EDUCATION, LEARNING AND THE MIND: COGNITIVE

NEUROEDUCATION (CNE)

The Framing Document for the Presentation “English as Therapy” Delivered September 27 to

the 2015 NeuroELT Brain Days International Conference, Kyoto, Japan

CNE COGNITIVE NEUROEDUCATION

English as Therapy The neuroscience of learning and the role of language in

cognition – neuroscience in the classroom: The power of English as a medium for learning and cognitive development

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A Presentation to the 2015 NeuroELT Brain Days

International Conference

Kyoto, Japan

September 27

by Dr. Spencer M. Robinson

Chief Executive Officer

Center for Applied Social Neuroscience (CASN)

Fukui, Japan

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INTRODUCTION This presentation introduces CNE (Cognitive Neuroeducation), a new, noninvasive, nonpharmacological modality for intervention in cognitive and behavioral disorder with the promise of full recovery therefrom.

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As will be demonstrated in this presentation, cognition, behavior and learning may be understood as essentially interdependent terms referring to the basic interlocked mechanisms of the human social brain, and therefore CNE may be defined as a program for optimizing positive learning outcomes that enhance cognition in the formation of well-attuned, socially integrated, self-actualizing and confident, independent behavior.

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CNE is unique in that it is the only modality in the fields of learning and mental health that is strictly tied to how the brain actually works within a tightly constructed, exhaustively comprehensive model of the mind as formed exclusively from rigorous evidence-based analysis.

To explain CNE, its theories and principles, it is first necessary to outline a model of human behavior based on the evolution of the human brain and the unique relationship between the human brain and human behavior in comparison with behavioral formation in all other taxa. To explore this relationship we begin by introducing some initial definitions.

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Some Initial Definitions: • The term “human” will be used herein to refer

exclusively to the anatomically modern human (AMH), identified by the trinomial Homo sapiens sapiens, constituting the genus, species, and subspecies of the taxon.

• Taxon = A single designated type of organism that constitutes a distinctive identity within the system of organism classification, such as Homo sapiens sapiens. The plural of taxon is taxa.

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• Trinomial = The identification of an organism by designated genus + species + subspecies.

• Binomial = The identification of an organism by designated genus + species.

• Genotype = The genetic makeup (as distinguished from physical appearance) of an organism encoded by the combination of alleles on individual chromosomes, a particular combination determining a specific trait.

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• Allele = One member of a pair (or any of the series) of genes occupying a specific spot on a chromosome (called locus) that controls the same trait.

• Phenotype = The composite of an organism's observable characteristics or traits, such as its morphology, development, biochemical or physiological properties, phenology, behavior, and products of behavior – the physical and behavioral expression of an organism’s genetic makeup dependent upon which genes are dominant and on the interaction between genes and environment.

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• Phenology = The response to the relationship between season and climate in the cycles of plant and animal life such as flowering, breeding, migration, etc.

• Operant behavior, as defined herein, refers to human voluntary, incidentally learned, internally driven behavioral reactions as opposed to involuntary, externally coerced and purposefully manipulated conditioned responses, and thus as used herein does not exactly align with the meaning of “operant” as used in the Skinnerian concept of “operant conditioning.” Unless otherwise indicated, all references to human behavior herein pertain exclusively to operant behavior. 10

• Phylogeny = the evolutionary branching process by which organisms evolve through differentiation into groups of immediate and more distant relationships, each group distinguished by a unique combination of morphological and behavioral features.

• Clade = a distinct phylogenetic branch, from living or most recent genus or genera back through a clear, direct lineage to the single, earliest ancestral binomial form – a taxonomic group of organisms classified together on the basis of homologous features traced to a common ancestor.

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• The human clade, as defined herein, constitutes the subtribe Hominina, consisting of the single genus of Homo, whose ancestral forms have been purported to include H. habilis, H. rudolfensis, H. ergaster, H. erectus, H. heidelbergensis, H. neanderthalensis, archaic H. sapiens and H. sapiens idaltu, to name some of the more prominent fossil discoveries. A number of fossil genera in the subtribe of Australopithecina have been suggested to be ancestral to the human clade, such as Australopithecus, Paranthropus, Ardipithecus, Sahelanthopus, Orrorin, and Kenyanthropus, but there is no definitive argument on the classification of many of the fossil forms and the composition of the human clade. Homo sapiens sapiens is the single extant member of the subtribe Hominina.

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The tribe Hominini consists of the three subtribes of 1) Hominina, consisting of the single genus Homo; 2) Panina, consisting of the single genus Pan; and 3) Australopithecina, which consists of several extinct genera.

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Genera

Subtribe Hominina •Homo Subtribe Panina •Pan Subtribe Australopithecina •† Paranthropus •† Australopithecus •† Sahelanthropus •† Orrorin •† Ardipithecus •† Kenyanthropus

Scientific Classification

Kingdom: Animalia

Phylum: Chordata

Class: Mammalia

Order: Primates

Suborder: Haplorhini

Family: Hominidae

Subfamily: Homininae

Tribe: Hominini

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Subfamily HOMININAE

Tribe HOMININI GORILLINI

Subtribe Hominina Panina Australopithecina

Genus Homo Pan* Paranthropus Gorilla

Australopithecus

Sahelanthropus

Orrorin

Ardipithecus

Kenyanthropus

*Consisting of two species of chimpanzee

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The Social Brain: A Unique Evolutionary Development of the

Anatomically Modern Human (AMH)

• Many animal forms share some common characteristics, and taxa grouped in the same superfamily, family, subfamily, tribe, and genus, respectively, share closer and closer characteristics. What is critical in understanding human behavior in the achievement of balanced and optimum functioning within the unique conditions of human life, is to clearly define the essence as opposed to the details of that uniqueness. Bearing in mind that many taxa share many basic characteristics, the quality and degree of different properties varies dramatically across taxa, forming quite different modes by which distinct taxa interact with their respective environments.

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• While many taxa are behaviorally oriented toward a community or social structure, with biologically hardwired, preprogrammed role-specific differentiation such as in ant and wasp colonies and bee hives, or by a general rudimentary cognitive tendency toward forming small social hierarchical groups, such as in chimpanzee or gorilla groups, only one taxon has evolved a unique social brain inherently biologically encoded in the self-construction of the cognitive configuration and interpretation of self and individual experience within the framework of defined social roles and the construction of complex layers of social organization. That taxon is Homo sapiens sapiens, distinguished from all other taxa by its unique social brain.

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Evolutionary Path of Social Brain: From Fixed Action Patterns to Pseudo-Fixed Action

Patterns and Learned Response

• H. sapiens sapiens (AMH), distinct from all other extant animal taxa, is not biologically preprogrammed for specialized physiological and behavioral adaptation to a discrete habitat.

• Other taxa vs. AMH: Fixed action patterns (also known as innate releasing mechanisms or modal action patterns, and commonly referred to as “instincts”) vs. AMH pseudo-fixed action patterns and learned responses through socialization, reasoning, curiosity, creativity and invention.

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Pseudo-Fixed Action Patterns • Acute stress response (fight-or-flight

response), attachment/bonding response, mating response, tend-and-befriend response, etc.

• Central mechanism of basic behavioral propensities = affective properties embedded within pseudo-fixed action patterns; e.g., fear, anger, rage, hate and violence in the acute stress response; love, compassion, empathy, concern, and selfless, protective loyalty in the attachment/bonding response and the tend-and befriend response, etc.

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Learned vs. Preprogrammed Behavior • Unlike hardwired automated mechanisms of

fixed action patterns, human pseudo-fixed action patterns may be overridden by learning/experience and are mediated by individual genotype and phenotype and affective profile.

• While the predisposition of affect is an innate biological determinant of human behavior, the individual capacity for, and/or particular nature of, affective reaction is mediated by genotype and phenotype to the extent that each individual possesses a unique basic affective profile.

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• As well as an inextricable component of experience [i.e. the perception of ideas/images associated with the particular objectifications (concrete or abstract) of discrete types or classifications of external stimuli], individual affective reaction is highly malleable, and is modified or learned through experience.

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• Because, normatively, all human reaction to external stimuli contains an affective component to greater or lesser degree (no matter how subtle), in the context of operant behavior the affective aspect of experience may place a positive or negative cast on any experience, and in highly emotive reactions, can completely override rational constructions of cause-and-effect relationships or logical connections in the learning process. Affective state plays a pivotal role in shaping how and what we learn, and, consequently, how we understand our world and react to it.

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• The pseudo-fixed action pattern of curiosity, or inquisitiveness, is the driving force of exploration, imagination, discovery and invention necessary for adaptation to different habitats by obtaining knowledge about, and making innovative use of, natural resources in the manipulation of the environment to meet basic human needs.

• Because we are not physically fine-tuned to any particular habitat, we have to manipulate our environment to maintain our lives. By creatively transforming natural resources into shelter, clothing and tools for hunting, fishing, food gathering and food preparation and for defense against predators and foes, we are able to sustain ourselves in any livable habitat.

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• Curiosity, or inquisitiveness, as a vehicle of adaptation, is consequently the major vehicle of learning. Curiosity, or inquisitiveness, an innate, essential and powerful motivator of human behavior, may be seen as a major driving force in all normative, operant human behavior.

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• Through curiosity and imagination, this innate behavioral orientation toward discovery and adaptation has enabled humans to survive in a variety of habitats without being restricted to any single narrowly defined habitat or ecosystem, and, with the capacity to learn an endless variety of adaptive strategies, has enabled humans – by exploitation of all available resources and the flexibility to adjust to environmental changes – to successfully compete with animals that though much more biologically attuned to any specific habitat, are nevertheless restricted to rigidly fixed adaptations and thereby are highly vulnerable to environmental change.

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• Evolution is driven by the survival of the species, and in human evolution particular propensities and capacities in the biological makeup of the individual through the diversity of genotype and phenotype are essential for evolutionary survival in the maintenance of the widest possible range of adaptive strategies and the most heterogeneous gene pool for the greatest effective evolutionary selection.

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• Through a highly diverse gene pool, the human phenotype extends over a vast range of potential individual behavioral and affective profiles.

• Individual propensities uniquely mediate the way in which an individual responds to either basic needs or external stimuli, so that, while all humans share basic biologically innate predispositions of both perception and action, each individual possesses a distinct genotype and phenotype that uniquely shapes intricate characteristic “styles” or “flavors” of perception and action.

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• Different propensities for behavior and different experiences lead to different individual interests, aptitudes and orientations and attractions in life, which lead to divisions of labor, skill specialization and role playing in a group structure constituting the foundations of society.

• Insufficiently equipped to compete with other animal taxa for survival on an individual basis, humans evolved to rely on the competitive edge of cooperative behavior in groups.

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Cooperation: The Key to Human Survival

• By cooperative behavior facilitated by language (particularly verbal communication), which led to both higher-order reasoning and tool-making flexibility to manipulate their environment, humans were able to out-strategize, out-plan, out-maneuver, and simply out-think their taxonomic rivals for survival.

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• Human groups also competed with each other for survival in a particular habitat or region, so that social cohesiveness, role and skill diversification and skill expertise within a group leading to more specialized supportive social structures became the keys to group survival that pushed evolutionary determinants toward the human tendency for more sophisticated, intricate and complex social organization.

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• So-called “morality” evolved as a condition of group survivability.

• Such so-called human “virtues” as courage, love, compassion, forgiveness, charity, mercy, consideration, honesty, honor, selflessness, steadfastness, loyalty, self-sacrifice, etc., are not simply moral codes of religious convictions or social ideals, but, like reason and rationality, are natural tendencies embedded within the pseudo-fixed action patterns and cognitive constructions of the human social brain that are designed to solidify group cohesiveness and effectiveness in maximization of the competiveness of a group – the greater these qualities among its members the stronger the group; conversely, the degree to which they are lacking among the members of a group (be it a mating pair, a family, a band, etc.), the less a group is able to work together effectively and benefit from the interrelationships of its members.

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• For basic survival,

1) learning became the central operating principle of the human social brain;

2) curiosity or inquisitiveness in response to novelty became the driving force of learning,

3) logic and reason became the principal method of understanding,

4) and affective state became the mechanism arbitrating the balance between understanding and action.

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Formation of the Human Social Brain

• The advantages of cooperative behavior could only be effectively realized through the development of the community structure.

• Human evolution became increasingly orientated toward social behavior and the social brain through which the neurophysiology of an acute social consciousness began to emerge.

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Behavioral Precepts of the Social Brain The social brain developed as a neurophysiological system driving a behavioral tendency toward the construction and maintenance of community structures consisting of complex, intricate social interactions within multilayered strata of differentially organized social formations, each defined by specific rules of conduct, constructs of meaning and prevailing frames of reference in entities evolving from such units as family, dyad, group, and to such constructions as tribes, ethnicities, religions and cultures and the development of superstructures such as city, state, nation, and civilization.

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Human Experience as Social Phenomena

Since the social brain, and therefore, the mind (the mind herein defined as a quality or abstraction derived from the sum total of the effects of the interlocking mechanisms within the brain) is organized in terms of patterned conceptualizations of social formations, it follows then, that all experience of the world, and, consequently, all learning, is interpreted, shaped, and internalized through an overarching social framework.

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Learning: The Central Operating Principle of the

Social Brain

• Since all learning is acquired through experience, that is, by information from the world around us incidentally gathered through the unfolding of life in a society, and through the experience of learning a subject or trade intentionally studied as a selective response to one’s unique phenotype and the options of one’s circumstances, we may define learning as experience and experience as learning.

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• Experience is defined herein as the process of the differential recognition and registration of all sensory or extrasensory stimuli – that which one sees, hears, feels, smells, tastes or thinks about, consciously or subliminally (e.g., dreams).

• Since we are not prewired for explicit behavior in a fixed habitat, but rather learn complex rules of behavior adaptable to any livable habitat and the myriad social contexts that may be formed in response to the conditions of any particular livable habitat; learning may be seen then as the central operating principle of the social brain acquired for evolutionary survival.

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Learning as Social Interaction

Everything we learn takes place in a social context. From birth and throughout our lives, our interactions with others shape our understanding of the world. Learning occurs as parents talk with their children, as children play together, and as teachers instruct and assist students. Though learning progresses through biologically determined stages, it is the social environments that determine how and what we learn.

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Learning as Socialization and Development

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• Learning takes place through our interactions and communication with others. Even as we sit reading a novel by ourselves we interact with the author, the social and cultural context of the novel and in thinking about the story within the context of our own situation and social values.

• Learning and development take place in the interactions children have with peers as well as with teachers and other adults. These social interactions develop language – which supports thinking – and they provide feedback and assistance that support ongoing learning. In a variety of ways these social interactions form the basis of the understandings that are internalized in the individual as cognitive constructs or schemata.

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• A cognitive construct is defined herein as an individual’s unique organization of the total set of patterns, relationships, associations, connections, impressions and feelings, interpretations and conceptual syntheses and implications that is internalized and encoded in the mind as a reaction to discrete experiences and which influences the perception and understanding of new experience.

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• The cognitive schemata is defined herein as the complete set of cognitive constructs and all the intertwining interactions between them unique to each individual as encoded through the individual’s life experiences.

• The term “subliminal” is defined herein as a cognitive condition operating below the threshold of, and inaccessible to, articulate awareness; i.e., a level of cognitive processing inaccessible to a conscious attention.

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Components of Learning Learning represents everything that we have experienced and the way we have internalized the experiences, constituting all the knowledge and skills that we have gained, all the impressions of the events of our life that we have stored and are able to recall, and all the different feelings and ideas that we have about the world and the people we know and everything that we can imagine.

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• From this understanding of learning we can say that learning, knowledge, understanding, memory, thinking, and our attitudes about life and the world are all different perspectives of the same phenomenon.

• The equation of what defines each of us as a unique individual, a distinct personality, the sum total of who each of us is, may then be understood as genotype + learning = phenotype (i.e., self).

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Genotype and Phenotype vs. Behavior Human phenotype is not a static condition but an ongoing dynamic of the effects of environment (i.e., experience) on genetic expression. Though innate biological propensities of unique genotype lead to basic highly individualistic “styles” or “flavors” of individual perception and action, the built-in malleability of the human social brain, as a fundamental product of human evolution, may override such basic genetic behavioral characteristics to the extent that other, even very different, behavioral styles of social interaction are internalized to either more readily accommodate or block out social communication in reaction to the prevailing social context.

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The Mechanism of Learning • Both sense-given impressions of external stimuli

and self-generated stimuli from the internal reconfiguration of impressions form distinctive patterns of neuronal interconnectivity in the brain representing basic subliminal conceptualizations by which thought frameworks are molded and experiences are cognitively codified.

• This process entails the systematization of the collection of internalizations of reactions to all the distinct stimuli that constitute an individual’s total experience in the formation of a fundamental conceptual schemata at the subliminal level of understanding.

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• From the internalized collection and systematization of the aggregate of the immediate reactions to distinct stimuli, patterns of relationships are constructed (i.e., cognitive conceptualizations of experience are formed). This process is known as “apperception.”

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Apperception

• Apperception refers to the mechanism by which new experience is assimilated into, and transformed by, the residuum of past experience of the individual to form a new whole.

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• In apperception new experience is understood or interpreted through the lens of previous experience and the perspective formed from that previous experience, but also the new experience, however transformed, becomes part of the aggregate of experience of the individual and adds new information to the aggregate, thereby altering perspective, by which the new experience transforms the residuum of the individual’s life experience; the new experience being both transformed and transforming.

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Neuroplasticity • Neuroplasticity is the principal neurophysiological

mechanism of the human brain through which apperception occurs.

• In the context of learning as the mechanism that drives human cognitive construction, neuroplasticity is defined as the biologically inherent and ongoing process of macrostructural changes in the human brain that occur throughout life as a result of 1) normal brain maturation in prenatal and postnatal development and later cycles of exuberant synaptogenesis and synaptic pruning; and 2) the subsequent effect of everyday sensory and extrasensory stimuli as shaped by environmental influences and apperception, exclusive of neurodevelopmental disorders and tissue degradation due to lesions, pathological processes of progressive neurodegeneration (including the neuronal atrophy of aging), and brain impact injuries. 50

• In the context of learning and apperception as the mechanisms that drive human cognitive construction, neuroplasticity may be fundamentally understood as constantly changing patterns of neuronal interconnectivity; i.e., neuronal network modeling and remodeling (NNMR) – including network extension – through synaptic strength modulation (SSM) involving the mechanisms of long-term potentiation (LTP) and long-term depression (LTD) in conjunction with synaptic blooming and pruning (synaptogenesis and synaptic removal).

• Synaptic strength is modulated by a multitude of conditions including presynaptic neuronal activation readiness and firing strength; neuromodulator influence (modulatory input-dependent plasticity); heterosynaptic plasticity that may involve the timing and strength of the firing of neighboring neurons or the timing relationship between pre- and postsynaptic neuronal pair firing (including STDP – spike timing dependent plasticity); synaptic scaling; and various combinations of other factors.

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The Neuron and Chemical Synapse Structures in the Human Brain

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Chemical Synapse

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• The synaptic blooming and pruning process consists of synaptogenesis (the formation of new synapses) and synaptic pruning (the elimination of redundant synapses). Both synaptogenesis (i.e., synaptic blooming) and synaptic pruning normally occur throughout an individual’s life, but at two important junctures there is an explosion of both synaptic blooming and pruning (exuberant synaptogenesis followed by extensive elimination of excess synapses) necessary as an inherent part of the process of human brain development. These junctures are early childhood and again in early adolescence (the exact ages highly variable between individuals and different parts of the brain).

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• Synaptic blooming and pruning is the process by which new synapses are generated in the brain and selected synapses eliminated to allow neurons to 1) strengthen or weaken existing connections, and 2) make new connections with other neurons in either modifying or forming new or more extensive or complex patterns of neuronal interconnections.

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• The ongoing process of synaptic blooming and pruning maintains a regulated homeostasis through a basic overall synaptic quantity in the brain (although there is some evidence that there is a natural, gradual loss of synaptic quantity throughout later adulthood) and fine-tunes neuronal networks by eliminating redundant (weak or little-used) synaptic connections to prevent extraneous neurocircuit noise and maximize the efficiency of neuronal transmission. The synaptic bloom-and-prune process is an important component of the fundamental neurophysiological process by which learning occurs through apperception; the internalization of the learning dependent on the environment in which the learning occurs through the cellular mechanisms of long-term potentiation (LTP) and long-term depression (LTD). 59

Long-Term Potentiation and Long-Term Depression

• Long-term potentiation (LTP) is defined as the development of a long-lasting synaptic strength or vitality between a pair of presynaptic and postsynaptic neurons as a product of the interactivity of the pair. The opposite of LTP is long-term depression (LTD), which produces a long-lasting decrease in synaptic strength between a pair of neurons. LTP and LTD are processes by which chemical synapses are able to change their strength, constituting a principal cellular mechanism of learning, as memories (i.e., experience) are encoded by the modification of the strength of synaptic connections that form changing patterns of neuronal interconnections.

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• LTP is understood as the mechanism of the principle described as “cells that fire together wire together,” based on Hebbian theory developed in 1949 by Canadian psychologist Donald Hebb (Hebb 1949) that rather than forming new neurons (neurogenesis), memories are formed (that is, experiences are encoded) by strengthening the connections (the synaptic interfaces) between existing neurons to improve the effectiveness of their communication. By the processes of both metabolic changes and the growing of new connections (i.e., new synaptic interfaces), neurons enhance their ability to communicate.

Hebb DO (1949). The organization of behavior. New York, NY: Wiley & Sons.

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• In basic Hebbian theory, the persistence or repetition of a reverberatory activity tends to induce lasting cellular changes that add to its stability, for example, when an axon of cell A is contributory in exciting the axon of cell B and repeatedly or persistently takes part in firing it, growth processes and metabolic changes are generated in one or both cells such that A’s efficiency in firing B (that is, the strength of the synaptic connection between A and B) is increased, leading to a longer potentiation of cell A when firing cell B.

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• Though there are several types of long-term potentiation, they can basically be divided into Hebbian and non-Hebbian types. Hebbian LTP requires simultaneous pre- and postsynaptic depolarization for its induction, as opposed to Non-Hebbian LTP which is induced without simultaneity of depolarization.

• A special type of Non-Hebbian LTP, known as anti-Hebbian LTP, requires simultaneous presynaptic depolarization and relative postsynaptic hyperpolarization for its induction.

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• Low levels of activation of an excitatory pathway can produce what is known as long-term depression (LTD) of synaptic transmission in many areas of the brain. Hebbian LTD is induced by a minimum level of postsynaptic depolarization and simultaneous increase in the intracellular calcium concentration at the postsynaptic neuron. Alternatively, LTD can be initiated at inactive synapses if the calcium concentration is raised to the minimum required level by heterosynaptic activation, or if the extracellular concentration is raised. These alternative conditions capable of causing LTD differ from the Hebbian rule, and instead depend on modulated as opposed to potentiated activity.

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• There are two basic types of long-term depression, homosynaptic LTD, which is directly input-specific, and heterosynaptic LTD, which results from a modulated rather than potentiated effect.

• In homosynaptic LTD the activity in an individual neuron alters the efficiency of the synaptic connection between that neuron (the presynaptic neuron) and its target (the postsynaptic neuron) where the synaptic connection is typically weakened as a result of a low frequency of potentiation or an extended period of no potentiation in the presynaptic neuron.

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• In heterosynaptic LTD the activity of a particular neuron (a modulatory neuron or interneuron) results in changes in the strength of the synaptic connection between another pair of neurons through the release of neuromodulators that effect the efficacy of the synapse of the other pair of neurons. The weakening of the synaptic connection between the other pair of neurons is independent of the activity of the presynaptic or postsynaptic neuron of the pair. This type of LTD is referred to as a process of modulatory input-dependent plasticity.

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• Neuromodulators (in particular, serotonin and dopamine) differ from classical neurotransmitters. Typically, neuromodulators do not directly generate electrical responses in target neurons. Rather, the release of neuromodulators often alters the efficacy of neurotransmission in nearby chemical synapses. Furthermore, the impact of neuromodulators is often quite long lasting in comparison to classical neurotransmitters.

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• LTD is an important process that features in selectively weakening specific synapses in order to make constructive use of the selective strengthening process of LTP. This is necessary for two vital reasons.

• In the first, if synapses were allowed to continue increasing in strength and all synapses reached maximum strength with no mechanism for reducing synaptic strength, no new information could be encoded, since synaptic strength modulation is an indispensable element in the process by which new experience and new learning are registered in the brain.

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• In the second, if all synapses were permanent, regardless of lack of efficiency or use, not only would the number of synapses reach a ceiling level very early in a person’s life, preventing the generation of any new neuronal connections, but also neurocircuit efficiency would be highly compromised by a diffusion of synaptic noise created by the extraneous or irrelevant synapses that, through inactivity resulting from the changing circumstances of life, lost their usefulness in a specific neuronal connection.

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• What this means is that, for a person to continue to perceive and assimilate new experiences throughout the person’s life when the actual number of synapses are kept at a relatively stable count (with perhaps some natural reduction) throughout adult life (at a maximum estimate of 500 trillion), superfluous synapses are eliminated both to prevent neurocircuit noise and to make room for new synaptic connections in recognition of, and reaction to, ongoing new environmental stimuli and the continuing experiences of life and learning, as the generation of new synapses (both in increasing the connective strength between a pair of presynaptic and postsynaptic neurons, and in the construction of new interconnections of neuronal circuits) is an essential component of the process by which new experience and new learning are registered in the brain.

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• One of the essential components of the critical synaptic elimination process is synaptic pruning by microglial cells in conjunction with the mechanism of long-term depression that weakens the less used, redundant and ineffectual synapses and marks the ineffective synapses for elimination through the macrophagic action of microglia in response to the constant monitoring of the condition of synaptic connections. Synapses that have been weakened by the process of LTD are sensed by the monitoring microglial cells and are engulfed and digested by the microglia.

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• Regulatory synaptic pruning in the brain constituting the life-long learning process has also often been referred to as small-scale axon terminal arbor pruning, reflecting the position that synaptic pruning is basically a mechanism of disengagement of axon terminals from synaptic connections, which may include the processes of axon degeneration, axon shedding or axon retraction; however the particular molecular process remains unclear with a number of new studies implicating, as previously described, phagocytosis by microglial cells as an integral process of both developmental and ongoing homeostatic synaptic pruning in the brain (Tremblay et al. 2011; Paolicelli et al. 2011: Yong 2014; Wake et al. 2013; Hughes 2012; Ji et al. 2013).

Hughes V (2012). Microglia: The constant gardeners. Nature 485(7400): 570-2.

Ji K, Miyauchi J & Tsrika SE (2013). Microglia: An active player in the regulation of synaptic activity. Neural Plasticity 2013. Article ID 627325. http://dx.doi.org/10.1155/2013/627325. Paolicelli RC, Bolasco G, Pagani F, Maggi L, Scianni M, Panzanelli P, Giustetto M, Ferriera TA, Guiducci E, Dumas L, Ragozzino D & Gross CT (2011). Synaptic pruning by microglia is necessary for normal brain development. Science 333(6048): 1456-8. doi: 10.1126/science.1202529.

Tremblay M-È, Stevens B, Sierra A, Wake H, Bessis A & Nimmerjahn A (2011). The role of microglia in the healthy brain. Journal of Neuroscience 31(45): 16064-69.

Wake H, Moorhouse AJ, Miyamoto A & Nabekura J (2013). Microglia: Actively surveying and shaping neuronal circuit structure and function. Trends in Neuroscience 36(4): 209-17. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.tins.2012.11.007.

Yong E (2014). Pruning synapses improves brain connections. The Scientist. www.the- scientist.com/?articles.view/articleNo/39055/title/Pruning-Synapses-Improves-Brain-Connections/.

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• Synaptic pruning in brain development has been defined as consisting of two main phenomena, synapse disassembly and process elimination. – Synapse disassembly has been defined as an

extremely dynamic process of the removal of only a small subpopulation of synaptic connections that is to large degree common throughout the developing nervous system.

In synapse disassembly synapses relatively stronger than neighboring competing synapses that input to an identical target seem to diminish in size and shift position to usurp that of the competitive input, the stronger synapse maintaining its innervation of the target with the weaker input both disassembling its synapse and withdrawing its short arbors. 75

– Process elimination is a phenomenon that occurs in the regressive stages of development and consists of both the small-scale pruning of dendrites in the neocortex, and the large-scale pruning of long axon collaterals of layer V cortical projections that can reach millimeters in length.

It has been suggested that developmental process elimination can involve a number of different cellular mechanisms ranging from retraction to degeneration with considerable variability across the different regions of the nervous system.

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• In addition to all the various mechanisms of synaptic pruning discussed above, it has also been determined that astrocytes play an indispensable role, not only in synaptic pruning in the brain but also in synaptogenesis and LTP (see for example Ota, Zanetta & Hallock 2015; Chung et al. 2013, Tasdemir-Yalmaz & Freeman 2015, Clarke & Barres 2013), and are therefore critical to synaptic strength modulation in the brain.

Chung WS, Clarke LE, Wang GX, Stafford BK, Sher A, Chakraborty C, Joung J, Foo LC, Thompson A, Chen C, Smith SJ & Barres BA (2013). Astrocytes mediate synapse elimination through MEGF10 and MERTK pathways. Nature 504(7480): 394-400. doi: 10.1038/nature12776.

Clarke LE & Barres BA (2013). Emerging roles of astrocytes in neural circuit development. Nature Reviews Neuroscience 14(5): 311-21. doi: 10.1038/nrn3484.

Ota Y, Zanetta AT & Hallock RM (2013). The role of astrocytes in the regulation of synaptic plasticity and memory formation. Neural Plasticity 2013. Article ID 185463. http://dx.doi.org/10.1155/2013/185463.

Tasdemir-Yalmaz OE & Freeman MR (2015). Astrocytes engage unique molecular programs to engulf pruned neuronal debris from distinct subsets of neurons. Genes and Development 28(1): 20-33. doi:10.1101/gad.229518.113.

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• In all the previous discussion of synaptic strength modulation in the brain and latterly synaptic pruning in regulating relative neuronal connective strength, we have considered the chemical synapse exclusively; however, recent studies have identified that a different type of synapse in the brain, the electrical synapse, plays a pivotal role in modulating neuronal activation readiness and firing strength.

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Structure and function of gap junctions at electrical synapses. Gap junctions consist of hexameric complexes formed by the coming together of subunits called connexons, which are present in both the pre- and postsynaptic membranes. The pores of the channels connect to one another, creating electrical continuity between the two cells.

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At electrical synapses, gap junctions between pre- and postsynaptic membranes permit current to flow passively through intercellular channels. This current flow changes the postsynaptic membrane potential, initiating (or in some instances inhibiting) the generation of postsynaptic action potentials.

• Studies have shown that not only do chemical synapses modulate electrical synapses (see for example Smith & Pereda 2003) but that electrical synapses are critical for chemical synapse function (see for example Lieff 2014) and are subject to both long-term potentiation (LTP) and long-term depression (LTD) like chemical synapses (see for example Haas, Zavala & Landisman 2011; and Wang, Neely & Landisman 2015) that effect the excitability of the postsynaptic neuron.

Haas JS, Zavala B & Landisman CE (2011). Activity-dependent long-term depression of electrical synapses. Science 334(6054): 389–93. doi: 10.1126/science.1207502.

Lieff J (2014). Electrical synapses are critical for chemical synapse function. jonlieffmd.com/blog/electrical-synapses-are-critical-for-chemical-synapse- function#comment-1565109975.

Smith M & Pereda AE (2003). Chemical synaptic activity modulates nearby electrical synapses. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America 100(8): 4849-54. doi: 10.1073/pnas.0734299100.

Wang Z, Neely R & Landisman CE (2015). Activation of group I and group II metabotropic glutamate receptors causes LTD and LTP of electrical synapses in the rat thalamic reticular nucleus. Journal of Neuroscience 35(19): 7616-25. doi: 10.1523/JNEUROSCI.3688-14.2015.

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• It has been estimated that a single neuron in the human brain can have up to 20,000 synapses (one type of neuron, the Purkinje cell in the cerebellum, may have as many as 170-200 thousand synapses as determined in rat studies – see for example Napper and Harvey 1988) and that there are typically somewhere on the order of 86 billion neurons in the adult human brain, with the maximum number of synapses in the adult human brain estimated at between 150-500 trillion. With the interminable complexity of incalculable combinations and permutations of all the interactions of synaptogenesis, synaptic pruning, LTP/LTD, synaptic scaling, chemical and electrical synapse reciprocal interplay, and the multitudinous synaptic input and output of a single neuron in interconnection with a vast array of other neurons, it is clear that patterns of neuronal interconnections in the human brain are practically infinite, constantly changing, and that each macrostructural change is the mechanism of neurophysiological representation of the perception and internalization of an element of a new experience, thought, or memory, all the elements associated with each experience interlinked by specific patterns of neuronal interconnectivity constituting the process of apperception expressed through the ceaseless neuroplasticity of the human brain.

Napper RMA & Harvey RJ (1988). Number of parallel fiber synapses on an individual Purkinje cell in the cerebellum of the rat. Journal of Comparative Neurology 274(2): 168-77. Published online 9 Oct. 2004: doi: 10.1002/cne.902740204.

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• However vast the above estimated numbers of synaptic connections in the brain, they may pale in magnitude to the true complexity of the brain’s interconnections. A new study has discovered synaptic connectivity never before seen. Introducing innovative 3D color-coded brain imaging at nanoscale resolution using a new automated tape-based serial electron microscopy technique, the study provided a detailed analysis of the connectivity between excitatory axons and spines in a mouse’s brain which suggests that axons are more likely to innervate multiple spines of the same dendrite than expected by chance encounters based on overlap, revealing that the complexity of the brain is much more than what had ever been imagined (Kasthuri et al. 2015). In the study the researchers found that the sheer magnitude of neuronal connections that make up the brain imposed a huge challenge – one that made the authors question whether the finished product (i.e., their new imaging technique) even justified its use, concluding that their effort “lays bare the magnitude of the problem confronting neuroscientists who seek to understand the brain.” Noting that the degree of almost incomprehensible complexity they discovered was observed in a mouse’s brain and considering that a human brain has far more neuronal complexity, the resistance of the human brain to revealing its deep secrets is clearly demonstrated in its almost-impossible-to-understand, and, perhaps, truly-impossible-to-understand intricacies.

Kasthuri N, Hayworth KJ, Berger DR, Schalek RL, Conchello JA, Knowles-Barley S, Lee D, Vázquez- Reina A, Kaynig V, Jones TR, Roberts M, Morgan JL, Tapia JC, Seung HS, Roncal WG, Vogelstein JT, Burns R, Sussman DL, Priebe CE, Pfister H & Lichtman JW (2015). Saturated reconstruction of a volume of neocortex. Cell 162(3):648-61. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.cell.2015.06.054. 83

• Although many of the details of the molecular mechanisms involved in the macrostructural processes of synaptic strength modulation, synaptic pruning and other macrostructural processes that contribute to neuroplasticity in the human brain remain unclear, as do the details of the ways in which those processes interact with each other, and whether or not the incredible complexity of the human brain will remain forever impenetrable, one thing is clear; that the principal macrostructural mechanisms involved in the neuroplasticity of the human brain directly affected by learning and experience are sufficiently understood to 1) shape positive, self-actualizing behavior, 2) intervene in and enable recovery from cognitive and behavioral disorder, and 3) effectuate positive learning realization.

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• At the gross macrostructural level of the human brain, neuroplasticity is predominantly a function of synaptic strength modulation through synaptic blooming and pruning by the interaction of LTP and LTD. Through LTP, and LTD, selected synapses are persistently strengthened, or weakened, respectively, based on neurocircuit activity. A persistent weakening leads to the elimination of the synapse by the triggering of synaptic pruning. Synapse elimination (pruning) allows the formation of new synapses with no superfluous synapses, maintaining homeostasis (a relatively stable synaptic count) and finely tuned neurocircuit integrity. 85

• A strengthened synapse provides a long-lasting, efficient connection between a pair of presynaptic and postsynaptic neurons for tightly-coupled neurocircuit integration necessary for deep internalization of an experience and the formation of well-defined cognitive constructs enabling comprehensive understanding and long-lasting learning.

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• By both changing relative synaptic strength through the selective strengthening and weakening of synapses, which produces different neurocircuit interactions, and by the elimination of weakened synapses through the triggering of synaptic pruning, enabling synaptogenesis and the variability of the number of synapses innervating a specific neuronal connection as well as the formation of new neuronal connections, the interaction of LTP and LTD is the principal mechanism for changing the patterns of neuronal interconnections in the human brain.

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• This ceaseless changing of patterns of neuronal interconnections in the human brain is defined as neuroplasticity and represents the constant reaction, impression and internalization of discrete experiences of an individual throughout every moment of the individual’s life. Neuroplasticity through the interaction of LTP and LTD is the mechanism of knowing about and understanding the world around us and by which all learning occurs.

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• Every single change (no matter how minute) in the gross macrostructural pattern of neuronal interconnections in the brain represents the perception, impression and internalization of an element or elements of a new experience – something newly learned, newly understood, an idea newly formed or reformed or seen from a different perspective, new information added to what was already known or a whole way of thinking abandoned from a new insight. Every experience is a new experience no matter how many times the same sound has been heard, the same sight seen, the same vista of the backyard revisited, each time it is a new experience transformed by all the minute experiences and subtle changes of perception and new associations acquired since the last moment the vista or sound was experienced.

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• Every thought or contemplation is a new experience represented by a change in the pattern of interconnections in the brain. Every human experience is represented by a unique pattern of neuronal interconnections in the brain. Every experience is a learning experience by which some understanding is arrived at through interpretation of the experience, but in the effort to interpret one’s experiences misinterpretation can arise, leading to misunderstanding which may lead to behavioral and cognitive impairment.

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• Although there are non-Hebbian as well as Hebbian types of LTP and LTD, both LTP and LTD basically operate on the Hebbian principle of “neurons that fire together wire together;” that is, the “use it or lose it” principle, which means that persistent reverberatory action in the repeated firing of a presynaptic neuron in the firing of a postsynaptic neuron bonds the pre- and postsynaptic neurons together in a tightly-coupled, strong communication channel; whereas infrequency or lack of reverberatory action between a pre- and postsynaptic neuron weakens the bond between them, reducing the efficiency for communication across that neuron pair, with continuing weakening leading to the elimination of the synaptic connection between them.

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• In achieving positive-directed learning and behavioral outcomes, this “use it or lose it” phenomena can be stimulated in individuals to simultaneously induce coherent, affirmative learning and behavior and eliminate negative or faulty learning and ineffectual or self-detrimental behavior, and, through positive-directed learning with intact neuroplasticity, restore cognitive potency across a broad range of conditions of cognitive impairment. The key to effecting positive-directed learning, self-actualizing behavior and effective cognitive functioning is the enriched environment which stimulates LTP in positive learning experiences, simultaneously stimulating LTD in weakening and eliminating the patterns of neuronal interconnections constituting negative cognitive constructs of detrimental behavior and impaired cognitive coherency.

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• The enriched environment contains strong, affirmative, stimulating, deep, constantly reinforced learning experiences that trigger persistent reverbatory action in neuronal connections, and through such continually reinforced action changing thought patterns, weakens the reverbatory action of neuronal interconnections representing faulty learning and ineffectual or detrimental cognitive constructs through lack of excitatory action as excitatory action is dominated by the affirmative learning and newly configured thought patterns that constantly reinforce the positive-directed learning.

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Neuroplasticity, Apperception and Memory

• Neurophysiologically the internalization of new experience through apperception is the process of variable enhancement and reduction of the strength of existing neuronal connections by which new patterns of connectivity are formed. Conversely, the conscious recall of particular experiences and the subliminal access to the aggregate of past experience that occurs in apperception through which new experience is mediated and interpreted, are manifested through the activation of the patterns of neuronal circuit interconnections generated in the internalization of those experiences as modified by any new experience and learning. 94

• From this understanding we can clearly equate learning, cognition, understanding, knowledge and memory as indistinguishable, inextricable components of the mechanism of apperception – apperception, learning, understanding, cognition, knowledge, and memory simply interchangeable terms for the same process – each thought, idea, feeling, memory, etc., simply a unique pattern of neuronal interconnectivity.

• For example, memory is not simply the recall of the recording of details of stimuli, phenomena or events experienced, but the recall of the internalization of that experience in accordance with preexisting cognitive schemata that interpret the experience and ascribe an emotive impression to the experience, selectively emphasizing some details and de-emphasizing others.

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• The process of remembering is not just a question of first making an accurate record in the mind of the information we receive or the events we experience and then simply recalling the experience or event, but the fitting of the new information or new experiences into the knowledge and understanding of the world already stored in the interconnected neuronal networks of the brain, creating a new narrative that makes sense of the new information in conjunction with what we already know and the perceptions that we have formed about the world (i.e., a modification of the interconnected neuronal networks in the brain creating a new, unique pattern of interconnections).

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• Recording an event, information, experience, etc., as a memory, is not simply recording a full representation of everything connected with the experience and all the sensory information that we have seen, heard, felt, and/or smelled or tasted and how we may have acted in any particular experience, but only those aspects that we have focused on, some details given more emphasis, others less, and still others not noticed or recorded at all, depending upon our emotional state in our understanding or response to the experience and our interest in the experience itself and the details of which it is comprised. We do not record an event per se, but only our impression of it.

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• All our stored information, the aggregate of all past experience, is changed – enhanced or distorted – modified to some degree by the information of each new experience, at the same time the aggregate of all past experience, that is, the cognitive schemata or residuum of all experience, is always present but not conscious, as consciousness (i.e., articulate awareness) is a manifestation of intention or directedness towards something, a deliberate recall of specific data, events, interactions with specific people, etc., therefore, the vast proportion of our cognitive schemata remains subliminal, operating below conscious (articulately aware) recognition, but always active and shaping our thoughts, emotions, intentions, motivations, etc.

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• Individual consciousness therefore may be defined as a selective, directed access of discrete components within the multilevel continuum of the sum total of the cognitive schemata of the mind in the reaction to and interaction with sensory and extrasensory stimuli as shaped by internal phenomena (i.e., what we have learned and how we have learned it through our experience – how one learns determines what one learns and what one learns determines how one behaves). Consciousness then is an intentional, constantly varying manifestation of learning formed from, and directed by, the sum total of cognitive schemata derived through apperception.

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• The innumerable internal and external sensory inputs or experiences that are ceaselessly being processed into patterns of information by the brain to form impressions and build associational constructs, mental images and schemas and personal knowledge databases, are so vast and complex, that they would swamp and totally overwhelm the articulately aware or conscious mind. If such interminably complex and intertwining substratum activities were conscious, all attention would be totally absorbed in analyzing how each and every stimulus is related to every other stimulus and how such relationships are processed and internalized — and we would starve to death dwelling on the sensations and impressions of being hungry rather than forming a broad perception of the world that would enable our interaction with that world to obtain the nourishment needed to sustain life. The vast proportion of human functioning and understanding then is subliminal and inaccessible to articulate awareness or “consciousness.”

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• Individual worldview, and indeed, personality itself, is based on our own unique disposition of genotype – the mechanisms of the sense organs for vision, hearing, smell, touch and taste and other intricate physiological functioning including neuronal activity and all other physical and biological properties that affect to what extent we are able to perceive various stimuli – and how such stimuli are processed and internalized into levels of awareness and intellectual proclivities; that, together, make each of us unique in our abilities, motivations, desires, styles of communication, emotional responsiveness, etc. Our essence is composed of phenotype-worldview-personality with a constant interaction with our internal and external environment in an ongoing dynamic at a substratum below the level of articulate awareness that, accumulatively, modifies or remolds our phenotype-worldview-personality.

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• Cognition, composed of innumerable cognitive constructs which in turn are composed of innumerable highly subtle, complex, dynamic interactions beyond the power of the mind to intelligibly connect in any holistic conscious configuration (that is, in its entirety, is beyond directly accessible articulate awareness), is experienced by articulate awareness only in inner-cognitive-driven selective “chunks” of limited directedness, which we refer to as “consciousness.”

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• Even these “chunks” of directedness, or consciousness, are experienced only as highly confined, thin, surface concretizations or conceptualizations, whereby the overwhelming extent of the vast complex of the underlying cognitive schemata driving the direction of attention of articulate awareness, beyond vocabulary and articulation to discriminate in all its complexities and intricate subtleties and paradoxes of feelings and impressions, remains elusive to the scrutiny and understanding of the individual.

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• Cognition: Defined herein as the unique patterns of connections, associations, relationships and reasoning by which the individual recognizes, categorizes and internalizes the constituents of her or his environment and forms a self identity. Cognition constitutes the processes by which the individual applies meaning to all that she or he senses and feels from her or his environment and internally constructs within her or his mind, and the schemata derived therefrom. Cognition is a predominantly subliminal process experienced in articulate awareness only in fleeting, ever-changing surface “chunks” of consciousness.

• Mind: Defined herein as the consolidation of cognition; the unique collective sets of cognitive constructs and the interrelationships thereof (i.e., the individual’s unique cognitive schemata) and the behavioral effects of that cognitive schemata. The mind is an abstraction of the effects of the collective sum of all the interlocked mechanisms of the neurophysiological actions of the patterns of neurocircuit interconnections in the brain. Like cognition, the mind is a predominantly subliminal quality experienced in articulate awareness only in fleeting, ever-changing surface “chunks” of consciousness.

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• Behavior: Defined herein as the expression of the mind in interaction with self and the external environment.

• Consciousness: Defined herein as an ever-changing moment-to-moment peak of articulate awareness into a narrow window of a minute portion of the surface of the total configuration of experiences, impressions and intentions unique to each individual as encoded in the cognitive schemata of the mind.

• Subliminal: The state of cognitive functioning that both generates and consists of the cognitive schemata and remains below the threshold of articulate awareness, that though directs conscious behavior, is not accessible to consciousness. 105

• From these definitions, the terms cognitive schemata, cognition, mind and behavior are all part of what is fundamentally a single phenomenon, the terms simply referring to slightly different perspectives and/or manifestations of that phenomenon, with “consciousness” or articulate awareness a limited condition of this phenomenon. Additionally, we can understand a cognitive construct as simply any single set of conceptual components formed from various experiences and undergoing constant transformation in interaction with each of the different accumulative cognitive constructs continually formed from different experiences, that collectively constitute the cognitive schemata.

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Social Integration, Cognition and Behavior

• Through the process of evolution, by which the human brain developed as a social brain, whereby all learning and behavior is constructed within the ongoing mechanism of socialization and all experience and understanding is internalized in a social context, behavior is a product of, and response to, social integration or lack thereof. All psychological problems, i.e., all behavioral or cognitive problems, may then be said to present as social integration problems – and since socialization and human behavior are learned and not prewired, all behavioral or cognitive problems (exclusive of pathological processes of organ dysfunction) are, in effect, learning problems.

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• Succinctly, since behavior is the expression of the mind in interaction with self and the external environment, and the mind is the consolidation of cognition, any nonorganic behavioral problem is in fact a cognitive problem and vice versa, the two terms are completely interchangeable and translate into a problem of social integration, which in turn translates into a problem of learning. Learning is the process by which social integration is achieved, and social integration defines the extent to which cognition and behavior are effectively adjusted for positive interaction with one’s environment.

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Social Integration Problems • Social integration problems are divided into two

distinct types: 1) degradation of cognitive resources, and 2) faulty learning or distorted cognitive schemata.

• Degradation of cognitive resources constitutes an impairment of core cognitive capacity which may be manifested in one or more of the basic categories of observable gross behavior that include attention, memory, problem solving and social sense, whereby the dysfunction in any one or in various combinations of two or more of these categories undermines the ability to logically assess and socially interact appropriately to the social context. 109

• The categories of so-called observable gross behavior, consisting of “attention,” “memory,” “problem solving” and “social sense,” are useful and necessary for understanding different abilities that may be observed in individuals and in addressing cognitive deficits that may be presented within any one or more of those behavioral domains; however, such behavioral domains are hypothetical constructs distinguished by the context in which the behavior is observed in accordance with the modal conventions of culture, society and community and the prevailing definitions of particular human actions and responses. We do not know what is really in the individual’s mind and what is behind the behavior that we think we see, assume and interpret. It could be that an individual’s seeming inattention is a natural response to the distraction of a profound and continuing grief at the loss of a loved one and has nothing to do with any real degradation of cognitive resources but a normal situational response to a shattering experience that requires time to heal, or the result of a preoccupation with the unique opportunity of a new business venture that requires very careful planning and precise implementation for success, distracting attention away from other concerns.

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• All observed gross behavior is a result of interminably complex cognitive

processing that directs particular interactions with self and the

environment based on life history, personality, life plan, and reaction in

accordance with the perceived effect of, or social opportunity presented

in, each situation. Cognition is an inherently interactive process, forming

cognitive constructs from the associations and perceived relationships of

the stimuli constituting a particular experience and extrapolating

situation-dependent conceptualizations in the interplay among the

accumulative, constantly modified cognitive constructs continually formed

from every experience. Cognition cannot be divided into distinct

components or types of behavioral outcomes, as it is a mechanism of

massively complex, continuous interaction. Therefore, observed gross

behavior, a product of cognition, is driven by a complex interaction of

cognitive constructs that cannot be defined by simplistic, shallow

categories. Every behavioral outcome is the expression of a unique

cognitive interplay. What may appear, or assumed, on the surface, to be

similar actions, are actually expressions of what may be entirely different

and even incompatible cognitive constructions, conceptualizations or

personal meanings.

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• Observable gross behavior (that is, what we think we see in another’s actions or responses as defined by sociocultural “norms”) are simple, surface manifestations of cognition, a facility that is indivisible into discrete components as all aspects of cognition are integrated, inextricable elements of any aspect of cognition.

• Such observable actions of attention, memory, problem solving and social sense are merely constructs of each other, the interpreted manifestations of the unified process of basic cognition – a neurophysiological construction of highly integrated interconnectivity of neuronal circuits that span the entire brain and react to all stimuli (external and internal; i.e., apperception, including the new cognitive orientation formed from the internal reconfiguration of conceptual frameworks) by the modification of synaptic connections – but by no means do such observed actions convey the intertwining conceptual frameworks which initiated them.

• While observable gross behavior consists of socioculturally defined hypothetical constructs that are blind to the underlying cognitive formulations that drive the behavior, unique to each individual and each self-perceived situation of the individual, the observed repetition of apparent difficulties in attention, memory, problem solving and/or social sense in different tasks and contexts are important in discovering and diagnosing a deficit in cognitive functioning impeding the individual’s ability to interact effectively with her or his environment. 112

• Faulty learning or distorted cognitive schemata refers to problematic thinking and behavior that disturbs an individual’s self-fulfillment in the effective conception and negotiation of her or his environment in the establishment and achievement of appropriate individual goals and in meeting social responsibilities, regardless of the state of her or his cognitive resources.

• The degradation of cognitive resources and faulty learning are not mutually exclusive and an individual with a social integration problem can have both conditions to lesser or greater degree.

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• Generally, those that exhibit a degradation of core cognitive resources will also have faulty (usually underdeveloped) cognitive schemata; whereas many individuals with faulty or distorted cognitive schemata may have fully functional and vibrant cognitive resources, but prolonged presentation of distorted cognitive schemata or extreme distortion of cognitive schemata often leads to a degradation of core cognitive resources.

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Social Integration, Learning and the Enriched Environment

• All operant behavior, including social integration, is learned.

• All learning takes place in a social context and all positive, lasting learning takes place in an “enriched” environment (or, in negative learning, in an impoverished environment – “impoverished” referring to a lack of sufficient positive stimuli or experiences, including lack of social interaction and lack of, or inappropriate social or interpersonal bonding).

• An enriched environment is one that has constancy, maintains a bonding group dynamic, provides challenging but not overambitious eclectic learning experiences and is positive, reinforcing, stimulating, rewarding, encouraging, supportive, and full of possibilities.

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• As new thought patterns and cognitive constructs emerge from engaged, affirmative, self-fulfilling learning experiences within the enriched environment, both the depth and breadth of the individual’s cognitive core is exercised, strengthened and continually expanded through the introduction of new ideas, ways of thinking, frameworks of knowledge and understanding that open up ever-multiplying doors of possibilities. The richness of experience of bonding with and developing respect for and appreciation of others and the joy of belonging and acceptance in group identity and sharing discovery and feelings opens up the individual’s self-conceptualization and the possibilities of being. Learning becomes easier, and the challenges of learning fun, eagerly awaited, new adventures in the absorbing mystery of life and the universe.

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• The constancy of the socially infused, deeply engaged learning experiences within the enriched environment and the numerous reexamination of concepts and facts through the exercise of the consideration of many different points of view within widely ranging eclectic subject matter and topics within a subject and highly imaginative “what if” scenarios within each topic, the presynaptic and postsynaptic connection between neuron pairs comprising the pattern of neuronal interconnections representing a concept or facts and its associations are repeatedly and persistently activated triggering LTP for durable and efficacious synaptic interconnectivity and long-lived internalization of concepts and facts and the development of powerful, highly comprehensive and penetrating cognitive formulations composed of wide and deep associations.

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• The cognitive constructs formed from the new learning within the enriched environment are continually strengthened by LTP and become dominant cognitive constructs undermining the relevance of old, detrimental or negative cognitive constructs, whereby the presynaptic and postsynaptic connection between neuron pairs comprising the pattern of neuronal interconnections representing a negative cognitive construct are less activated as the negative cognitive construct more and more fades from ongoing thought patterns, triggering LTD that weakens and finally triggers the elimination of the synaptic connection between the neuron pairs comprising the pattern of neuronal interconnections representing the negative cognitive construct, entirely purging the negative cognitive construct.

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Psychopathology: What is a “Psychological Problem” or “Behavioral

Disorder?” • A psychological problem or behavioral disorder is

defined as a significant recurring departure from the established expectations of perception-response in social encounters within the prevailing milieu of one’s society such that the ability to achieve self-actualizing, positive, sustainable, realistic life goals is inhibited.

• Such a departure is also defined as a cognitive deficit since it represents impaired cognitive schemata that go against or are counter to the “common sense” of the internalized age-appropriate socialization of behavioral “norms” instilled through the fundamental operational mechanisms of the social brain.

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• This departure from the common sense “norm” (i.e., impaired social integration) may be due to either 1) impoverished or faulty learning (a disruptive or aberrant socialization process resulting in distorted cognitive schemata) or 2) a basic degradation of neurocognitive resources (constituting the fundamental core cognitive capacities, such as the ability to recognize or understand common social cues, the ability to apply logical reasoning to different situations or the ability to interpret symbolic relationships in acquiring basic language skills, etc.), or both.

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• Social integration may be defined as the ability to assess and react appropriately to the social cues constituting a specific social context and the ability to form a realistic, practical, sustainable, positive life plan consistent with the mores and values of one’s overarching culture and society.

• Social cues consist of: 1) the unspoken rules and decorum of a specific social context (i.e., the roles, expectations, and style and content of discourse tacitly agreed to by the discourse participants as an inherent structure of the group dynamic or formal social etiquette, or in response to the personality and situation of the other in a dyadic encounter); and 2) cognizance of a) the individual steps in achieving the goals of one’s realistic, practical, sustainable, positive life plan; b) the relevance of the particular social encounter to those steps; and c) a consideration of the most effective means in furthering one’s life goals through the particular social encounter. 121

• Social cues may be understood then as consisting of two major components: 1) the clues that reveal the rules and expectations of one’s behavior from the perspectives of the other(s) in a given social context; and 2) the clues that reveal how the social encounter is relevant to one’s own perspective relative to one’s life goals, and the behavior one should adopt in the encounter to achieve those goals.

• In the latter, even though the perspective reflects highly personal goals, those goals are socially based, referring to what one wants to get out of life, i.e., one’s self-defined position or role of interaction in society, and therefore constitutes an essential component of social cues. The social relevance of any encounter is equally dependent on both one’s own perspective in the larger context of life goals and in one’s immediate situation, and, on the perspective of the larger context and immediate situation of those one is interacting with.

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Common Sense • Social integration is the principal organizing

framework of the social brain through which experience is codified, and is therefore the defining component of human behavior.

• Social integration may be likened to what in the vernacular is termed “common sense:” an inherent complex of cognitive processes that seamlessly interact in the perception of our world and our place in it as learned and formulated through the mechanism of socialization.

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• Common sense may be understood as the inherent ability to recognize the relationships and behavioral cues presented by different social situations and to react (consistent with a positive and realistic life plan) appropriately to the perspective(s) of the particular individual or individuals with whom one is socially interacting by intuitively (automatically) homing in on the common knowledge, culture, and common expectations of one’s environment, society or community as ingrained through the process of socialization.

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Social Integration, the Group Dynamic and Cognitive Neuroeducation (CNE)

• Humankind has been evolutionarily directed to live in a social environment, with a principal tendency toward sophisticated social structures consisting of societies composed of a hierarchy of overlapping nested groups, each constituting specific cultural and social norms under the umbrella of the general cultural and social norms of the encapsulating society.

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• The well-being and quality of life of the individual depends on the cognitive skills to effectively negotiate social interaction in meeting the demands of the individual’s social environment.

• Beyond pure social adaptation, the human being is a psychologically complex being that neurotypically requires different levels of interaction with other human beings to meet basic psychological needs.

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• We are defined as individuals, as unique personalities, by the psychological needs unique to each individual, and the unique manner by which each individual interacts with society (that is, with other human beings within culturally and socially determined rules and norms) to meet those needs.

• We are social animals and the way we learn, and consequently, what we learn and how we interact socially, defines who we are as unique individuals, that is, who each of us is as a distinct person that is distinguished from every other person now living, that ever lived, or ever will live.

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• Our personality, our uniqueness as an individual, is manifested through social consciousness; i.e., social integration.

• Social integration has been referred to as “social intelligence,” and defined as the practical, tacit or crystallized intelligence that enables ordinary individuals to achieve and maintain rewarding relationships and to secure meaningful life goals. It underlies what is popularly referred to as “common sense.”

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• The regulation of affect is pivotal to the formation and maintenance of social relationships. Affect not only informs and directs reasoning, but may also block it. With this understanding, “emotional intelligence” has now been recognized as an integral component of social integration.

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• The rules and expected conduct in social relations are differentially defined through a hierarchy of social groupings, from family, dyad, workplace, ethnic and religious circles, and professional, educational, recreational and special-interest clubs, associations, organizations and institutions; to community, city, district, nation, society, culture and civilization.

• Although normatively conforming to the general rules and behavioral expectations of the larger umbrellas of civilization, culture, society, nation, district, city and community, social relations are actually experienced more directly, intensely, consistently and personally in small group settings, as outside of small groups person-to-person encounters are more random, fleeting, and superficial, particularly so in the massed automated anonymity of modern urbanized daily life; hence, social rules and relations are more directly defined and reinforced in interpersonal interactions within the group dynamic in small group settings. 130

• Since social relations are defined by groups, social integration is developed through the individual’s interaction within each distinct group to which the individual belongs, particularly through the formation of a shared understanding regarding common themes. It is the group dynamic in social/learning activities that forms the vehicle by which both social integration and learning is enhanced in CNE with its emphasis on perspective taking.

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• Perspective taking consists of the ability and custom to go beyond spontaneous, initial surface impressions and apply a thoughtful appraisal and a honed proficiency in recognizing and interpreting social cues that explain another person’s thinking, feeling and behavior from that person’s perception of her or his own situation in a particular social encounter.

• Perspective taking involves the development of respect for, understanding of, and empathy with, other individuals by putting oneself in the other person’s place and reflecting how one her/himself would act and feel in that place.

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• An important component of perspective taking is social context appraisal, the balanced assessment of social contexts and circumstances which account for an individual’s behavior in a particular social encounter.

• While the context of the individual is always essential for understanding individual behavior, in the group dynamic social context appraisal transcends individual behavior, extending to the culturally transmitted “norms” of the group.

• In the group dynamic, perspective taking must take into account both the personal context and the social context defined by the group “norms” and the individual’s role or position within the group. 133

• Another essential component of perspective taking is affective engagement. It is precisely one’s own emotional state that influences the perception of another’s emotional state and determines the selection and processing of personally relevant social information; either effectively picking out the essential information and its implications within the particular social encounter, or completely missing or distorting that information to one’s own detriment.

• An individual’s feelings are a principal determinant of behavior in any social situation, and it is imperative to understand another’s feelings in order to understand that person’s behavior and likely response in any social interaction as a clue to one’s own behavior in a particular social encounter. However, it is impossible to understand the affective state of another unless one’s own affective response is appropriately well harmonized with one’s personal situation relative to the context of any particular experience. In order to correctly understand another’s feelings, one has to consistently experience their own appropriate emotional reactions. A lack of affect can be no less self-destructive and socially disruptive as uncontrolled, inappropriate emotional outbursts.

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• A major part of perspective taking then, is the realization of the individual’s own emotional capacity by learning to engage experiences deeply through commitment and the full giving of oneself to the experience with introspection, reflection, sharing and attachment.

• By putting oneself totally into the experience as an integral part of the experience, the individual learns involvement and concern; and learns to fully relate to the experience and to others – to feel, to empathize and to bond. 135

• Perspective taking, including social context appraisal, appreciation of one’s own and another’s affect, reflection on past interpersonal experiences, and the development of a shared understanding, are the foundation stones of the learning environment implemented within the CNE program.

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The Group Dynamic and CNE • CNE is essentially a learning program whereby

learning is self-defined from within each participant through the experience of group interaction and self-reflection that effectively energizes or restarts the inherent cognitive developmental process of social integration needed to acquire the cognitive competencies that support a personally meaningful and rewarding life. In CNE the participant learns to THINK AND FEEL, as opposed to either simple rote memorization, the accumulation of loosely connected facts, or learning pure MECHANICAL BEHAVIOR.

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• CNE consists of a learning environment by which social consciousness, learning and self-integration are internalized through 1) instruction, assignments and feedback from observation, discussion and reflection; 2) participation in the group dynamic and its formalized and unsaid rules and expectations; 3) the consideration of the perspective of the other in the group interrelationships; and 4) the naturally evolving bonding and identification with the group and the individual connections forged with its fellow members.

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• The CNE group structure provides a socializing experience in a nurturing, supportive, reassuring atmosphere in which anxiety and pressure to perform/participate and conform is minimized through a gentle orientation to the group process through participation in entertaining activities that incorporate interactive expression, leading to a growing sense of belonging to, and identifying with, the group and a growing self-confidence in expressing one-self and being socially accepted.

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• In being included and expected to equally contribute her/his own thoughts and perceptions to every part of the group process as an integral member of the group, each member begins to understand that every member of the group, including her/himself, is critical to the group, without whom the group dynamic is substantively changed.

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• Any sense of pressure or anxiety of fully participating in the group is gradually eliminated as each member comes to visualize her/himself as part of the working group, and her or his input and participation is not distinct from the group and not judged by it or its rules, but rather an inextricable component of the group, its process and its unique dynamic. The member identifies her/himself as part of the group, her/his self-identity becoming interlinked with the group identity.

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• Though instructionally based, with guided rules of participation, the learning environment of CNE does not indoctrinate or impose a rigid prescription of social behavior, but sets an example of social decorum through the group-generated “norms” by which sensitivity to, and understanding of, social context, perspective taking and affective engagement takes place, whereby the basic tenets conducive to rich, rewarding social interaction may be gleaned, generalized, modeled and logically applied to the myriad contexts of real-world social encounters.

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• In the group dynamic the participant practices verbalizing and expressing clear thinking and observes and learns from the other group members who variously perform appropriately or inappropriately in their responses, and successfully execute or struggle in the performance of their roles or assignments.

• The group members are praised for their successes and supported and encouraged when struggling.

• It is important that every small improvement be noted and applauded as it demonstrates progress, and by continual progress, one small step at a time, the road to successful endeavor becomes clear and the participant gains satisfaction and confidence in her/his accomplishments and learns to realize that through her/his own determined efforts and diligence, the sky’s the limit, that task and subject mastery and the world of opportunity lie open to conquest, awaiting her/his challenge.

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• The group experience provides a nonthreatening vehicle to acquire and strengthen basic cognitive capacities and social skills essential for the development of effective and rewarding social integration, such as how to make and complete an intelligible statement, how to ask questions or give one’s opinion appropriately and sensitively, how to agree and tactfully, constructively disagree, and how to become an interested, active, attentive, concerned, compassionate and empathetic listener.

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• All group activities are designed to 1) keep members focused on a task; 2) instruct and reinforce how to communicate and use language in a socially appropriate and relevant manner; 3) instruct and reinforce how to give and receive constructive feedback about how a fellow member performs a designated activity; 4) instruct and reinforce how to best utilize and benefit from group feedback, and 5) instruct and reinforce how to tailor one’s responses to the particular nature or characteristics of a given situation.

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• Through the group process the participant practices giving support and acting empathetically and understanding someone else’s feelings in different situations (i.e., perspective taking) within the “living theatre” of the group with its different members and their different personalities and problems –– learning through instruction, experiences, interaction, cooperation, teamwork, feedback, discussions and exchanges of opinions, and the freeing up and development of the participant’s own affective responsiveness and thinking though situations and contexts; learning not by strict rules, rote memory or conditioned behavior, but by the natural “incidental” or implicit learning that characterizes the learning acquired by the experiences of living a normal life in the real world within the familiarity, support, security and reinforcement of the group, developing strong, durable cognitive constructs and social values that equip the individual to effectively integrate into and weather and defend against the chaos and pressures of the real world at large.

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• In the CNE program, all learning and activities are integral to the group dynamic and develop as a group process, with the experiences of the program uniquely internalized by each individual participant, being both simultaneously shared and highly personal, as each individual participant develops her/his own viewpoint of life and understanding of her/himself.

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The Basics of CNE

• CNE is an intrinsic framework that maintains an enriched environment for exercising the social brain in effecting optimum levels of cognition and learning realization in reaching positive, balanced, self-actualizing behavioral outcomes and mastery of academic subjects.

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• The enriched environment, as previously defined, consists of constancy, the maintenance of a bonding group dynamic, challenging but not overly ambitious eclectic learning experiences and a positive, reinforcing, stimulating, rewarding, encouraging, supportive ambience with a strong infusion of eager anticipation full of possibilities.

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• A large part of the enriched environment is embodied within the CNE group dynamic.

• The CNE group dynamic provides constancy: – Every activity and learning experience is

structured through the group dynamic consisting of 1) stable group composition and expectancy, familiarity and a sense of welcoming belonging and congeniality; and 2) group support and the responsibility invested in each member to fully and effectively contribute to interdependent learning from each other while collectively encouraging independent growth through ongoing interactive dialog, constructive feedback and the emphasis on self-challenge. The group dynamic instills the collective sense of “all for one and one for all.” 150

• The CNE group dynamic instills bonding: – Bonding is a natural and desired outcome of an

effectively congealed, nurturing group dynamic that evolves from a growing familiarity with the group; the unique input and participation of each member of the group and the expectation thereof; the unique interaction between the group members; the dependence on group feedback; the growing personal identification with the group; the deep satisfaction of sharing and being a part of the learning, growth and development of each of the members of the group and the sense of connection in the members’ efforts and involvement with one’s own growth and development; and the special connection that arises out of the discovery of a deeper compatibility with one or more particular members of the group.

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• Much of the positive, reinforcing, encouraging and supportive ambiance of the CNE enriched environment is created and maintained by the CNE group dynamic by the following means: – Positive social interaction and behavioral “norms”

(i.e., such that are conducive to harmonious and effective group interaction and individual self-actualization), rather than defined as strict rules, become mutually established and expected by all the group members in the engagement of the group process to foster stress-free, courteous, respectful, articulate and content-rich dialog. Through the internalization of these mutual group expectations, each member gleans the protocols and social cues that govern appropriate social behavior; the group interaction both establishing and reinforcing positive and appropriate social behavior and an open, responsive, curious, conscientious mindset.

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– The CNE group dynamic stresses individual self-expression and full participation in the group as an inextricable member of the group. An evolving identification with the group that parallels a growing self-confidence and sense of importance as an essential component of the group, and the growing sense of responsibility to provide input and constructive feedback to each member’s participation in an activity or execution of an assignment, lead to greater motivation to participate more effectively in both the group process and learning activities of CNE that in turn fosters encouragement of one’s own efforts in encouraging and participating in the growth of the self-actualization of the other members of the group.

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– Every CNE activity is structured through and evolves around the group dynamic. The CNE group dynamic and every CNE activity is in essence a fluid, ongoing dialog consisting of the inherent components of 1) an assignment connected with a group activity (which may simply be a discussion of the impressions of one’s experience of the activity) that, depending on the type of assignment, is presented to the group at large either individually or in small teams, and 2) a general commentary (i.e., group discussion and dialog) evaluating each presentation of the assignment. • In evaluating the presentations emphasis is placed on the

approach to the assignment, the execution of the assignment, the fluidity of teamwork and equality of individual contribution, and the quality of the content and articulation of the points in each presentation. Individual participation in all group activities (including the evaluation of the presentations) is also evaluated. All commentary is evaluated by relevance and helpfulness through the perspicacity and articulation of 1) appropriate praise in the recognition of the strengths of dialog input, especially praise in noted areas of improvement, 2) informative responses, and 3) the distillation of, and constructive tips for, particular areas in need of improvement.

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• The group dialog provides the avenue for the principal function of group feedback, the key to both group integration and individual growth within the group. It is through feedback that social cues and social expectation are constructively assimilated and that both cognition and social skills are enhanced, and encouragement and support are both given and received.

• CNE group feedback is designed to prevent unhelpful, uninformative or impersonal responses such as “he did well.” The goal of CNE group feedback is to directly and personally address each individual and promote more elaborated, articulate commentary providing meaningful and constructive evaluation that stimulates thoughtful, relevant and sensitive discourse.

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• Rather than an impersonal exercise of criticism or vacuous compliments, CNE group feedback is an exercise in honing 1) true engagement and empathy with each individual of the group and the group as a whole; 2) analytical skills and discernment in picking out fellow members’ strong points, weak points and improvements in the different areas of participation in the group; 3) attentive, engaged listening; 4) articulate, thoughtful response; 5) tactful, constructive and supportive criticism in the helpful consideration of others; and 6) clear thinking and effective communication. By both tactful, constructive criticism of weak points and recognition and praise of improvement, effort and particular excellence, group feedback is both a central mechanism of support, encouragement and motivation within the CNE enriched environment and is a primary tool for promoting essential cognitive capacities, affective involvement, learning realization, language and social skills and positive behavioral orientation.

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• Participation within the CNE group structure through group commentary and feedback, while establishing and reinforcing group values and rules of interaction, rather than enforcing any conformity of personality, actually is a powerful vehicle of self-discovery and development of individuality. By observing the differences in each individual member of the group and interacting with them; sharing thoughts, opinions and experiences and developing a deeper understanding of each member; one begins to recognize not only the differences between each of the members of the group, but also between each member and oneself; such recognition informing a clearer recognition of one’s own individuality, of who one is, and, in learning to appreciate the different personalities of the group and welcoming each’s individual perspectives and ways of thinking, each’s humor, warmth, and unique contributions to the group, one begins to better understand and appreciate one’s own uniqueness and individuality and a growing sense of self and self-confidence emerges. Since we are social beings with social brains, our personalities are formed from the way each of us uniquely interacts with other people within the commonly agreed rules of social conduct. 157

CNE Learning Activities and the Enriched Environment

• CNE is designed for flexibility in implementation within a wide variety of mental health settings, educational settings and learning situations.

• This flexibility is achieved by a choice of a wide scope of learning material and activities targeting different age and educational levels, program or class sizes, curriculum structures, subject content, client capabilities and situational contexts and the modes of interaction with the learning material and activities.

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• To maintain the greatest flexibility in program efficacy across the widest range of mental health and educational situations, CNE implementation is facilitator based.

• The CNE facilitator determines the appropriate materials and activities to incorporate within the CNE group dynamic, being careful to ensure a fluid synergy between activities and materials.

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• In the determination of materials and activities and the respective conjoined synergy thereof, a number of elements essential to the composition of the enriched environment must be an inherent quality of consideration.

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• The inherent elements essential for the composition of the enriched environment are enumerated as follows:

– Ongoing, constantly reinforced stimulation

The inherent quality of, and engagement in, any material, activity or interaction therewith must stimulate the deepest intellectual, playful, numinous (i.e., transcendent), aesthetic, evocative, imaginative, creative and inquisitive core of each group member individually and the group collectively.

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To make the synaptic connections comprising the pattern of neuronal circuit interconnections formed from each learning experience both strong and durable (long-term potentiation) for deeply ingrained learning, the engagement or interaction with the materials and activities must be eclectic, reiterated and reinforced though examination from many different perspectives or views, analogies, applications and implications.

As an example, in a math class, taking mathematical principles and equations and applying them to innovative and enlightening situations, such as the revelations of mathematics and even humor in analyzing daily news as in the book, “A Mathematician Reads the Newspaper,” or in an earth sciences class applying the fundamental laws of astronomy and geological theories to hypothetical science fiction scenarios such as in the book, “What if the Moon Didn’t Exist? Voyages to Earths That Might Have Been.”

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– Challenging, but not overreaching, eclectic learning experiences

Learning experiences, which includes materials, activities and ways of interaction therewith, should be carefully appraised as to level of modal (i.e., that of the majority) group capabilities so that initial engagement is within reach of the modal level, with deeper, richer, more discerning, satisfying, stimulating and nuanced engagement gained through progressive steps of interaction.

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All learning experiences should be eclectic in that many different situations, frames of reference, ideas, points of view, and codes of behavior, honor and morality such be considered from the widest possible perspectives.

Such perspectives can be seen through the beliefs, values and intellectual traditions of different religions, cultures, places and times in history, and the art and literature that so profoundly evokes those cultures, times, places, traditions, lifestyles, and the human condition and personal situations within each. By learning about others, and the frameworks of their lives, we can better understand ourselves and our own culture; reflecting on where we are on our own journey through life and where we’d like to go. 164

– Promotion of cognitive capacities, affective involvement, learning realization, language and social skills and positive behavioral orientation

In the CNE learning experiences there is an essential engagement in 1) dialog between each member of the group, the facilitator and the lesson materials and activities; 2) adventures in different cultures, times and places; the triumphs and tragedies of characters fictional, real and imagined in the great promise and vicissitudes of life; the sharing of ideas, feelings, hopes, dreams, stratagems and solutions, and sentiments about life and the world around us; 3) a view into the realms of the strange and mysterious; 4) sharing good times, great stories, illuminating art, invigorating activities; and 5) having fun together. 165

In the CNE learning experiences the facilitator joins the group dynamic in guiding the engagement in the materials and activities in dialog by which the group members individually and collectively learn about the world around them, about different people in different circumstances in different places, times and cultures – about life, about each other, and about themselves. In dialog with activities such as written assignments, the group members continually improve in speaking, reading and writing English and in understanding spoken English. In such activities as reading stories or performing skits or plays that portray real social contexts, the group members individually and collectively experience English life and learn natural English; i.e., the “feel” of English, with its inflections, rhythms, nuances, expressions, body language and cultural “norms,” just like we all learn our own native tongues in natural social contexts and social interaction.

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In the CNE learning experiences learning realization, cognitive capacity and language fluidity are strengthened and expanded through the development of the group member’s self-expression in the expected and self-impelled participation in 1) the dialog of the CNE learning experience, and 2) the presentation of an assignment connected with the learning experience, and, further, through the development of the conceptual frameworks and imagination by which to understand and analyze the situations and circumstances explored in the dialog and the creation of different perspectives or nuances thereon or solutions thereto in the group member’s contributions to the dialog.

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In the CNE learning experiences affective involvement, social skills, and positive behavioral orientation are heightened and broadened through progressive interaction with the group dialog and the activities and associated materials that comprise each experience, building on the cognitive and social adaptation gains from each preceding experience.

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Affective involvement, social skills and positive behavioral orientation naturally evolve as an inextricable, seamless, indivisible part of the give and take of attentive, concerned and connected listening and empathetic, constructive criticism and supportive feedback in the CNE group dynamic and in the attendant identification with, and absorption in, the characters and their personal situations in role playing in such CNE activities as reading and discussing stories from the various characters’ points of view; in performing skits or plays; and from the emergent absorption in the transcendent evocations of expression in music, dance and art.

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The give and take in both the CNE group dynamic and in role playing in CNE activities instills a sensitivity and openness to accept and appreciate another’s concern for oneself and to reciprocate such concern, evoking genuine understanding of and affection for others.

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– Cultivation of curiosity, imagination, motivation and eager anticipation full of possibilities

We are normally born with a pseudo-fixed action pattern of curiosity about our environment and the world we live in. Through this curiosity we learn about our environment and experience the great wonder and delight of discovery. This is manifest from infancy and becomes the dominant preoccupation of early childhood. If this natural curiosity is nurtured it may be maintained throughout life, fostering creativity, an open, receptive mind, critical thinking, and a lifelong love of learning. Learning is inherently fun, inspirational, and essential for self-development, independence and fulfillment.

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The accumulation of learning, that is, knowledge itself, is composed of relative truths, as all things may be understood from many different positions, starting points, frames of reference and personal perspectives. Being relative does not make these “truths” any less real to the frames of reference in which they reside. The full recognition of this relativity leads to the undeniable, stirring realization that there are so many more, endless things to discover, so many more, endless ways by which to view all phenomena, so many more, endless ways to think about life and all its mysteries and so many more, endless contributions to knowledge waiting for eager, imaginative, curious, probing, questioning minds to reveal.

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Unfortunately, in many instances the teaching and learning environment in the classroom is so regulated, mechanical, and confined, that the spontaneity spurred by the sudden wonder of new possibilities, the birth of new ideas and reconsideration of old ideas, the illumination of dark corners in the mysteries of life and the sharing of the excitement of new discoveries are blunted, curtailed, even stifled, by the mechanistic routine of the classroom and the strict, limited lesson plan. Learning is the processing of new information involving thinking, reflection, imagination and inspiration, not static memorization. The formulation of ideas evolves through discussion, sharing ideas and considering the ideas of others in a dialog in which one’s ideas may be confirmed, reinforced, expanded, modified to greater or lesser extent or entirely reformulated by the exchange of different perspectives. We are what we know and we know what we read, experience and discuss.

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True learning then, rather than the uncritical collection and absorption of presupposed “facts,” is a shared experience. By “presupposed” what is meant here is the passive, unchallenged acceptance of whatever we read or are told without reflection, critical evaluation, consideration of dissenting views or discussion — without any deep engagement with the logical construction of data that allegedly support the “facts” and the true implications of the “facts” as they impact or inform what we believe or what we think we already know about the world we live in.

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From this position, the role of the teacher should be, and that of the CNE facilitator is, that of MC, the master of ceremonies introducing the subject of study, guiding the direction of study, monitoring and stimulating class discussion, playing the devil’s advocate in suggesting ways that the “facts” may be misleading, not sufficiently validated, or implying arguments that some “facts” miss the point and are not really relevant to the real issues at the core of concern of a problem. The teacher’s role should be, and that of the CNE facilitator is, to fully engage the student in the subject, in the study material — encouraging the student to challenge the material, to think critically, to come up with her or his own ideas and to articulate those ideas in class discussion and in exciting debate. We only really learn by fully engaging the study material, by thinking about the material from as many different perspectives and as wide a view as possible.

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It is the pure excitement of these potential discoveries that is the single most important impression that any teacher can impart to a student and to a class. It is the joy of learning, the awe of the endless mysteries of life and the universe, the thrill of new understanding through the awakening of the student’s natural curiosity that must be the prime objective of any teacher. CNE focuses on both the expression of and exposure to the different ideas of each member of the class through dialog, discussion and debate in a group dynamic by which ideas are exchanged and thought and critique are stimulated and the voice of each student becomes part of the discussion, both a unique and integral piece of the group’s voyage of discovery and self-enrichment. While the CNE facilitator as teacher devises basic curriculum; introduces, guides, monitors, suggests, advises, clarifies; addresses inquiries; and formally assesses the student’s work, the CNE facilitator ensures that the student’s voice must be clearly heard, encouraged and equally respected in the classroom. Real learning takes place inside the head of the learner, not through the mouth of the teacher.

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The CNE activities, related materials and group dialog explore the different realms of understanding and knowledge from the widest possible perspectives, stimulating each of the group members with the awe of the vast potentials of discovery, of endless paths on the journey through life, and the eager anticipation of the possibilities waiting beyond the next turn in the road on the great adventure of being.

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CNE and English • The role of language in human cognition

– Language is a unique evolutionary development of the human social brain that enables higher levels and more acuity and precision of communication that supports the evolutionary determinants of the social brain towards the human tendency for more sophisticated, intricate and complex social organization.

– The organization of sophisticated and complex multinested social constructions and the ability to successfully negotiate the intricate intertwining interactions of such constructions are the most fundamental and unique features of human cognition. Such human cognitive qualities are inherently a product of and totally dependent upon language and the fluency and facility of intercommunication. 178

– Language is fundamental to human cognition It has been demonstrated in studies of cognitive dysfunction in humans that cognitive deficits are largely recognized in errors in syntactical, symbolic, semantic and lexical processing and logical sequencing – all principal components of language processing – and that higher-order cognitive processing (i.e., so-called “executive functions”), especially higher abstract, conceptual thinking, is essentially the correlation of constructions of language (see, for example, Robinson 2015 and Deák 2014). Even pure mathematics employs the basic components of language such as logical sequencing, symbolic representation, syntax and semantics. Such basic elements of human cognition as thoughts, ideas, planning, etc., are principally constructions of language. Deák GO (2014). Interrelations of language and cognitive development. In P Brooks & V Kamp (Eds.), Encyclopedia of Language Development (pp. 284-91). Thousand Oaks,

CA: SAGE.

Robinson SM (2015). Brain lesion and fMRI studies and the myth of cognitive function localization. doi: 10.13140/RG.2.1.3496.4641.

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From the neurobiological evidence, “there is no known way that genes could [specifically] encode for concepts like ‘subject’ and ‘verb’” (Harris 2006), so that language, rather than an independent process of evolutionary biology, emerged within the human social brain as a fundamental attribute of cognition to facilitate the essential capacity for learning and social interaction.

Human cognition is understood as a basic capacity requiring development through interaction with one’s environment, a process of learning and socialization empowered through language.

“In the last 40 years, language development research has moved steadily toward recognizing that language processing is cognition [emphasis supplied], language use is distributed cognition, and understanding children’s capacity for language means understanding the development and recruitment of general learning and cognitive processes” [emphasis supplied]” (Deák 2014, p. 290). Deák GO (2014). Interrelations of language and cognitive development. In P Brooks & V Kamp (Eds.), Encyclopedia of Language Development (pp. 284-91). Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE.

Harris CL (2006). Language and cognition. In Encyclopedia of Cognitive Science. doi: 10.1002/0470018860.s00559.

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• English as a powerful medium of learning and cognitive development

– Language is an integral component of human cognition. This is not simply a theoretical position, but has been clearly documented in the evidence of the direct link between language ability and cognitive development dating from the earliest research on child language in the 1970s (Deák 2014, p. 284).

Deák GO (2014). Interrelations of language and cognitive development. In P Brooks & V Kamp (Eds.), Encyclopedia of Language Development (pp. 284-91). Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE.

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– Human cognition is a diffuse phenomena of the social brain; language, music, mathematics and writing systems that have developed across different societies throughout history are simply observed products of the evolution and expression of an inherent cognitive capacity and sociocultural traits common to humans.

– The neurophysiological processes that constitute cognitive capacity also support the development of language, which facilitates learning, which in turn stimulates and enriches the quality and breadth and depth of cognition. Simply stated, language ability, no less than learning, is a function of cognition.

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– While a wide capacity for cognition is commonly encoded into all normal human genotypes, it must be developed through an extensive range of learning experiences. Language is the primary medium for learning; but, as an inherent cognitive capacity, must itself be developed through general learning processes that broadly exercise cognitive resources.

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– In recognition of the significant role of the exercise of general cognitive resources in language learning, the European Commission has endorsed two similar approaches to learning English as a foreign language that both integrate language and content teaching. These approaches are CBI (content-based instruction) and CLIL (content and language integrated learning).

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– CNE has a basic affinity with both CBI and CLIL, and in particular shares objectives and fundamental pedagogic principles with CBI, as follows:

1. Learners are exposed to a considerable amount of language through stimulating content. Learners explore interesting content and are engaged in appropriate language-dependent activities. Learning language becomes automatic.

2. CBI supports contextualized learning; learners are taught useful language that is embedded within relevant discourse contexts rather than as isolated language fragments, hence students make greater connections with the language and what they already know.

3. Complex information is delivered through real-life contexts for the students to grasp well, leading to intrinsic motivation.

4. In CBI information is reiterated by strategically tying information to the concern of moment and situation, compelling the student to learn out of engagement and passion.

5. Greater flexibility and adaptability in the curriculum can be deployed as per student interest.

6. Content-based language experiences for the learner are, in effect, hands-on learning experiences.

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– Like CNE, the CBI classroom is learner-centered, in which students learn through doing; that is, by direct, active engagement in the learning process. Central to both CNE and CBI is the understanding that learning occurs, not simply through exposure to the teacher’s (facilitator’s) input, but in a large part, through peer input and interactions, by which students assume active social roles in the classroom that involve interactive learning, negotiation, information gathering and the co-construction of meaning.

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– CLIL has been defined as providing foreign language education through using the foreign language as the medium of instruction in academic courses, teaching both the subject and the language. The European Commission considers this approach to “provide effective opportunities for pupils to use their new language skills now, rather than learn them now for use later. It opens doors on languages for a broader range of learners, nurturing self-confidence in young leaners and those who have not responded well to formal language instruction in general education.”

[Journal of the European Union Council Resolution of 21 November 2008 on a European strategy for multilingualism. http://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/ALL/?uri=CELEX:32008G1216(01)]

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– Ostensibly, CLIL has been considered a type of CBI in which content is defined specifically as an academic subject or that of the sciences or professional fields (see Dalton-Puffer 2011 pp. 183-184 and Wolff 2007, pp. 15-16) and the language of instruction a foreign language, i.e., a language other than the native tongue or second language of the students (see Dalton-Puffer 2011 pp. 182-183).

Dalton-Puffer C (2011). Content-and-Language Integrated Learning: From Practice to Principles? Annual Review of Applied Linguistics 31: 182‒204. doi: 10.1017/S0267190511000092.

Wolff D (2007). CLIL: Bridging the gap between school and working life. In D Marsh & D Wolff (Eds.), Diverse contexts—converging goals. CLIL in Europe (pp. 15–25). Frankfurt am Main, Germany: Peter Lang.

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– The language of instruction in CLIL in actual practice however is overwhelmingly English (see Dalton-Puffer 2011 p. 182 and p. 183; Eurydice Network 2006; Fernández et al. 2008; Lim & Low 2009), to such extent that CLIL may effectively be referred to as CEIL (content and English integrated learning) [Dalton-Puffer 2011 p. 183].

Dalton-Puffer C (2011). Content-and-Language Integrated Learning: From Practice to Principles? Annual Review of Applied Linguistics 31: 182‒204. doi: 10.1017/S0267190511000092.

Eurydice Network (2006). Content and language integrated learning (CLIL) at school in Europe. Eurydice, the information network on education in Europe. Directorate-General for Education and Culture, European Commission. Brussels, Belgium. http://www.indire.it/lucabas/lkmw_file/eurydice/CLIL_EN.pdf.

Fernández DJ et al. (Eds.). (2008). Proceedings selection from XXXIII FAAPI Conference: Using the language to learn. Learning to use the language: What’s next in Latin America. Santiago del Estero, Argentina: British Council.

Lim L & Low E-L (Eds.). (2009). Multilingual, globalizing Asia: Implications for policy and education. AILA Review 22.

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– In contrast to CLIL, CBI is primarily orientated toward learning English as a foreign language or a second language (Brinton 2003; Snow 2001; Brinton, Snow & Wesche 1989; DellCarpini & Alonso 2013) with content more broadly defined in CBI, consisting of engaging a variety of topics and participating in a variety of activities related to stories, drama, music, dance, the arts, current events and news, movies, etc., or any particular academic subject.

– However, in spite of such professed distinctions the approaches of CBI and CLIL have become largely conflated, with approach, content and structure less and less distinct (see Pérez-Cañado 2012 p. 315; Georgiou 2012 and Ting 2010). In Japan CLIL is mostly construed as simply teaching an academic subject in English with little or no concern for the integration of the student’s voice within the pedagogical process.

Brinton D 2003. Content-based instruction. In D Nunan (Ed.), Practical English language teaching (pp. 199-224). New York, NY: McGraw Hill. Brinton D, Snow MA & Wesche MB (2003). Content-based second language instruction. Michigan Classics Edition. Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press ELT. DelliCarpini M & Alonso OB (2013). Content-based instruction. Alexandria, Virginia: TESOL International Association. Georgiou SI (2012). Reviewing the puzzle of CLIL. ELT Journal 66(4) [Special issue, October]: 495‒504. Pérez-Cañado ML (2012). CLIL research in Europe: Past, present, and future. International Journal of Bilingual Education and Bilingualism 15(3): 315‒41. doi: 10.1080/13670050.2011.630064.

Snow MA (2001). Content-based and immersion models for second and foreign language teaching. In M Celce-Murcia (Ed.), Teaching English as a second or foreign Language (3rd ed.) (pp. 303–318). Boston, MA: Heinle & Heinle. Ting YLT (2010). CLIL appeals to how the brain likes its information: Examples from CLIL (neruo)science. International CLIL Research Journal 1(3): 3‒18.

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– CNE shares with CLIL and CBI the fundamental principle that general learning strengthens and expedites language learning and that language learning most effectively exercises cognitive resources in the facilitation of general learning. Consequently, CNE, CLIL and CBI all combine language learning with general learning by using a foreign language (either a foreign or second language in CBI) as the medium of the learning environment, with designated content in that language.

– In CLIL and CBI the medium of learning is overwhelmingly English, which begs the question: “Why English?”

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– Even though CBI was primarily developed in the United States within the English teaching (i.e., TESL/TEFL) field, then widely adopted throughout Europe and other parts of the world, nevertheless, it is undoubtedly the status of English as the modern lingua franca – the language of international communication across the world –that accounts for its predominance as the medium of learning in CLIL as well as in CBI worldwide (Dalton-Puffer 2011 p. 182 and p. 183).

Dalton-Puffer C (2011). Content-and-Language Integrated Learning: From Practice to Principles? Annual Review of Applied Linguistics 31: 182‒204. doi: 10.1017/S0267190511000092.

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– In investing the time and effort to learn a foreign or second language it would certainly be most sensible and most advantageous to select a language that offered the widest utility throughout the world and the widest opportunities for career choice and advancement.

– To earn the status of the modern lingua franca, it would seem that the English language, above and beyond the significant international influences of the English-speaking nations such as the United States and the United Kingdom, would have some special attributes of its own.

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– A major contribution in exercising general cognitive resources and expanding an individual’s framework of understanding and expectation is the novelty of a whole new complex of semantics, syntax, prosody, sentence and thought construction, and nuances of meaning, expression and world view embodied in any new language and the cultural tradition from which it evolved and which it shapes and perpetuates. A new language opens a door onto a whole new world of thinking and being, a new world of new possibilities and new understandings of others and of self.

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– Novelty is an especially powerful component of learning in stigmatized learners labeled as mentally unbalanced, learning or cognitively impaired, or behaviorally maladjusted, as novel situations and a novel environment present a whole new set of rules and possibilities free from the negativity of the fixed categories of social expectations of the native culture and the social barriers in which such learners have been mired. Novelty presents a new orientation for these learners by which to shed the chains of deprecatory labels and redefine themselves as whole human beings.

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– Basically, novelty attracts and holds attention, stimulates natural curiosity and demands thinking “outside the box,” employing new frames of reference that challenge and expand imagination, creativity, and problem solving which exercise and strengthen the full range of core cognitive resources in conceptual invention, reconfiguration and modes of interaction. As a result, novelty can significantly improve the quality and scope of learning realization through enhancement of the motivation, capacity and aptitude for learning.

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– In human evolutionary development, attention as a response to novelty is a pseudo-fixed action pattern tightly coupled to the fight-or-flight response (acute stress response) that alerts the group to imminent danger or opportunity.

– In the acclimation to habitat (in itself an examination of and adjustment to novelty), a group becomes sensitized to the minute details of all the sights, sounds and smells of their environment, and anything noticed in the immediate habitat that is different from the usual features of the harmonious environment (i.e., the static background) stands out to draw the attention of the group and triggers immediate focus and analysis to determine if it represents a threat such as a predator or a volcano about to erupt, or opportunity such as prey within range of capture for the evening meal, and a split-second decision is made to attack, capture, defend or flee (fight-or-flight response). Novelty, originally a life-saving reflex-like arousal generating a fight-or-flight response, remains a biologically ingrained mechanism of arousing and holding attention and invoking strong curiosity, maintaining its powerful attraction force and innate motivation for discovery and learning. The attraction to, curiosity or inquisitiveness about, and investigation of, novelty is the fundamental mechanism of learning. 197

– Of course, not only English, but any new language provides a novel framework for learning; however, the historical contexts in which the English language has evolved have combined to impart certain features that make English particularly effective as a second language serving as a medium of learning and as a universal medium for international communication.

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– In addition to its dominant status as the modern lingua franca – the universal language of international communication – English is a highly heterogeneous language.

Its mixed cultural heritage combines a unique cultural perspective with openness to adoption by other cultures

Though a member of the Germanic-based family of languages, English has evolved a largely Latin-based vocabulary, with Latin proper forming the base of 29% of English vocabulary and the Romance or Latinate languages (mostly Latin, French and Italian) forming the base of 58% of the total English vocabulary, only 26% of modern English vocabulary being Germanic based, and only 20-33% of modern English vocabulary derived from native Old English (all percentages approximate). 199

As a result of a heritage of a founding open immigration policy, the USA became the melting pot of different peoples, ethnicities, creeds, traditions, cultures, religions and languages from around the globe. In the true sense of a melting pot, all these different cultural traditions and languages were not simply absorbed but added to and mixed in with the mainstream culture and language, with the English language continually evolving through a great influx of loanwords, colorful expressions, characteristic idioms, linguistic constructions, accents and folkways of many different languages and cultural influences from all over the world.

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The evolution of English in the USA was in turn exported to the English-speaking former colonies of the erstwhile British Empire across the globe due to the huge impact of American commerce and trade, its entertainment industry, pop culture, military supremacy and political positioning, adding to the already unique cultural flavoring of the English spoken in the different former colonies; with the transformed English dialects introduced back into the melting pot of American English through ongoing large-scale immigration. Through this constant influx of foreign elements and cultural mixing, English worldwide has evolved into a rich, highly flexible language that readily and easily assimilates diverse foreign language constructions and cultural elements and is smoothly and easily assimilated into diverse cultures.

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CNE and the Teaching/Mental Health Professional

CNE is a combination of fundamental principles and the techniques of instruction, curriculum selection and presentation of curriculum in rigorous adherence to those principles that provide an enriched environment leading to the most effective learning outcomes in the achievement of subject mastery, heightened cognitive functioning, rewarding social integration and self-actualizing, independent behavior.

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Though CNE is similar in some aspects to both CBI (content-based instruction) and CLIL (content and language integrated learning) in that CNE shares with both CBI and CLIL the basic principle of generating active involvement with eclectic, engaging content fostering greater connections between topics and elaborations with learning material leading to deeper, more engrained learning and recall of conceptually integrated information, CNE dramatically differs from both CBI and CLIL in its methodological focus on content and the techniques by which content is selected, presented and interacted with.

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CNE is a group-dynamic-based methodological approach to broadly exercising cognitive resources in general learning scenarios, which can vary dramatically in terms of facility and material resources; level, age, maturity, background and number of learners per class; and in institutional regime and curriculum flexibility; and whether CNE is implemented within a non-language subject course or in an English language course, or specifically as an intervention in learning disorders or behavioral or cognitive disorder, and in any number of other situations, so that CNE has no set curriculum, but rather is dependent on the expertise of a CNE facilitator to determine the mechanics of the class, group session or program and the content and style of presentation thereof most appropriate to a given situation while maintaining rigorous adherence to the CNE core principles, techniques and objectives. To ensure the greatest degree of adaptability to any situation, CNE is highly facilitator-dependent to the extent that facilitator expertise is a central component of CNE.

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The responsibility of the CNE facilitator is that of acquiring a deep understanding of the processes of learning and behavior in the human social brain through apperception in the mechanisms of the interaction between synaptic blooming and pruning and synaptic strength modulation as driven by LTP and LTD, and the application of that understanding in creating the most effective enriched environment by which positive, deep, long-term learning is realized and negative, detrimental cognitive constructs are replaced with open, socially integrated, broadly informed, well-reasoned, self-

affirming thinking. 205

In creating the optimum enriched environment, the CNE facilitator must also acquire a very special skill set in a number of techniques, for example:

• How to determine how to implement the group dynamic, including the particular make-up and size of groupings and the group working structure (such as whether or not to implement a revolving group leader and the extent of the role of the group leader, etc.).

• How to select the most relevant content and supporting material and activities with respect to available resources; the class level and composition; the overall pedagogical structure of the institution within which the program is implemented, including the length of the term in which a class runs, the duration of a class session and the frequency with which the class meets; etc.

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• How to engage the materials and interact with the activities in the most fluid, synergistic way which most effectively supports and perpetuates the group dynamic and individual participation in optimizing learning at both the individual and group level.

The skill sets and techniques in answering these questions must always clearly answer the fundamental question of how does one’s decision in each and every case reflect how the brain actually works in most effectively stimulating LTP and LTD in the formation of positive, broad-based, deep, lasting learning outcomes.

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Armed with expertise in knowledge of the learning mechanisms of the brain and the special techniques and skill sets in the application of this knowledge in a wide spectrum of educational and mental health settings, the CNE facilitator is uniquely qualified to make a dramatic impact on the quality of life of her or his clients by opening up untapped channels of learning, expanding the horizons of the mind, and mediating behavior toward realistic, positive goals of self-actualization.

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With this expertise the CNE professional is empowered to play a pivotal role as a specialist in education, not simply in language education, but also in general education, as well as in the field of mental health as a specialist in the remediation of cognitive and behavioral disorder.

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Center for Applied Social Neuroscience (CASN)

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Yoshida-gun, Fukui 910-1223 JAPAN

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