We fancy ourselves living in a new age—the Information Age—populated by knowledge workers and world wide webs of data. For nature’s living creations, however, every age has been, and always will be, the Information Age.

Take an advanced predator like my cat, Gracie, a beautiful Russian Blue. She is the product of billions of years of natural selection plus a few thousand years of  artificial selection.

Despite the finishing s  school patina, she’s  still a full-blown  predator. If I am slow to  feed her, she disconcertingly chases after mice and birds. As time unfolds for her, and if she’s clever enough to avoid the neighborhood coyotes, she’ll prosper and successfully replicate her genes. She has one critical need in fulfilling that destiny though—she needs information to accomplish those ends and, like all living things, she bristles with the sensors to acquire it. (note: In this discussion, senses and sensors are the means to gather information about the world. In my parlance, senses are what make all animals informavores.)

Looking at the sensory apparatus on this cat it’s easy to see that her prey is up against a truly terrifying and well equipped informavore. Her eyes become enormous, full-aperture lenses for prowling the night, narrow slits for navigating the day. Leaving the back of each eye, the optic nerve is composed of roughly one million fibers that carry a torrent of data to her cortex for processing the most salient of her many discoveries into long term memory, and patterns for future recognition. Visual processing is carried out in over 50 discrete brain modules. Some modules process vertical lines, some diagonals. Other detect three dimensions and yet others analyze motion. The information processed by this modular array is then integrated into a holistic view of the entire scene. Invariant patterns that represent learned reality are stored for real-time comparison to the data constantly streaming in. For example, an integrated and invariant pattern that is small, furry, and scurries away is something to chase. Large, furry, barking, with fangs is something to run from. Two legs with bag of chow is something to rub against while purring.

Her ears rotate 180 degrees and home in on the slightest disturbance. Auditory signals are also sent to discrete areas of cortex that process information in ways that are remarkably similar to vision—in a hierarchy of specialized regions and modules.

She has a nose that distinguishes the faint molecules left behind by potential victims and competitors both. As in all mammals,  the neurons of smell are the only ones that are exposed directly to the air. Her nasal area contains about 100 million of them hooked up to chemical receptors that selectively bind to the aromas of the living environment. She can distinguish thousands of chemicals and her brain gives each one context and meaning derived from genetic hard wiring and from experience—rabbit, Doberman, mouse, the nasty tom-cat next door.

Each of Gracie’s whiskers is hooked up to a discrete part of the brain that develops it’s own representation of the physical world in front of her. Even in pitch black, she can operate using a mental map of the terrain—a map composed solely of whisker data and further integrated into the larger map of vision, sound, smell, and touch.

The remarkable feline brain has been programmed by roughly 30 million years of evolution into that of a dogged information gatherer and pattern recognizer. What this little cat accomplishes every day is really knowledge mastery. The vast array of information that she integrates daily gives her a perfect map of the property she inhabits and controls—a confident and correct sense of who is friend, foe, or food. And she updates her knowledge whenever doubt creeps in. The famous curiosity of cats is really that updating process made plain. Move a chair or rearrange the garden and she immediately realizes the map in her head is not the same as the data now streaming in for comparison. This, in fact, may be the biological source of doubt in all mammals including the human kind. Perhaps doubt occurs when sensory information about the terrain, an idea, a face, or a melody is working it’s way up the brain’s hierarchy but does not correspond with the long term patterns already stored there and being streamed back down the hierarchy. Perhaps it is this conflict that produces the feeling of doubt. At the moment, no one really knows.

For our cat, she quickly sets about exploring the altered landscape and recreating a new map that is confidently navigable for pursuing prey or escaping predators. Doubt is banished. Mastery is attained. It’s a matter of life and death for her. Knowledge is vital and she is unremitting in its accurate acquisition. She strives to master knowledge because it vastly improves the chances of mastering her fate.

Last time we talked about research linking confidence and knowledge and the recent breakthroughs in neurological research that have proven how the brain forms long term memory. In this blog, we will discuss the work of Dr. James Bruno, a clinical psychologist at UCLA who built on this growing body of research to better understand the linkage between confidence and correctness of knowledge and behavior. Dr. Bruno’s research demonstrated that:

• Individuals that have confidence in correct knowledge will act in a productive fashion
• Individuals that have confidence in incorrect knowledge will also take action, but those actions will be negative, and possibly dangerous

Dr. Bruno developed the Information Reference Testing (IRT) measurement methodology to assess this two-dimensional knowledge quality (confidence and correctness). That IRT process, where a single response measures to factors simultaneously, is a key component of Knowledge Factor’s patent that serves as the foundation for CBL.

Dr. Bruno used IRT with juvenile offenders in the Los Angeles County Corrections System, and observed that these learners achieved academic success, whereas that had not been the case in the traditional academic system. In addition, these learners enjoyed the game-like simplicity of the IRT process.

In traditional assessments, learners must select an answer, even if they are not sure. Therefore, if a learner is not confident in their knowledge, they are forced to guess. In addition, as a result of ‘forced guessing’ learners will get credit for knowledge that they truly do not possess. Because CBL seamlessly integrates both assessment and learning, learners are allowed to state that they do not know the answer, and can then learn and ‘fill’ any knowledge gaps.

In summary, Knowledge Factor’s Confidence Based Learning methodology and technology was developed based on decades of research in brain science and cognition. CBL simultaneously measures both confidence and correctness of knowledge, and results in increased length of knowledge retention, greater willingness to take action on that knowledge, provides personalized learning for each learner, and identifies the four Shades of Knowledge so that users and organizations can identify confidently held incorrect knowledge and move those learners to a confidence and correct state.

So…why does Knowledge Factor base it’s software platform on a Confidence Based Learning (CBL) that measures both confidence and correctness of knowledge? What value does measuring confidence provide?

The short answer is that decades worth of brain science and cognition research demonstrated that validation of both confidence and correctness of knowledge results the following benefits on behalf of the learner:

• Increased length of knowledge retention
• Greater willingness to take action on that knowledge

An added benefit is that measuring both confidence and correctness of knowledge is that Knowledge Factor alone allows users and organizations to identify learner knowledge that is held with confidence but is incorrect (misinformation) and move learner knowledge to a state of confident and correct (mastery).

The longer answer requires us to review in more detail the research that served as the foundation for the development of the Confidence Based Learning methodology and technology. On the cognitive side, research by the following individuals demonstrated the importance of assessing both confidence and correctness:

Dr. Darwin Hunt (New Mexico State University), U.S. Nay

• Used two-step approach in assessments:  (1) Answer the question, and (2) State how confident the learner is in that answer.
• Found that retention was increased as a result of this two-step approach

Dr. Dieudonne LeClerq (University of Liege), NATO

• Demonstrated the importance of validating both confidence and correctness, which is intrinsic to understanding knowledge quality

Dr. Emir Shuford (UCLA), the RAND Corporation

• Developed an algorithm to quantify the degree of certainty of knowledge

On the brain research side, Dr. Eric Kandel (Columbia University) and his team studied the physiological differences between short-term and long-term memory. They determined that long-term memory was associated with new protein synthesis in the brain that creates a ‘strengthening’ of the synaptic junction. There is no such strengthening associated with short-term memory; rather, short-term memory is associated with electro-chemical changes at the synaptic junction that are ephemeral. Dr. Kandel won a Nobel Prize in 2000 for this research.

Next time we’ll discuss how a clinical psychologist names Dr. James Bruno put all these findings to work and formulated a mechanism that combines confidence and correctness to purposefully trigger the brain to store learning content into long term memory.

Here’s a clever romp by Terry Bisson who might be telling us that while our brains are extraordinarily capable of generating our humanity, they are still products of the natural world. Here are two alien visitors from a robot civilization trying to make sense of organic life forms…

 ”They’re made out of meat.” 

 ”Meat?” 

 ”Meat. They’re made out of meat.” 

 ”Meat?” 

 ”There’s no doubt about it. We picked up several from different parts of the planet, took them aboard our recon vessels, and probed them all the way through. They’re completely meat.” 

 ”That’s impossible. What about the radio signals? The messages to the stars?” 

 ”They use the radio waves to talk, but the signals don’t come from them. The signals come from machines.” 

 ”So who made the machines? That’s who we want to contact.” 

 ”They made the machines. That’s what I’m trying to tell you. Meat made the machines.” 

 ”That’s ridiculous. How can meat make a machine? You’re asking me to believe in sentient meat.” 

 ”I’m not asking you, I’m telling you. These creatures are the only sentient race in that sector and they’re made out of meat.” 

 ”Maybe they’re like the orfolei. You know, a carbon-based intelligence that goes through a meat stage.” 

“Nope. They’re born meat and they die meat. We studied them for several of their life spans, which didn’t take long. Do you have any idea what’s the life span of meat?” 

“Spare me. Okay, maybe they’re only part meat. You know, like the weddilei. A meat head with an electron plasma brain inside.” 

“Nope. We thought of that, since they do have meat heads, like the weddilei. But I told you, we probed them. They’re meat all the way through.”    

“No brain?” 

“Oh, there’s a brain all right. It’s just that the brain is made out of meat! That’s what I’ve been trying to tell you.” 

“So … what does the thinking?” 

 ”You’re not understanding, are you? You’re refusing to deal with what I’m telling you. The brain does the thinking. The meat.” 

“Thinking meat! You’re asking me to believe in thinking meat!” 

“Yes, thinking meat! Conscious meat! Loving meat. Dreaming meat. The meat is the whole deal! Are you beginning to get the picture or do I have to start all over?” 

“Omigod. You’re serious then. They’re made out of meat.” 

“Thank you. Finally. Yes. They are indeed made out of meat. And they’ve been trying to get in touch with us for almost a hundred of their years.” 

“Omigod. So what does this meat have in mind?” 

“First it wants to talk to us. Then I imagine it wants to explore the Universe, contact other sentiences, swap ideas and information. The usual.”

Hello all!

Last time we discussed the notion of two separate mental functions that distinguish actual knowledge from the feeling of knowledge. Here are some real life examples that highlight my point:

1. A man who owned a beloved antique desk suffered a head injury. From that day forward, he could only recognize his desk as a perfect replica but not as the actual one he had cherished for years. When asked why he thought it wasn’t his desk, he could only reply that, while it clearly looked exactly like his old desk,  it just didn’t “feel” like it and therefore was most certainly not. The point this poor man makes for us is that the detailed “knowledge” of his desk and the “feeling” of his desk apparently emerge from two distinct mental processes. In this case, the feeling about the desk has been destroyed with the brain injury. The facts of the physical object can’t make up for that deficit. Normally fact and feeling are glued together (this looks like my desk AND it feels like my desk) but damage to one part of the brain can decouple them. 
2. Whenever she leaves the house, a woman with obsessive-compulsive disorder can’t shake the feeling that she has left the stove on. She may go back and check ten times but the fact that it’s always off does not override the feeling that it might somehow still be on. She doesn’t have amnesia and knows full well she checked the stove moments before. Whatever generates certainty in normal brains is failing to generate enough of it in hers.  
3. Schizophrenics can experience vivid hallucinations that correspond to reality not a wit. The certainty of their delusions is a striking component of the illness and no amount of reasoned explanation, no appeal to factual truth, no photographic evidence to the contrary can shake their confidence that they are actually seeing and hearing what they claim. All this is generated by integrated cells and signals in a brain.
4. Deja vu is an eerie feeling that most everyone has experienced on occasion. We have the sensation that what is happening right now feels like it has happened before. But think about memory for a moment. Memory is a physical construct of neurons stored in a pattern.  We can access that pattern at will and recognize it as a memory because it “feels” like a memory.  Deja vu occurs when the brain is busy processing a real-time experience but it makes the small error of sending the “feeling” that it’s already a stored memory. When deja vu strikes, memory storing feels like memory retrieval. 
5. On the day the space shuttle Challenger blew up, a psychology professor asked his students to write down their exact location when they heard the sad news. A few years passed and he got the students together again to review the accuracy of their memories. About half recalled their location incorrectly by a long shot. One student was certain he was in a bar when, in fact, the shuttle blew up in the morning. So intense were their “feelings of knowing,” that many were convinced they must have erred when they wrote down their locations on the day of the disaster. 

As this example nicely shows, neurologists have discovered that accessing a stored memory tends to degrade the fidelity of that memory. Intuitively, we hope for the exact opposite — that thinking about something makes the memory stronger and more accurate. Unfortunately, the reality appears to be that thinking about facts and events increases the feeling of knowing but reduces the accuracy of the knowledge.

This is either amusing or disconcerting, depending on your point of view, and it appears we are all in the same boat — facts and the feeling of knowing them are separate processes, weird as that seems.  Such is life.

As many of KF’s customers have pleasantly discovered people are learning faster, attaining mastery, and remembering longer when they use confidence-based learning (CBL).  And, they are exhibiting far less doubt, ignorance and misinformation. Since learning happens in the brain, it follows that, somehow, CBL has tapped into fundamental structures and mental processes that operate there.

My personal interest in minds and brains leads me to conclude that to understand these fundamental structures, we have to answer some fundamental questions about the workings of the human brain (to the extent that’s possible):

• How much of human behavior is learned by a flexible and plastic brain?
• How much is hard-wired by DNA’s genetic blueprint for building brains?
• Can learning and culture change those tendencies and how much wiggle room do we have?
• How does the brain generate the distinctions between certainty, doubt, and ignorance?
• Where in the brain does the feeling of knowing something actually arise? 

That last question suggests that knowledge itself and the feeling of knowing it can become unaligned because they might be created by separate mental operations. That is to say, you can know something with utmost certainty yet be utterly wrong. This concept is best expressed in Robert Burton’s, “On Being Certain.” 

The notion of two separate mental functions that distinguishes actual knowledge from the feeling of knowledge contains real-world consequences since people base day-to-day activities on their level of confidence. They eat, vote, love, hate, work, and play based on information that is coupled with their certainty, doubt, or ignorance — the feelings with which people naturally describe their confidence levels. It is those shades of feeling about knowledge that lead to action, or not. They can also lead to hesitation or paralysis.

In my next blog, we will pursue this idea through some real-life empirical examples where a problem in a human brain is creating havoc for it’s owner tells  and giving us a glimpse into how normal brains operate.