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Bridging Cognitive, Affective, and Social Neuroscience with Education

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Psychiatry and Neuroscience Update

Abstract

In the last 10 years, there has been a growing interest in applying knowledge about the functioning of the human brain to the field of education including reading, writing, and mathematics. On the other hand, recent advances in neuroscience highlight connections between emotion, social functioning, and decision-making. In particular, the neurobiological evidence suggests that social skills, decision-making abilities, and some aspects of cognition related to self-regulated learning, such as executive functions, are deeply affected and subsumed within the processes of emotion. There are, however, different positions, which we will try to summarize, about how to bridge neuroscientific data and theory with educational practices and strategies in the classroom. Indeed, there is an important gap between the inner workings of the brain – which is the level of neuroscience, where various aspects of biology, physiology, and chemistry are concerned with the structure, organization, and development of the brain as a physical organism – and the practical application of knowledge about human behavior to promote effective teaching and learning, which is the field of education. Finally, we will present some results of our research on the effect of executive functions and IQ on mathematical skills such as number production, mental calculus, and arithmetical problems. We will present also results on the role of executive functions on written composition, as well as how the problems in affective developmental affect cognitive and school performance.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Interdisciplinary Centre for Research in Mathematical and Experimental Psychology, Austral University, National Council of Scientific and Technical Research, Buenos Aires, Argentina

    María Cristina Richaud, Vanessa Arán Filippetti & Belén Mesurado

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  1. María Cristina Richaud
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  2. Vanessa Arán Filippetti
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  3. Belén Mesurado
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Correspondence to María Cristina Richaud .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Cathedra of Psychopathology, Catholic University of Argentina, Mendoza, Argentina

    Pascual Ángel Gargiulo

  2. Laboratory of Neurosciences and Experimental Psychology, Area of Pharmacology, Department of Pathology, National University of Cuyo, Council of Scientific and Technological Research (CONICET), Mendoza, Argentina

    Humberto Luis Mesones Arroyo

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Richaud, M.C., Filippetti, V.A., Mesurado, B. (2019). Bridging Cognitive, Affective, and Social Neuroscience with Education. In: Gargiulo, P., Mesones Arroyo, H. (eds) Psychiatry and Neuroscience Update . Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-95360-1_23

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