Deep learning: interesting challenges to some cognitive theories

Campbell, Margaret

Ohlsson, S. (2011). Deep learning: How the mind overrides experience. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Summary

The review of this book called the information in it "breathtaking in scope and intellectual range." The review also says that the book is not mainstream, because it focuses on learning mechanisms that transcend prior knowledge and previous experience, instead of the typical learning theory approach that looks at using prior knowledge and past experience as guiding mechanisms for future action. Ohlsson's theory is that producing new insights, adapting, and belief changes involve revisions of prior knowledge instead of building upon it. The book is divided into sections that discuss those three cognitive changes: creativity, adaptation, and conversion.

Evaluation

The part of the review that attracted me to wanting to read this book, is where Ohlsson argues that the way our knowledge network is structure by prior knowledge and previous experience determines the way that we will initially define problems, and that the space of solutions that we will search is limited by our prior knowledge and previous experience. Our prior knowledge and previous experience will create an exploration space that is unlikely to produce satisfactory results, because an optimal solution usually does not appear in the first space that is explored. He calls it a general principle of unhelpful prior knowledge. He calls creativity an "accumulation of multiple insights" instead of a mysterious ability (p. 141). This leads to the observation that model-based reasoning often accompanies insights and innovation because it abstracts constraints from multiple sources in order to solve problems.

In addition, Ohlsson's theories delve into the idea of "deliberative" practice popularized by Malcolm Gladwell's discussion of the ten years of deliberative practice necessary to become an expert at anything. I also found Ohlsson's discussion of our ability to believe in or ascribe to competing theories without knowing it fascinating... and that by bringing competing theories to light and forcing recognition of their incompatibilities with multiple strategies, we are able to experience a conversion of thought...cognitive conflict alone is not enough to have us restructure our thinking.

There are many practical recommendations for teaching. One is that learners, especially in the sciences, would profit from well-timed and sequenced creative model-building over long periods of time