Teaching critical thinking
Critical thinking is increasingly important in education to counter the wealth of misinformation on digital platforms and to make informed judgments. But according to the authors of this commentary, critical thinking hasn’t been well defined in the academic literature, making it difficult to know what to teach or how to assess the effectiveness of interventions.
Here, the authors propose that critical thinking is simply the ability to assess the quality of information, and to act accordingly. Although some of the cognitive building blocks for this are innate, they stress how formal education can further develop these capacities. They suggest teachers use explicit instruction on critical thinking strategies (e.g. assessing the quality of evidence, identifying reliable information sources, assessing the scope of one’s own knowledge), but also embed these strategies into history, science, maths and other classes.
Pasquinelli et al. (2021) Naturalizing critical thinking: Consequences for education, blueprint for future research in cognitive science. Mind, Brain, and Education DOI: https://doi.org/10.1111/mbe.12286
Studying learning with a brain-computer interface
Brain-computer interfaces (BCIs) use brain activity to directly control a computer. In this study of 3 rhesus monkeys, animals were trained to use their motor cortex activity to move a cursor from a central point to one of eight surrounding points. After training, the experimenters changed the correspondence between brain activity and cursor movement, forcing the animals to learn a new mapping.
When the monkeys first encountered this new mapping, their overall neural activity increased in a way that suggested arousal or attention, something the authors call “neural engagement”. Perhaps surprisingly, this heightened alertness could improve or hamper the animal’s initial performance with the new mapping. Neural engagement also affected learning of the new mapping in different ways. The authors say this shows that internal states like arousal and attention can have lasting, and variable, effects on learning.
Hennig et al. (2021) Learning is shaped by abrupt changes in neural engagement. Nature Neuroscience 24: 727-736 DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41593-021-00822-8
No link between education level and structural brain aging
Education provides many benefits, with some work suggesting that higher levels of education can protect against cognitive decline in aging. The evidence for this is not clear though, prompting researchers to longitudinally study structural MRIs of over 4000 cognitively healthy people, aged 29-91 years.
While the authors saw clear decreases in the volume of hippocampal and cortical structures with advancing age, they found no link with education level. They speculate that previous findings of a reduced risk of dementia in people with higher education levels could be due to them having a “cognitive reserve”: although brain atrophy occurs at the same rate in lower- and higher-educated people, those with higher education levels take longer to reach the threshold for cognitive impairment.
Nyberg et al. (2021) Educational attainment does not influence brain aging. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 118(18): e2101644118 DOI: https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2101644118
Neural signatures that predict attention lapses
Maintaining focus for prolonged periods is difficult, but vital in some professions. This is particularly the case when input is only rarely required, such as an air traffic controller who must detect a looming collision and take preventative action.
In this study, people had to detect impending collisions that occurred either frequently or infrequently, over a total of 30 minutes. This allowed the researchers to show that vigilance decreased over time, especially for the rare events. Using magnetoencephalography (MEG), the authors could detect a neural signature of attention lapse, a full second before the on-screen collision occurred. This suggests neural data might be useful in averting the negative consequences of waning vigilance.
Karimi-Rouzbahani et al. (2021) Neural signatures of vigilance decrements predict behavioural errors before they occur. eLife 10:e60563 DOI: https://doi.org/10.7554/eLife.60563