Written memoranda of conversations, or memcons, provide a near‐contemporaneous record of what was said in conversation, and offer important insights into the activities of high‐profile individuals. We assess the impact of writing a memcon on memory for conversation. Pairs of participants engaged in conversation and were asked to recall the contents of that conversation 1 week later. One participant in each pair memorialized the content of the interaction in a memcon shortly after the conversation. Participants who generated memcons recalled more (...) details of the conversations than participants who did not, but the content of recall was equally and largely accurate for both participants. Remarkably, only 4.7% of the details of the conversation were recalled by both of the partners after a week delay. Contemporaneous note‐taking appears to enhance memory for conversation by increasing the amount of information remembered but not the accuracy of that information. These findings have implications for evaluating the testimony of participants on conversations with major political or legal ramifications. (shrink)

The present article addresses the logic of the sphere, or the Sphere Model of Consciousness developed by Patrizio Paoletti over three decades of research. M.E.D. Ed., 2002; Flussi, territori, luogo II. M.E.D. Ed., 2002; Fare il punto nave. M.E.D. Ed., 2005; In: Proceedings conference at Leslie and Susan Gonda Multidisciplinary Brain Research Center. Bar Ilan University. Faculty of Neuroscience, Israel, 2007; Osservazione—Quaderni di Pedagogia per il Terzo Millennio, Ed. 3P, 2011; Mediazione—Quaderni di Pedagogia per il Terzo Millennio, Ed. 3P, 2011). (...) The SMC model has been experimentally applied in the educational field and lies at the base of neuroscientific and psychoeducational research conducted by the Paoletti Foundation. In recent years, it has been studied by several researchers in the field of neuroscience. Following a logical-mathematical introduction regarding the properties of the spherical shape, we illustrate for the first time the structuring of the model and its neural foundations. We emphasize the central space of the sphere, defined by the geometric model and highlight its descriptive and heuristic properties in relation to the study of consciousness. Finally, we present educational applications of the model, particularly with respect to the center of the sphere, defined in the current context as the “place of pre-existence.”. (shrink)

The present article addresses the logic of the sphere, or the Sphere Model of Consciousness developed by Patrizio Paoletti over three decades of research. M.E.D. Ed., 2002; Flussi, territori, luogo II. M.E.D. Ed., 2002; Fare il punto nave. M.E.D. Ed., 2005; In: Proceedings conference at Leslie and Susan Gonda Multidisciplinary Brain Research Center. Bar Ilan University. Faculty of Neuroscience, Israel, 2007; Osservazione—Quaderni di Pedagogia per il Terzo Millennio, Ed. 3P, 2011; Mediazione—Quaderni di Pedagogia per il Terzo Millennio, Ed. 3P, 2011). (...) The SMC model has been experimentally applied in the educational field and lies at the base of neuroscientific and psychoeducational research conducted by the Paoletti Foundation. In recent years, it has been studied by several researchers in the field of neuroscience. Following a logical-mathematical introduction regarding the properties of the spherical shape, we illustrate for the first time the structuring of the model and its neural foundations. We emphasize the central space of the sphere, defined by the geometric model and highlight its descriptive and heuristic properties in relation to the study of consciousness. Finally, we present educational applications of the model, particularly with respect to the center of the sphere, defined in the current context as the “place of pre-existence.”. (shrink)

We investigated the effect of distributed practice and more specifically the “lag effect” concerning the retention of mathematical procedures. The lag effect implies that longer retention intervals benefit from longer inter-study intervals (ISIs). University students ( N = 235) first learned how to solve permutation tasks and then practiced this procedure with an ISI of zero (i.e., massed), one, or 11 days. The final test took place after one or five weeks. All conditions were manipulated between-subjects. Contrary to our expectations, (...) the analyses revealed no effect of distributed practice and therewith also no lag effect, even though the sample size was sufficiently large. The only significant effect was that test performance was poorer after 5 weeks than after 1 week. In view of the present results and those of other studies, we assume that distributed practice works differently for declarative and procedural knowledge, with less robust of even absent effects when procedural skills are practiced with ISIs compared to massed practice. (shrink)