Research on the practice of massaging the head of a baby with hot water and ointments in Ghana. By Dzamesi Yael (Ph.D. in Science Education)
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Observation and cognitive conflict:
Determining the most probable sequence of events using cause and effect analysis - Kindergarten 2 and Primary 1.
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Abstract.
Children in kindergarten 2 and in the following year when they were in Primary 1, were asked each year to arrange a set of pictures according to the most reasonable sequence of events. In both years, most of the children could not arrange the pictures correctly in a way that it was consistent with their daily life experience. The following cognitive features were observed:
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The children arranged the pictures to fit a story built around the most easily seen feature in one of the pictures.
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They ignored daily life experience in terms of cause and effect.
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They were oblivious to any cognitive contradiction.
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They could not change their first choice of arrangement of the pictures.
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When faced with a conflict, they rather changed their oral version of the story in order to support their arrangement of pictures.
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(4 children, ages: 5 to 6 years old)
Task: Arranging sequence of 3 pictures and tell a story about the event in the pictures (Figure 1).
The children were asked to arrange three pictures in a sequence of what happened, and to tell the story about the event they saw in the pictures. Each pupil got a set of the same three pictures. Each child sat in a different table, and the distance between the tables was big. In that way it was difficult for the pupils to copy from each other, and especially under the observing eyes of the teacher.
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Figure 1: Sequence of events - The bird and the basin.
Only one pupil arranged the sequence of the pictures correctly, as it is shown in Figure 1 top: A, B, C. After hearing the story, the teacher suggested changes in the order of the pictures. However, the pupil insisted on her arrangement.
Her story was:
A. The basin was empty at first.
B. It got full of water.
C. The bird came to play inside the basin.
The rest of the three pupils arranged the sequence of the pictures wrongly, putting picture A at the end of the story (Figure 1, bottom). Their sequence of the pictures was: B, C, A. Also, they insisted on their arrangement even when facing changes in the order of the pictures that was made by the teacher. Their story was:
B. The basin got filled with water.
C. The bird came to play in the water and splashed all the water out of the basin.
A. The basin got empty, and the bird flew away.
In the correct arrangement, the pupil observed the water as the main feature. This pupil saw the drops of water as the cause for the effect of the basin being full of water. The pupil probably related unconsciously to her daily life experience of seeing ponds of water on the ground after rain where indeed birds land and drink the water or bath in the pond. As they get wet, they shake their wings to remove the drops of water out of their feathers and then fly away.
In the wrong arrangement, the pupils who placed picture B at the beginning (Figure 1 bottom) observed the bird as the main feature. They attributed the emptiness of the basin to the ability of the bird to splash all the water out before she flies away. Seeing the bird as the cause of the effect of the emptiness of the basin, had no example in their daily life experience.
In general, the oral expression of the pupils about the arrangement of their pictures was poor, and the teacher could only get the full story from them after many questions. Each pupil stuck to his or her arrangement without showing any hesitation or slowness in thoughts that would indicate a sense of conflict or an error, which could lead to a change in the arrangement of the pictures.
Why did they ignore their daily life experience?
The drops of water or rain that fill the basin is not an easily seen feature in picture B. Rather the bird splashing the water in the basin in picture C is a more noticeable feature. The perceptible feature of the bird was ruling out their daily experience with water or rain, which was less perceptible to them. This brought them to create a story they have never seen before. ​
Since the pupils found the task of arranging the pictures and telling their story difficult, and they could not express their reasoning well enough, it was not possible to check the reaction of the pupils to the conflict between their daily experience and their story about the bird.
Cognitive conflict - dealing with a contradiction regarding a cause and its effect.
Case 2: Primary-1.
(The same children from kindergarten 2 who were older in one year. 4 children, age: 6 to 7 years old).
Cognitive conflict - How did the pupils react when presented with a contradictory idea?
Ignoring the contradictory idea or facing the dilemma and changing their perspective on their original idea.
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Task: Arranging sequence of 4 picture and tell a story (Figure 2).
The same four children from Kindergarten 2 that were now almost one year older in Primary 1 were asked to arrange four pictures [122] in a sequence of what happened, and to tell the story about the event they saw in the pictures (Figure 2). Each child was asked separately and was unable to hear or see what the other pupils did.
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Figure 2: Sequence of events - A football game.
Out of the four children, only one pupil arranged the story in the correct sequence: A, B, C, D (Figure 2, top) and told the story correctly. It was the same pupil who had previously arranged the 3 pictures correctly in Kindergarten 2.
The story of the pupil was:
A. A boy was playing a football game.
B. He fell and got a wound.
C. The nurse bandaged the wound.
D. The boy has a bandage on his knee.
This pupil saw the event of falling as the main feature and the cause of the falling was the effect of having a wound on the knee. This pupil noticed the bandage on the knee in picture D, and paid attention to it.
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The other three children arranged the sequence of the pictures wrongly in the following order: D, A, B, C (Figure 2, bottom).
Their story was identical to each other:
The first version of the story of children:
D. A boy came to play a football (there is no mentioning of a wound).
A. He was playing football.
B. He fell and got a wound.
C. The nurse bandaged it.
The teacher pointed at picture D that they had placed as the first picture in the story and asked them why this picture is in the beginning. They all answered the same answer that the boy was holding the ball before he played with it. She then pointed at the bandage on the knee of the boy. She assumed they had not noticed it and she expected that the discovery of the bandage on the knee of the boy would create a cognitive conflict. Cognitive conflict means recognizing disharmony as a result of contradiction between picture D where the boy already has a wound, and picture B where the boy gets the wound while falling during the game. Cognitive conflict would be expressed by some hesitation before answering, slow reaction and maybe a change of mind [128,129]. But to her surprise, they did not hesitate, and did not change the order of the pictures. The decision of when the boy got the wound; before the game or while playing the game was crucial to the arrangement of the pictures. Instead, the children quickly changed their version of the story which meant changing the decision of when the boy got the wound.
The second version of the story of the children (Their story was identical to each other):
D. This picture must be in the beginning because the boy comes to play football, and this is why he holds the ball in his hands. He already has a wound on his knee.
A. The boy removed the bandage and played the football.
B. He fell.
C. The nurse put back the bandage on his wound (see sequence of pictures in Figure 2, bottom).
In the second version picture B is meaningless.
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It happened that the pupil who arranged the pictures correctly was the last to be examined. After the pupil arranged the pictures and told the story, the teacher placed picture D in the beginning and asked the pupil if it is possible. At first without second thought or reflection, the pupil answered positively. The pupil did not show any feeling of cognitive conflict. Then the teacher pointed at the bandage on the knee of the boy. The pupil hesitated, then, slowly the pupil told the teacher that picture D cannot be in the beginning because the boy got the wound while playing the football. Only this pupil could make the logical connection between cause and effect.
This pupil was ready to change her mind and accept the change in the order of the pictures. However, when taking in consideration the bandage on the knee of the boy, the pupil showed cognitive recognition of the error and returned to her first version. It was obvious that this child considered in her mind each of the possibility and compared each version with the set of the pictures. Her analysis was based on considering more than one detail and this pupil got the better judgment and decision.
While facing the dilemma, the children were faced with two options:
1. Maintaining picture D in the beginning of their story while ignoring the natural consequence of picture B, which shows the boy falling, and because of that they would have to change their version of the story regarding the time that the boy got the wound. This also forces them to tell a story which makes even less sense (removing the bandage before the game).
2. Changing their order of the pictures by replacing picture D with A in the beginning and putting picture D in the end. This change will maintain their original version of the story.
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Why did the 3 pupils choose option 1?
It is possible that since in picture D the ball is the most noticeable feature, it was considered more than the other features in the pictures. It was the most perceptible feature and therefore it ruled out the event in picture B, which corresponds with their daily life experience of falling and getting a wound. Considering only one feature which is many times the most easily seen feature is not enough to feel contradiction. In the reality of facing everyday life problems, this kind of thinking would not correctly identify the cause and the effect of an event. such an observation would lead to an inappropriate solution which will not solve the problem.
In both cases we can see that most of the pupils dealt with the contradictory ideas as follows:
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The children arranged the pictures to fit a story build around the most easily seen feature in one of the pictures.
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They ignored daily life experience in terms of cause and effect.
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They did not feel any cognitive contradiction.
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They could not change their first choice of arrangement.
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They changed their verbal expression of the story instead of the physical arrangement of the pictures. We may conclude that it was easier for the pupils to change a verbal expression than a physical action.
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The areas of the brain that are activated when facing a conflict (Figure 3) [128, 148].
An error is an action that stands in contradiction to an expected result we want to achieve, to an existing information that proved to be correct, or to a logical explanation that has a base in the reality of the daily life experience. After a person feels an error, he or she processes the information regarding the error and recognizes the conflict between the outcome of the error, and the expected outcome. This process demands the person to slow down the thinking process because he or she needs to go over the action, to identify the mistake in the action and the conflict it creates. Then, the person has to find a solution to the contradiction or the problem. This complicated process of thinking does not occur in one area in the brain but in several areas in the frontal cortex (marked in red in Figure 3). Feeling of an error occurs in the posterior Medial Frontal Cortex (pMFC) (number 1 in Figure 3). The pMFC causes slowness in movement or reaction in the neural circuit. The stronger the pMFC activity is, the less the motor activity in the post-error (correction of the error) reaction. This allows more time for the anterior Dorsolateral Prefrontal Cortex (DLPFC) and the Frontopolar (marked in number 2, and 3 respectively in figure 3), to operate and to shift the attention from irrelevant to relevant features and reach a better decision which corrects the error.
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Figure 3: The areas in the frontal cortex of the brain that are associated with the error or conflict [based on 128].
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If there was any acknowledgement of an error in the mind of the pupils in Primary 1 in Creative Foundation School, they would have hesitated even for a second. However, they did not hesitate, and they did not slow down their reaction. This means that the pMFC area in their brain did not cause reduction in the neural activity. It is highly possible that their pMFC area, as well as DLFC and the frontopolar in the frontal cortex were impaired by the regular massage with the hot water when the children were babies. The hot towel was applied mainly on their frontal cortex (the red region in Figure 3). These areas were also affected by the application of the Robb ointment. For more details on the damages by the hot water see "structural changes under hyperthermia" page, "chemical changes under hyperthermia" page, and damages by the Robb ointment see "Robb ointment effect" page.
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