ERIC Number: ED277564
Record Type: Non-Journal
Publication Date: 1986-Dec
Pages: 51
Abstractor: N/A
ISBN: N/A
ISSN: N/A
EISSN: N/A
Learning Physical Domains: Toward a Theoretical Framework.
Forbus, Kenneth D.; Gentner, Dedre
People use and extend their knowledge of the physical world constantly. Understanding how this fluency is achieved would be an important milestone in understanding human learning and intelligence, as well as a useful guide for constructing machines that learn. This paper presents a theoretical framework that is being developed in an attempt to construct a computational account of human experiential learning in physical domains. Qualitative process theory is used to model portions of physical knowledge, and structure-mapping theory is used to characterize the computations that move a learner from one representation to another. This document outlines both theories and proposes a learning sequence for the physical domains. The stages of understanding which comprise the sequence are: (1) protohistories (prototype histories that serve as summaries of experience); (2) the causal corpus (a collection of causal statements computed from prototype objects and protohistories); (3) naive physics (models which replace causal statements with theories about specific mechanisms of change); and (4) expert models (discovering ways to resolve ambiguities and to construct powerful generalizations). A seven-page reference list is included. (TW)
Descriptors: Artificial Intelligence, Computer Uses in Education, Concept Formation, Elementary School Science, Elementary Secondary Education, Experiential Learning, Generalization, Learning Processes, Learning Strategies, Learning Theories, Models, Physical Sciences, Prior Learning, Science Education, Science Instruction, Secondary School Science
Publication Type: Reports - Descriptive
Education Level: N/A
Audience: Practitioners
Language: English
Sponsor: Office of Naval Research, Arlington, VA. Personnel and Training Research Programs Office.
Authoring Institution: Illinois Univ., Urbana. Dept. of Computer Science.
Grant or Contract Numbers: N/A