Thesis advisor: Elida V. Laski / This research explored the roles of symbolic mapping and relational thinking in early reading and mathematics learning. It examined whether symbolic mapping and relational thinking were predictive of children’s reading and mathematics knowledge; the extent to which these domain-general cognitive scores explained correlations between the two domains; and whether these cognitive scores mediated relations between verbal intelligence and reading and mathematics. Furthermore, the present research explored whether home learning experiences were predictive of children’s symbolic, relational, reading, and mathematics scores. Participants in Study 1 were 86 preschool children from the Boston area. Children completed an assessment of verbal intelligence and a range of symbolic, relational, reading, and mathematics measures. Results showed that reading and mathematics scores were highly correlated; symbolic and relational scores were predictive of domain-specific performance; and symbolic and relational thinking mediated relations between verbal intelligence and reading and mathematics knowledge. These findings suggest that symbolic mapping and relational thinking may provide foundational cognitive skills that support early learning. Study 2 investigated whether home learning experiences were related to children’s symbolic, relational, reading, and mathematics scores. Participants were the 86 parents of children from Study 1. Parents reported the frequency with which they and their child engaged in various activities. Findings showed a significant relation between symbolic learning experiences and children’s reading and mathematics scores, but no relations between learning experiences and children’s symbolic or relational scores. There was a strong association between parents’ beliefs about the importance of mathematics for kindergarten readiness and children’s reading and mathematics scores. The results suggest that homes rich in symbolic learning experiences may best support children’s early learning, but parental beliefs about mathematics may differentiate highly effective and less effective learning environments. Taken together, these two studies contribute to our understanding of the constructs of symbolic and relational thinking as foundations for early learning in reading and mathematics. Findings are discussed in terms of their implications for improving school readiness via increased intentionality in early educational activities. / Thesis (PhD) — Boston College, 2016. / Submitted to: Boston College. Lynch School of Education. / Discipline: Counseling, Developmental and Educational Psychology.

En psychologie sociale de la santé, l’analyse des dimensions psychologiques et sociales en jeu dans la construction des risques sanitaires constitue un enjeu à la fois théorique et pragmatique. En articulant le cadre théorique des représentations sociales (Apostolidis, 2006) et celui de la Terror Management Theory (TMT, Solomon, Greenberg, & Pyszczynski, 1991), la recherche proposée vise à étudier les liens entre l’induction d’un état d’anxiété et la mobilisation de raisonnements symboliques face au risque du sida. Quatre expériences ont été réalisées (N = 520, 221 hommes et 299 femmes, mâge = 21,1). Elles consistaient à rendre saillante l'idée de mortalité (versus un thème neutre) chez les sujets, puis à leur faire lire un scénario de relation sexuelle socialement normé (avec ou sans délai), et enfin, à leur demander d'évaluer la valence sentimentale de la relation décrite et le risque du sida lui étant associé. Les résultats montrent que le risque perçu varie en fonction de la valence sentimentale attribuée, qui elle-même varie en fonction du facteur délai. Ce fonctionnement sociocognitif est par ailleurs modulé par le sexe des participants, et par l'induction expérimentale : d'une manière générale, le délai est davantage valorisé par les femmes et par les sujets de la condition « mortalité », sauf en cas de convictions religieuses ou spirituelles. Les principaux résultats corroborent ainsi ceux de la littérature consacrée à la TMT. Nous les discuterons dans la perspective théorique des représentations sociales et nous poserons leur implication par rapport à la prévention du risque du sida. / In social psychology of health, the analysis of psychological and social dimensions involved in health risks construction represents a major both theoretical and pragmatic issue. The current research proposes to articulate the social representations approach (Apostolidis, 2006) and the Terror Management Theory (Solomon, Greenberg, & Pyszczynski, 1991) in order to study the links between an induced state anxiety and the mobilization of symbolic reasoning concerning HIV risk perception. In our four experiments (N = 520, 221 men and 299 women, age mean = 21.1), after death thoughts (versus a neutral theme) were made salient, participants were asked to read a socially normed sexual relationship script (with or without “delay”), and then were asked to evaluate the sentimental valence of the relationship described and the HIV risks associated with it. Results showed that perceived risks depend on the sentimental valence attributed, which itself depends on the “delay” factor. This sociocognitive functioning is also modulated by gender, and by experimental inductions : in general, waiting before having sexual intercourse is more valued by women and by mortality salience condition participants, except when they have religious or spiritual beliefs. Our main results thus support those derived from TMT. These findings are discussed in a social representations perspective, and their practical implications are examined in relation to HIV risk preventive actions.

Artificial neural networks (ANNs) and logic programs have both been suggested as means of modelling human cognition. While ANNs are adaptable and relatively noise resistant, the information they represent is distributed across various neurons and is therefore difficult to interpret. On the contrary, symbolic systems such as logic programs are interpretable but less adaptable. Human cognition is performed in a network of biological neurons and yet is capable of representing symbols, and therefore an ideal model would combine the strengths of the two approaches. This is the goal of Neural-Symbolic Integration [4, 16, 21, 40], in which ANNs are used to produce interpretable, adaptable representations of logic programs and other symbolic models. One neural-symbolic model of reasoning is SHRUTI [89, 95], argued to exhibit biological plausibility in that it captures some aspects of real biological processes. SHRUTI's original developers also suggest that further biological plausibility can be ascribed to the fact that SHRUTI networks can be represented by a model of genetic development [96, 120]. The aims of this thesis are to support the claims of SHRUTI's developers by producing the first such genetic representation for SHRUTI networks and to explore biological plausibility further by investigating the evolvability of the proposed SHRUTI genome. The SHRUTI genome is developed and evolved using principles from Generative and Developmental Systems and Artificial Development [13, 105], in which genomes use indirect encoding to provide a set of instructions for the gradual development of the phenotype just as DNA does for biological organisms. This thesis presents genomes that develop SHRUTI representations of logical relations and episodic facts so that they are able to correctly answer questions on the knowledge they represent. The evolvability of the SHRUTI genomes is limited in that an evolutionary search was able to discover genomes for simple relational structures that did not include conjunction, but could not discover structures that enabled conjunctive relations or episodic facts to be learned. Experiments were performed to understand the SHRUTI fitness landscape and demonstrated that this landscape is unsuitable for navigation using an evolutionary search. Complex SHRUTI structures require that necessary substructures must be discovered in unison and not individually in order to yield a positive change in objective fitness that informs the evolutionary search of their discovery. The requirement for multiple substructures to be in place before fitness can be improved is probably owed to the localist representation of concepts and relations in SHRUTI. Therefore this thesis concludes by making a case for switching to more distributed representations as a possible means of improving evolvability in the future.