[MUSIC, Title: "Introduction to Critical Thinking from a Neuroscientific Perspective"] [Barb] Beliefs generally relate to ideas you feel strongly about. How steadfast are these beliefs? Let's take a look at a little diagram that can give us a sense of this. First of all, we can have some beliefs, of course, that can go against data. We can feel mildly about these beliefs, as well as about our beliefs that perhaps are based on the latest scientific studies. But beliefs that relate, for example, to that thing we heard perhaps from our friend's brother back in 2006, THOSE are beliefs we stand very, very strongly behind. In fact, our beliefs involve extremely complex neural phenomena. The problem is, that sometimes our beliefs are grounded on a solid foundation of information, but sometimes, especially our strongest beliefs, are not. We often think that an inflexible refusal to accept well-grounded scientific theories and research only happened in the distant past. Like when 17th century European religious authorities suppressed the idea that the earth revolves around the sun. And 19th century medical doctors who ridiculed the idea that washing hands reduces infections. But in fact, intellectual inflexibility, even in the face of overwhelming evidence, has happened time and time again in modern times. It is happening even now, as we speak. But you might think, surely today's top scientific and educational researchers couldn't be inflexible! They should be good at critical thinking— that is, being able to objectively and dispassionately follow well researched, scientific studies and change their minds if need be. But as we've observed, the evidence is clear that the more intelligent you are— that is, to a great extent, the faster you learn— the more inflexible you can be with your thinking. [Beth] We think Terry is one of the exceptions to the rule. [Beth winks] [MUSIC, Title: "Digging Deeper into Inflexible Thinking"] [Terry] I've noticed that I am not as agile as I was when I was younger. So I do my best to solicit input from and really listen to those who think differently than me. And my mantra is that Beatrice, my wife, is always right. Our marriage has withstood the test of time. We've already described how the rigidity of dendritic spines that can help a person remember better, can have the inadvertent side effect of reducing their mental flexibility. Now it's time for us to look even deeper at this phenomenon. This will help us better understand how both flexibility and inflexibility can play out in education. And how these characteristics can in turn influence theories of education. Whenever we learn anything, we have stored sets of neural links in long-term memory. And there are two main pathways to get those links into long-term memory. The declarative pathway, through the hippocampus, good old Hip [Bling SOUND] Or the procedural pathway, through the gang of basil plants, aka, the basal ganglia. As we mentioned earlier, the declarative pathway is called declarative because you can declare it. In other words, you are much more consciously aware of what you're thinking when you're using your declarative system. But when it comes to procedural learning— the type in the basal ganglia— we are completely unconscious of what's happening. In fact, the basal ganglia and its activities are almost like a fuzzy gray box that we can't really see into, like heavy fog. And next to the procedural gray box we have a declarative blue box. A shiny, blue box filled with events and items we are conscious of. As we send information through the hippocampus, we are aware —step by step— of how that learning takes place. Now don't get me wrong, the hippocampus is a complicated system, but because we are more aware of what's happening there, it's easy to rely on it more than what's happening in the basal ganglia. [Barb] Let's say you've done a lot of Rubik's Cube solving. So your procedural system is well-trained about what's involved in solving a Cube. When you see a Cube and you want to solve it, you just tell yourself to solve it and BOOM! You solve it. After you solve it, you can SEE that you've solved it. But you can't really explain —at least not very easily— HOW you solved it. You're just not conscious of how the learning has taken place. Putting it bluntly, the declaratory system is clueless when it comes to the procedural system. Why? Because as we mentioned last week, inside that gray box of the procedural learning system, is that very, very complicated network of hidden layers of connected neurons. [Terry] Remember the procedural learning system learns all kinds of things. Even complicated things, like how to speak a language, or how to do Sudoku puzzles. The procedural system not only learns things you are trying to learn— perhaps picking up additional intended learning on the way— but it also develops a "value function" which is used to store and predict optimal future choices and actions. This value function arises from all of your previous learning experiences. It influences your conscious decision-making in ways you're not completely aware of. Loosely put, your value function is responsible for those intuitive feelings you get about how to do something, or about what is right and proper. The procedural system is, by its very nature, less flexible. And as you age, it can become INflexible, after you've repeated certain thought patterns over and over and over again. [Barb] Here's what's fascinating about all this. We can BELIEVE that we're thinking consciously and objectively about something using only our declarative, conscious hippocampal thinking system. But the value function of our non-conscious procedural system is influencing our conscious thinking in ways that were not at all aware of. [Beth] But what does this mean for you as a teacher? Both when you're trying to follow the educational experts and when you're trying to teach your students. Follow us to the next video and find out! [Beth] I'm Beth Rogowsky. [Barb] I'm Barb Oakley. [Terry] I'm Terry Sejnowski. [All] Learn it, link it, let's do it!
