This paper comments on the article by Plaut and Booth. Plaut and Booth's first simulation shows that there is essentially perfect discrimination between word and nonwords sharing the same orthographic structure when the simulation is carried out in the way we suggested. We take the view that Plaut and Booth's new simulation work settles little…

We argue that computation via quantum mechanical processes is irrelevant to explaining how brains produce thought, contrary to the ongoing speculations of many theorists. First, quantum effects do not have the temporal properties required for neural information processing. Second, there are substantial physical obstacles to any organic…

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 article, the author argues that there is a big conceptual difference between number lines and number strips and that number lines should be consistently used as early as Y1. Her interest in the use of the number line as a powerful image of the real numbers, and how this is introduced in the early years, comes from her own experience as a…

This article reports on the English National Numeracy Strategy (NNS) and, in particular, on the way in which children aged from 8- to 11-years-old view "interactive whole class teaching". A qualitative, grounded study of both teachers' and children's perceptions of interactive teaching was undertaken, making use of "video stimulated…

Reacts to an article published in a previous issue of this journal on the effects of graphing calculators and computer algebra systems (CAS) on students' manual calculation and algebraic manipulation skills. Considers the contribution made by Jean-Baptiste Lagrange to thinking about the role of CAS in teaching algebra. (ASK)