Recently, connectionism and metacognition are the emerging theories about thinking. Connectionism assumes that thinking takes place through the interactions of a large number of highly interconnected information processing units which take on action v...
Recently, connectionism and metacognition are the emerging theories about thinking. Connectionism assumes that thinking takes place through the interactions of a large number of highly interconnected information processing units which take on action values, each sending excitatory and inhibitory signals to other units, and there is no executive or overseer in thinking. But metacognition assumes that the executive regulating the congnitive processing is in thinking, and thinking is monitored by the executive. This problem of existence of the executive is concerned with domain specific knowledge or domain free knowledge in thinking process. It is difficult to solve this problem.
The contents of these two theories are likely to account for thinking process complementarily rather than contradictorily, as connectionism describes the existence and operation of thinking and metacognition describes searching process in problem solving. According to these theories, to enhance the ability of thinking and learning effectively through CAI, CAI program needs to be consisted of two parts, elaborated and organized information and application of these information, and needs to be unfolded by learner's controll.