Brain science already has much to contribute to education and will become even more important in the future. Brain research is not going away; it is increasing and will continue to do so. As such, educators need better tools to deal with it. In this article, the author argues that educators desperately need new understandings, new ways to think…

Advanced technologies have made it possible for neuroscientists to make remarkable discoveries regarding how our brains learn. This research should provide new insights into the designs of learning environments. This essay is an attempt to suggest how the possibilities of neuroscience might be employed to meet contemporary educational demands,…

Gary Greenberg and Charles Lambdin's review (in the summer 2007 issue) does an excellent job of summarizing the contents of Uttal's book "Neural Theories of Mind: Why the Mind-Brain Problem May Never Be Solved" (hereafter NTM). These authors make several insightful comments about the issues raised in NTM. In this response, the author disagrees,…

Reply to comments on an article "Issues With the SIMPLE Model: Comment on Brown, Neath, and Chater" (2007) by Bennet Murdock on the current authors' original article "A temporal ratio model of memory" by Brown, Neath, and Chater. Does a single mechanism underpin serial and free recall? B. Murdock (2008) argued against the claim, embodied in the…

A critical issue for Ericsson et al.'s proposal is the development of a fully adequate description of neurophysiological substrates for deliberate practice. Ericsson et al. do provide two substantial subsections on biological substrates--namely, their subsections, "Acquisition of superior power, control, and speed of motor activities" and…

In their article, "Is the Brain a Quantum Computer,?" Litt, Eliasmith, Kroon, Weinstein, and Thagard (2006) criticize the Penrose-Hameroff "Orch OR" quantum computational model of consciousness, arguing instead for neurocomputation as an explanation for mental phenomena. Here I clarify and defend Orch OR, show how Orch OR and neurocomputation are…

In this reply, the author agrees with Eric Jensen on several important points, among them: that neuroscientific data are relevant to educational research, that these data have already proved useful, and that neuroscience alone should not be expected to generate classroom-ready prescriptions. He sharply disagrees with him, however, on the prospects…

Within America's school systems, sometime between kindergarten and secondary education, a wide variation appears among the achievement levels of different children. The learning gap between high-achieving high schoolers and dropouts is certainly no secret to educators. Huge sums of federal funds and foundation support have been injected into K-12…

Neurological research has discovered much about how the brain works, Dr. Willis writes, but educators need to be cautious when applying this research to teaching. Following a brief explanation of the three most important technological advances in brain research (Positron Emission Tomography, Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging, and Quantitative…

Ellis, Ansorge and Lavidor (2007) [Ellis, A.W., Ansorge, L., & Lavidor, M. (2007). Words, hemispheres, and dissociable subsystems: The effects of exposure duration, case alternation, priming and continuity of form on word recognition in the left and right visual fields. "Brain and Language," 103, 292-303.] presented three experiments investigating…

The terms "autonomous" or "vegetative" are currently used to identify one part of the nervous system composed of sympathetic, parasympathetic, and gastrointestinal divisions. However, the concepts that are under the literal meaning of these words can lead to misconceptions about the actual nervous organization. Some clear-cut examples indicate…

I advance the hypothesis that the earliest phases of language acquisition--the developmental transition from an initial universal state of language processing to one that is language-specific--requires social interaction. Relating human language learning to a broader set of neurobiological cases of communicative development, I argue that the…

The frustrations and experiences of a "dysmusic" individual-one who cannot sing or dance-are used to highlight questions regarding the lateral dominance, sexual predominance, and neurological factors involved in dyslexia. (CL)

So far as we know, the brain is unlike any other structure in the universe, and perhaps only the vast complexity of the universe itself presents conceptual problems equally impenetrable. While much that is useful has been learned, the working of the brain remains elusive. (MT)

What capabilities are required for an organism to evince an "explicit" understanding of gaze as a mentalistic phenomenon? One possibility is that mentalistic interpretations of gaze, like concepts of unseen, supernatural beings, are culturally-specific concepts, acquired through cultural learning. These abstract concepts may either require a…