Voiklis, J. and Corter, J. E. (2012). Conventional Wisdom: Negotiating Conventions of Reference Enhances Category Discovery. Cognitive Science.doi: 10.1111/j.1551-6709.2011.01230.x.
Collaborators generally coordinate their activities through communication, during which they readily negotiate a shared lexicon for activity-related objects. This social-pragmatic activity both recruits and affects cognitive and social-cognitive processes ranging from selective attention to perspective taking. We ask whether negotiating reference also facilitates category learning or might private verbalization yield comparable facilitation? Participants in three referential conditions learned to classify imaginary creatures according to combinations of functional features—nutritive and destructive—that implicitly defined four categories. Remote partners communicated in the Dialogue condition. In the Monologue condition, participants recorded audio descriptions for their own later use. Controls worked silently. Dialogue yielded better category learning, with wider distribution of attention. Monologue offered no benefits over working silently. We conclude that negotiating reference compels collaborators to find communicable structure in their shared activity; this social-pragmatic constraint accelerates category learning and likely provides much of the benefit recently ascribed to learning labeled categories.
Kapur, M. & Voiklis, J. (in press). Large-Scale Collective Dynamics: Theoretical and Methodological Arguments for Expanding the Computer-Supported Collaborative Learning (CSCL) Research Agenda. Manuscript submitted for publication. (contact Manu Kapur for preprint)
Kapur, M., Voiklis, J., and Kinzer, C. K. (2008). Sensitivities to early exchange in synchronous computer-supported collaborative learning (CSCL) groups. Computers & Education, 51(1):54-66. (doi: 10.1016/j.compedu.2007.04.007)
Kapur, M., Hung, D., Jacobson, M., Voiklis, J., Kinzer, C., & Chen Der-Thanq, V. (2007). Emergence of learning in computer-supported, large-scale collective dynamics: A research agenda. In C. A. Clark, G. Erkens, & S.Puntambekar (Eds.), Proceedings of the International Conference of Computer-supported Collaborative Learning, pages 323-332. Mahwah, NJ:Erlbaum. (contact Manu Kapur for reprint)
Kapur, M., Voiklis, J., & Kinzer, C. (2007). Sensitivities to initial exchange in synchronous computer-supported collaborative learning (CSCL) groups. In C. A. Clark, G. Erkens, & S. Punteambekar (Eds.), Proceedings of the International Conference of Computer-supported Collaborative Learning, pages 333-343. Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum. (contact Manu Kapur for reprint)
Voiklis, J., Kapur, M., Kinzer, C., and Black, J. (2006). An emergentist account of collective cognition in collaborative problem solving. In Sun, R. and Miyake, N., editors, Proceedings of the 28th Annual Conference of the Cognitive Science Society, pages 858–863, Vancouver, British Columbia. (download from Cogprints or here)
As a first step toward an emergentist theory of collective cognition in collaborative problem solving, we present a proto-theoretical account of how one might conceive and model the intersubjective processes that organize collective cognition into one or another—convergent, divergent, or tensive—cognitive regime. To explore the sufficiency of our emergentist proposal we instantiate a minimalist model of intersubjective convergence and simulate the tuning of collective cognition using data from an empirical study of small-group, collaborative problem solving. Using the results of this empirical simulation, we test a number of preliminary hypotheses with regard to patterns of interaction, how those patterns affect a cognitive regime, and how that cognitive regime affects the efficacy of a problem-solving group.
Kapur, M., Voiklis, J., and Kinzer, C. (2006). Insights into the emergence of convergence in group discussions. In Barab, S., Hay, K., and Hickey, D., editors, ICLS ’06: Proceedings of the 7th International Conference on Learning Sciences, pages 300–306. International Society of the Learning Sciences. (contact Manu Kapur for reprint)
Kapur, M., Voiklis, J., and Kinzer, C. (2005). Problem solving as a complex, evolutionary activity: a methodological framework for analyzing problem-solving processes in a computer- supported collaborative environment. In Koschmann, T., Chan, T.-W., and Suthers, D. D., editors, Computer support for collaborative learning 2005: The Next 10 Years! , pages 252–261, Taipei, Taiwan. (contact Manu Kapur for reprint)
Kapur, M., Voiklis, J., and Kinzer, C. (2005). Studying problem solving through the lens of complex systems science: A novel methodological framework for analyzing problem-solving processes. In Bara, B., Barsalou, L., and Bucciarelli, M., editors, Proceedings of the 27th Annual Conference of the Cognitive Science Society, pages 1096–1101, Stressa, Italy. (contact Manu Kapur for reprint)
