Cognitive Science Forum Nov. 12: Reasoning With Numbers

[Thagard Paul]

Cognitive Science Forum,
Wednesday, Nov. 12,
HH 139, 3-4:30

Reasoning With Numbers: Journalists, Evidence, and You
Michael Ranney
University of California, Berkeley

Journalists give us information, but it's not always the best
information--as suggested by past research from the Numerically Driven
Inferencing paradigm.  First-year journalism graduate students  
received a curricular module
designed to improve understanding of quantities and evidence.
Results showed that, compared to control data, the experimental group
improved their estimation and math abilities.  Students and faculty
valued the module, and it influenced the students' attitudes about
numerical information.  These results will be contextualized by
theory, past findings, and some numbers that might stump your friends.

Michael Ranney is a professor of cognition and development at Berkeley:
http://www-gse.berkeley.edu/faculty/MRanney/MRanney.html

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Paul Thagard                         pthagard at uwaterloo.ca
Philosophy Department         Web: http://cogsci.uwaterloo.ca
University of Waterloo           519-888-4567 ext. 33594
Waterloo, Ontario,                 Fax: 519-746-3097
Canada N2L 3G1



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