Cognitive problems domains

On the other hand, identifying problem areas allows for interventions to be devised to reduce or remove roadblocks to recovery. In a well-designed treatment plan, a problem area and its specific links with the drug use are identified and described. After the descriptive portion of the problem area, the treatment plan prescribes specific courses of action on the part of the client, with therapist or counselor support, to change the problem behavior. Problems areas may be biological, environmental, behavioral, cognitive, or emotional domains, or in some cases may represent complex combinations in more than one of these areas. 

Ample evidence in the literature and reviewed in this volume indicates that people use spatial representations to deal with problems in other cognitive domains. This section discusses the possibility that animals also might use spatial schemas to deal with problems in other cognitive domains. The fundamental nature of spatial representations for the survival of organisms suggests that such representations might be found in both humans and nonhumans. Two speculative examples will be discussed here. 

Given the unquestionable importance of spatial representation to animals, it is possible that they use such representations to deal with problems in other cognitive domains. Some evidence in support of the idea that animals might use linear spatial models to keep track of time and number and to perform transitive inference was discussed, but these possibilities remain highly speculative. 

The remainder of this book focuses on these critical issues. In the chapters that follow, I explain the theory and model of schema development that have guided my research, and I describe a number of experimental studies designed to test specific aspects of the theory in the domain of arithmetic story problems. Underlying these chapters are two important premises First, the study of the schema will yield theoretical findings of value to the study of cognition, and second, the schema is the means by which theory can guide practice. With respect to the latter premise, the schema has the potential of being a theoretical construct with practical appli-... 

One of the most interesting aspects of Schoenfeld s research is his focus on mathematical beliefs and their role in problem solving. He argues that students have beliefs that lie between the purely affective and the purely cognitive domains of human behavior. Included in a student s belief system are misconceptions, preconceptions, and intuitions about events in the world. These may be at odds with new, incoming instruction and may create... 

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