Related Experiment Video
Updated: May 29, 2025

Combined Shuttle-Box Training with Electrophysiological Cortex Recording and Stimulation as a Tool to Study Perception and Learning
Published on: October 22, 2015
A Rapid Cortical Learning Process Supporting Students' Knowledge Construction During Real Classroom Teaching
Xiaodan Feng1, Xinran Xu1, Zhaonan Meng1
1State Key Laboratory of Cognitive Neuroscience and Learning and IDG/McGovern Institute for Brain Research, Beijing Normal University, Beijing, 100875, China.
Abstract:
Classroom teaching is essential for cognitive development and cultural evolution, yet its neurocognitive mechanisms remain unclear. Here, this is explored in a university graduate course by combining wearable functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS) and machine learning models. The results show that blended teaching involving both students' recalling and teachers' lecturing leads to better learning outcomes than lecturing alone. Moreover, during the same lecturing phase, blended teaching induces knowledge construction in the middle frontal cortex (MFC), while lecturing alone induces knowledge representation in the right temporoparietal junction (TPJ), with the former significantly correlating with the final learning outcomes. Additionally, the MFC's construction begins during earlier recalling but is significantly facilitated by later lecturing. Finally, when teacher's TPJ activity precedes that of students' MFC, significant teacher-student neural synchronization is observed during lecturing of blended teaching and is correlated with learning outcomes. These findings suggest that, in the real classroom teaching, the MFC serves as a hub of a rapid cortical learning process, supporting knowledge construction through a projection from the teacher's TPJ.
Related Concept Videos
Higher Mental Functions of Brain: Learning and Memory
Cognitive Learning
E. C. Tolman's theory of purposive behavior emphasizes that much behavior is goal-directed. He argued that to understand behavior, we must look at the entire sequence of actions leading to a goal. For instance, high school students study hard, not just due to past reinforcement but also to achieve the goal of getting into a good college.
Tolman introduced the idea that behavior is influenced by...
Piaget's Theory of Cognitive Development from Childhood into Adulthood
Schemata: Building Blocks of...
Metacognition
Cognitivism
Previously dominated by behaviorism, which prioritized observable behaviors and largely ignored mental processes, psychology transformed in the 1950s. Cognitive psychologists argue that understanding how we think and process...
Storage

