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Positive Learning in the Age of Information pp 127–144Cite as

Knowledge Representation and Cognitive Skills in Problem Solving

A View from Linguistic Typology

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Abstract

This paper offers a programmatic view on the study of cross-linguistic variation and its effects on human cognitive skills. Based on Linguistic Typology and its methodology to account for cross-linguistic differences (section 2), it will show how the presence or absence of certain grammatical categories enhances or inhibits specific skills in the domain of quantification (section 3). In its main part (section 4), it will show how to describe structural differences between the source and the target language in translation and how to find out if these differences affect the performance of students in knowledge assessment tests. For that purpose, it will compare the English and the Japanese versions of the US Test of Understanding in College Economics (TUCE). The paper will end in a short discussion on interdisciplinary cooperation for detecting the linguistic signal in data that are influenced by a multitude of different factors (section 5).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz, Mainz, Germany

    Walter Bisang

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  1. Walter Bisang
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Correspondence to Walter Bisang .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Lehrstuhl für Wirtschaftspädagogik, Johannes Gutenberg-University Mainz, Mainz, Rheinland-Pfalz, Germany

    Olga Zlatkin-Troitschanskaia

  2. Goethe-University, Frankfurt am Main, Germany

    Gabriel Wittum

  3. German Research Center for Artificial Intelligence, Kaiserslautern, Germany

    Andreas Dengel

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Bisang, W. (2018). Knowledge Representation and Cognitive Skills in Problem Solving. In: Zlatkin-Troitschanskaia, O., Wittum, G., Dengel, A. (eds) Positive Learning in the Age of Information. Springer VS, Wiesbaden. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-658-19567-0_9

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-658-19567-0_9

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