Unconscious learning processes: mental integration of verbal and pictorial instructional materials

Abstract

This review aims to provide an insight into human learning processes by examining the role of cognitive and emotional unconscious processing in mentally integrating visual and verbal instructional materials. Reviewed literature shows that conscious mental integration does not happen all the time, nor does it necessarily result in optimal learning. Students of all ages and levels of experience cannot always have conscious awareness, control, and the intention to learn or promptly and continually organize perceptual, cognitive, and emotional processes of learning. This review suggests considering the role of unconscious learning processes to enhance the understanding of how students form or activate mental associations between verbal and pictorial information. The understanding would assist in presenting students with spatially-integrated verbal and pictorial instructional materials as a way of facilitating mental integration and improving teaching and learning performance.

Visual presentation of a medical physiology seminar modifies dental students' perception of its clinical significance

“…For example, a discussion on the regulation of the arterial pressure could include a discussion on the causes and the mechanism of orthostatic hypotension and vasovagal syncope in a dental office; blood coagulation could be discussed with regard to tooth extraction and the possibility that the patient takes oral anticoagulants; radiographic finding of maxillary brown tumours could be accentuated as a possible first sign of hyperparathyroidism, etc. Carefully designed instructional material integrating verbal and visual information can ease the construction of mental representations and facilitate conscious and unconscious knowledge acquisition (23). Thus, the results of this survey may encourage physiology lecturers of dental students to set the development of students' predictive, what-if thinking in the context of what will be expected from them in their subsequent courses and in clinical practice as one of the physiology course goals, desirably through collaboration with the lecturers of other basic, medical and dental clinical courses (24).…”

Analisis Struktur Kognitif Siswa Kelas IV Sekolah Dasar dalam Menyelesaikan Masalah Pembagian Bilangan Bulat

“…Memperhatikan pembahasan struktur kognitif siswa A dan B, peneliti menyimpulkan bahwa setiap siswa memiliki struktur dan unit kognitif yang berbeda (Kuldas, Ismail, Hashim, & Bakar, 2013). Siswa-siswa di sekolah dasar "berpotensi besar" dapat menggunakan mode pemrosesan informasi dari tipe analog, yang memungkinkan mereka untuk membangun hubungan antar situasi (Vaivre-douret, 2011).…”

Reviewing the Role of Cognitive Load, Expertise Level, Motivation, and Unconscious Processing in Working Memory Performance

“…Empirical evidence indicates that knowledge construction takes place mostly in unconscious perceptual (sensory information-processing), cognitive (e.g., associative memory networks), and emotional functions, which can later be accessible to conscious awareness (Kuldas et al, 2013). However, whether unconscious information processing is primarily an emotional, perceptual, or cognitive phenomenon is a highly controversial issue (Kihlstrom, Barnhardt, & Tataryn, 1992).…”

“…On the other hand, focusing more on conscious processing, the research has also left largely unclear the role of unconscious processing. Learning and task performance can be facilitated by unconsciously constructed and automated knowledge, referred to as unconscious learning, mostly inaccessible to conscious awareness and control (deliberate and controlled attention) and thus verbally unreportable (Kuldas et al, 2013).…”