dimensional feature spaces. The first mechanism is a simple one where data are grouped based on the specialization of each expert and a color-map of the data records is visualized. The second mechanism relies on principal component analysis to project the feature space onto lower dimensions, whereby decision boundaries generated by each expert are visualized through convex approximations. I also investigate the regularization effect of learning by forgetting on the proposed CCME. I show that learning by forgetting helps CCME to generate neuro ensembles of low structural complexity while maintaining their generalization abilities. Overall, the thesis presents an evolutionary neuro ensemble method whereby (1) the generated ensemble generalizes well; (2) it is able to automatically decompose the classification problem; and (3) it generates networks with small architectures.

No description available.

Avec l’émergence des nouveaux médias, une nouvelle façon de raconter les histoires s’impose. Les structures connues de l’esthétisme classique semblent désuètes par rapport aux dispositions des nouvelles plateformes de diffusion. Mieux encore, ces plateformes propulsent le récit, lui permettent de sortir de la rigidité de la ligne narrative : elles intègrent la technique au logos. L’intermédialité devient omniprésente; la diversité des types médiatiques employés dans une œuvre sont rendus visibles et sont articulés par la mise en récit. Méchoulan dira que dans l’« être-entre », dans l’espace reliant chacune des unités sémantiques, que l’événement de la pensée advient; pour Rodowick c’est le « figural ». Une figure particulière s’impose : le labyrinthe. Multipliant les possibilités narratives spécifiques aux nouveaux médias, le labyrinthe fait converger les composantes intermédiales. Bleeding Through : Layers of Los Angeles 1920-1986, une œuvre dirigée par Norman Klein, pose le labyrinthe comme élément structurel en y tissant un réseau où s’inscrit une pratique intermédiale. On y adresse le temps comme une opération fragmentaire, qui se sectionne, se réorganise en rompant avec la linéarité classique. Il nous faudra alors voir comment le labyrinthe réfléchit dans l’étude du temps certains éléments de la mythologie grecque. Les réflexions de Gervais sur le labyrinthe permettront d’étayer pareille hypothèse. Nous analyserons Bleeding Through à la lumière de ces théories pour ainsi dégager l’essence de cette figure qui a infiltrée la narration contemporaine. En somme, le labyrinthe se présente dans l’écologie médiatique actuelle comme une figure inhérente à la mise en récit. / With the emergence of new media, a new way of storytelling becomes necessary. The known structures of classic estheticism become obsolete when confronted with the dispositions of the new broadcasted platforms. These so called platforms propel the plot structure, allowing an expansion of the rigid narrative line : they integrate technology into the logos. Intermediality becomes omnipresent ; the diverse media summoned in the different projects are made visible and articulated through narrative work. Méchoulan would talk about the « être-entre », the virtual space linking semantic units, that the occurrence of thoughts convene ; Rodowick would refer to this same spatial concept as « figural ». A particular figure then appears and seems to illustrate the workings of intermediality: the labyrinth. In multiplying the narrative possibilities specific to new media, the labyrinth interrelates the intermedial components. Bleeding Through : Layers of Los Angeles 1920-1986, directed by Norman Klein, establishes the labyrinth as a narrative backdrop to the intermedial practice. Herein, time is addressed as a fragmented function that can be segmented, reorganized, thus breaking with classic linearity. Subsequently, elements of Greek mythology tied to the labyrinth’s imaginary are highlighted, particularly through Gervais’s reflexions on memory and forgetting. To question the essence of the labyrinth’s figure, which infiltrates contemporary narration, Bleeding Through is analyzed under the scope of these theories. In short, the labyrinth is presented as an inherent figure to storytelling within the current media ecology.

Esta tese tem por objetivo analisar as práticas de desaparecimento das ditaduras civil-militares de segurança nacional argentina e brasileira como componentes das estratégias de implantação do terror desses regimes, como a questão dos desaparecidos foi tratada durante os governos transicionais e administrações civis posteriores ao período ditatorial e como a temática foi trabalhada a partir dos governos de Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva e Néstor Kirchner. Pretende-se, desta forma, estabelecer uma relação entre a forma como foram realizados os processos de transição política – em se tratando dos Direitos Humanos, mais especificamente, a garantia do direito à justiça e à verdade – e a elaboração de políticas de memória e reparação ou desmemória e esquecimento no presente. A partir dessa compreensão, têm-se indícios de que as rupturas, caracterizadas por uma condenação moral em relação ao passado ditatorial, são fundamentais para o desenvolvimento dessas políticas. Para o cumprimento deste objetivo, este estudo está dividido em três capítulos. No primeiro, apresenta-se uma análise da prática do desaparecimento, salientado as semelhanças existentes entre o caso argentino e brasileiro, resguardadas as diferenças em extensividade e intensidade. O segundo estuda os processos de transição política e o tratamento conferido à questão dos desaparecidos pelos governos transicionais e pelas administrações civis até o término da década de 1990. O terceiro e último capítulo analisa as políticas de memória e reparação e desmemória e esquecimento elaboradas a partir dos anos 2000, quando se efetivou uma mudança no marco interpretativo sobre o passado recente da região e se tornou possível a consecução dessas políticas. / This thesis aims to analyze the practice of disappearance of Argentine and Brazilian national security civil-military dictatorship as components of strategies for implementing terror. It also aims to approach how the transitional governments and subsequent civil administrations dealt with the disappeared and how this issue had been discussed from the governments of Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva and Néstor Kirchner. This approach aims to establish a relation between the ways the political transitions took place in these countries – regarding the Human Rights, more specifically, in guaranteeing the rights to justice and truth – and the development of memory and repair policies or oblivion flaring and forgetting policies in the present. Based on this comprehension, there are evidences that the disruptions, characterized by a moral conviction against the dictatorial past, are fundamental to the development of these policies. For the fulfillment of these objectives, this study is divided into three chapters. The first one presents an analysis of the practice of disappearance, stressing the similarities between the Argentine and Brazilian case, safeguarding the differences in extensiveness and intensity. The second one deals with the processes of political transition and the treatment given to the issue of disappearance by the transitional governments and the civil administrations until the end of the 1990’s. The third and final chapter analyzes the memory and repair policies or oblivion flaring and forgetting policies prepared since the year 2000, when there was a change in the interpretative framework about the region recent past and it became possible to achieve these policies.

The aim of this study was to critically examine the role and function of emotions in primary school children's meaningful learning. Emotions that are commonly experienced by primary school children were identified and an indication was given of how they relate to meaningful learning. Factors that affect both emotions and meaningful learning were also discussed. In an empirical investigation that was undertaken, it was found that emotions influence meaningful learning of primary school children either positively or negatively. The following emotions pointed to both positive and negative significant correlations with regard to meaningful learning: anger, aggression, anxiety, fear, love, joy and affection. Factors like family size, gender and the environment (life world of primary school children) also influence meaningful learning. / Psychology of Education / M.Ed.(Psychology of Education)