Daniel Willingham--Science & Education
Hypothesis non fingo
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BBC, please get your cognitive act together.

11/2/2016

 
The BBC has a website which (based on the title) I gather is to help students prepare for the GCSE. The "science" area has a section on "Brain and Memory" which, unfortunately, has several inaccuracies. 
Picture
This figure appears on page 1. Some of the functions attributed to some brain areas are roughly correct--motor cortex is shown as more toward the front of the brain than sensory cortex, which is right, and vision is where it ought to be. But it's hard to tell what's what because the brain is simply drawn wrong (see below) so localization is hard to pinpoint (e.g., there's no central sulcus, which would separate motor and somatosensory areas).

Some functions--reading--are not localized in one spot. "Speech" is misleading--do they mean producing speech? Or language overall? Whatever, it's wrong.
Picture
Things don't improve on the next two pages, which cover some cognitive aspects of memory. I've annotated them.
Picture
Picture
This is not advanced material. This is stuff I teach in my Introduction to Cognition course. 
Come on, BBC. The American election is hard enough on us. Don't add to our misery.
ziqd
11/4/2016 09:20:30 am

Hi Dr. Willingham,

Can you please recommend a Critical Thinking book?
And a basic one on Logic?

Thank you.

Cathy Abernathy link
11/21/2016 09:12:02 am

Interesting post. Is there anyway to download the infographics though, I'd like to send them to my colleagues and the font is hard to read?

Dan willingham
11/22/2016 05:55:37 am

if you click on the figures you get a bigger version and you can right-click to download.


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    The goal of this blog is to provide pointers to scientific findings that are applicable to education that I think ought to receive more attention.

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