Anna Emilia Berti

Anosognosia for hemiplegia, neglect dyslexia, and drawing neglect: Clinical findings and theoretical considerations

In this paper different models of anosognosia are confronted and data concerning denial behaviors are presented that were collected on a selected population of right brain-damaged patients affected by motor and neglect disorders. Anosognosia for motor impairment and anosognosia for cognitive impairments were found to be dissociated, as well as anosognosia for the upper and lower limb motor impairments. These findings are then discussed in an attempt to choose the more suitable theoretical framework for interpreting the various disorders related to denial of illness.

Somatosensory extinction for meaningful objects in a patient with right hemispheric stroke

Implicit, high level processing of extinguished objects has often been described in the visual modality. In the tactile domain, however, research on this topic is meagre and it is still uncertain whether processing of tactually presented stimuli can be affected by the same attentional disorders as visual stimuli. In this paper we describe a patient, ENM, with visual neglect and light touch extinction who, in a naming task of objects presented in the tactile modality, simultaneously to both hands, showed extinction for left hand objects. He was, nevertheless, able to make above chance Same/Different judgements on the two stimuli. We also tested two neurologically intact subjects who performed the test wearing a ski-glove on the left hand to impair the recognition of left hand objects. In these subjects, Same/Different judgements were at chance level when recognition rate was as low as that found in patient ENM. This happened when either the objects, although sharing the same name were different in shape (conditions Same-Different) or when the two objects were different with respect to the category name but were actually physically similar (conditions Different-Similar). However, when the objects were either identical or completely different, i.e., in a condition where judgement could be based simply on the physical analysis of the object shape (condition Same Identical and Different Dissimilar), their Same/Different judgements were above chance, despite the tactual deficit. Our conclusion was that patient ENM showed implicit recognition of left hand objects, at least in the Same Different and in the Different-Similar conditions, whereas, in the same conditions, normal subjects with an artificial sensory impairment did not. Our results also show that Same/Different judgements may be, in some conditions, less demanding than naming tasks, as suggested by Farah et al. Furthermore, patient ENM performed the test both with uncrossed and crossed hands. We found that extinction always affected the hand contralateral to the brain damage, although there was a tendency for a decrement of the ipsilesional hand performance in the crossed condition. We discuss these findings with reference to the most recent theories on the existence of a body centered spatial frame of reference.

Acquiring Economic Notions: Profit.

The study examines how an economic concept changes when children undergo different kinds of experiences simulated by means of tutorial and critical training. The final sample was composed of 68 third-grade Italian children, subdivided into a control group (given only a pre and post-test interview about buying and selling) and three experimental groups which were taught, by some different training procedures, that the shopkeeper can earn a profit by selling goods at a price higher than that which he paid for them. Results showed that experimental groups progressed, but not dramatically. An analysis of childrens reactions during critical training pinpointed some difficulties that must be overcome in order to acquire the notion of profit.

Children's Conceptions About the Origin of Species: A Study of Italian Children's Conceptions With and Without Instruction

Investigations of peoples understanding of the evolution of species have focused mainly on secondary school and university students. Very few investigations have taken into consideration younger students, and none have related childrens ideas about the origin of species to formal instruction on this topic. To help fill this gap, the present study examines the effect of this instruction in elementary school children by comparing Italian second graders (n = 21; age = 7 years, 1 month, to 8 years, 7 months) with third graders (n = 18; age = 8 years, 1 month, to 9 years, 4 months) who had been taught about “the earth before humans” for several months in keeping with the Italian National Syllabus for this grade level. Semistructured interviews were used to examine childrens thoughts about speciation. The majority of second graders used a creationist framework, whereas most third graders used a mixed framework (referring to both creation and evolution) or an evolutionary framework. However, children did not know about the mechanism of evolution and considered it to be the result of the passage of time, the use and disuse of body parts, or the need to adapt to a changing environment, as suggested by their teacher and textbooks.

Italian Children’s Understanding of War: A Domain‐Specific Approach

Studies of children’s conceptions of war, which have been carried out up to now mainly by asking for a definition of war and associating it with other notions, have found few age-related changes after the age of 6. Considering the complexity of the concept, and its embeddedness in the political conceptual domain, which emerges at around 11 years, we expect that greater differences should emerge if children’s ideas on the causes and consequences of war, and the actors involved, are carefully assessed. Semi-structured interviews carried out with a total of 80 Italian children from 2nd to 8th grades confirmed this hypothesis. Many 2nd graders described war as a clash between collectives without structure, attributing all decisions about starting, the development of, and ending a war to the individual fighters and explaining these decisions (when they did) as due to emotions such as hatred, envy, revenge, or being tired or unwilling to fight any longer. Most 6th and 8th graders depicted war as a clash between nation-states, attributing decisions about its starting and ending to political authorities on the basis of political and economic reasons, and the actual fighting of battles to an organized army collaborating with, or subordinate to, political authorities. Many 2nd and 4th graders also showed a mixed pattern of answers, involving both political authorities and individual fighters, thus showing that the transition from the rudimentary backward conception to the more advanced one occurs through the piecemeal addition and deletion of concepts and beliefs.

Fifth-graders' ideas on bank functions and interest before and after a lesson on banking

AbstractForty-three 5th graders participated in all phases of the study:a)a pre-test to ascertain children’s concepts of deposits, loans, interest, etc.;b)a classroom lesson;c)a post-test two weeks after the lesson. At pre-test almost none of the children realized how banks profit through the difference between loan and deposit interest. Approximately half the children did not connect deposits and loans, believing that deposit money is locked in a safe util it is returned to its owner. By post-test most children had progressed to speaking correctly about both kinds of interest and their relative amounts. The proportion of children showing progress was significantly higher in the subgroup who at pre-test had already connected deposit and loan. Incorrect ideas at pre-test on how the bank gets the money to pay its employees (e.g. revenue received from the local council, or obtained by “the boss” doing a second job) did not prevent the children from correctly answering at post-test. Such success following short training supports the hypothesis that, at 10 or 11 years of age, while children lack factual knowledge on banking there are no major cognitive obstacles to the understanding of its functioning once banking has been explicitly explained.

Capitalism and Socialism: How 7th Graders Understand and Misunderstand the Information Presented in Their Geography Textbooks.

AbstractIn the last few years an increasing number of researchers has started to investigate children’s conceptions of the economic world. However, complex notions, such as those concerning the overall functioning of an economic system, have hardly been considered. In post-elementary schools children encounter some of these notions in history, geography or social studies. An investigation on this topic should therefore consider both children’s conceptions and misconceptions and the relevant information furnished at school.The present study examines how 7th graders understand two complex economic notions: capitalism and socialism. Two groups of children (N =40) were interviewed, one who had studied a geography textbook containing a large quantity of relevant information, the other one a more traditional book in which these notions were only touched on. The interview was about:a)the characteristics of capitalist and socialist system;b)how it is decided what to produce, and at what prices to sell goods in each of these systems. It was found that, on the whole, children’s knowledge of capitalism and socialism was rather poor. Those who had studied the look containing more information showed some advantages over the other group; however, these did not appear substantial: the children mentioned the words «market» and «plan» more often, but failed to explain what a plan is and how the market works, and their replies to the other questions were similar to those given by the second group.

Adolescents’ and Young Adults' Naïve Understandings of the Economic Crisis

Over the last decade, Financial Literacy (FL) and interventions aimed at improving it, that is Financial Education (FE), have been the focus of increased attention from economists, governments, and international organizations such as the world Bank and OECD, but much less by scholars in the fields of Learning and Instruction. We examined open-ended written answers on the causes of the economic crisis that started in 2007-2008, as given by 381 Italian secondary school and university students, and 268 Swiss Italian-speaking secondary school students. Most Italian students mentioned internal political causes (i.e., corrupt politicians or inefficiency of the government), whereas Swiss students mentioned banks more often. International factors were rarely mentioned by either group, and explanations were generally very poor, listing a few causes without making connections between them. These findings indicate the need for economics education aimed at making people more knowledgeable of the workings of the economic system and the effects of financial systems on the real economy.

Sketching a Possible Learning Progression for the Cognitive Component of Financial Education in the Broader Context of Economic Education

The teaching in schools of various topics related to the economy has been proposed for different purposes and under different titles, such as economic education (e.g. National Council for Economic Education 2010), consumer education (Benn 2004) and, more recently, financial education (INFE 2012). Designing standards and curricula and implementing intervention studies have mainly involved economists and educators, rather than educational researchers and cognitive and educational psychologists. Economic notions and competences have therefore remained on the fringe of theoretical debates and empirical research on teaching and learning of disciplines. These debates and research have been more focused on natural sciences and mathematics viewed from the perspective of naive theories, developmental sequence and learning progression. In this chapter, I illustrate these notions and show how economic concepts can be introduced into financial education. I present a summary of the literature on children’s understanding of the economic world in the absence of formal instruction. Building on this literature and some intervention studies, I propose a learning progression of economic and financial concepts during K-8 years, that is, a pathway for guiding students to ways of thinking or acting that gradually align with scientific versions, grounded in the results of developmental and instructional research.