Training Planning and Working Memory in Third Graders

Working memory and planning are fundamental cognitive skills supporting fluid reasoning. We show that 2 games that train working memory and planning skills in school‐aged children promote transfer to 2 different tasks: an attentional test and a fluid reasoning test. We also show long‐term improvement of planning and memory capacities in 8‐year‐old children after playing adaptive computer games specifically tailored to entrain these cognitive functions. Working memory capacity expanded from 5 to 7 items by using our games. Furthermore, steady progression in the task indicates that this capacity can be trained rapidly. Planning abilities persisted in a nonmarkovian form of play, where a move is highly influenced by previous moves, avoiding back‐ups. Here, we introduce a public and growing platform ( http://www.matemarote.com.ar/ ) developed for this research which has the potential for wide use in educational research.     

Information technologies and the tragedy of the Good Will

Information plays a major role in any moral action. ICT (Information and Communication Technologies) have revolutionized the life of information, from its production and management to its consumption, thus deeply affecting our moral lives. Amid the many issues they have raised, a very serious one, discussed in this paper, is labelled the tragedy of the Good Will. This is represented by the increasing pressure that ICT and their deluge of information are putting on any agent who would like to act morally, when informed about actual or potential evils, but who also lacks the resources to do much about them. In the paper, it is argued that the tragedy may be at least mitigated, if not solved, by seeking to re-establish some equilibrium, through ICT themselves, between what agents know about the world and what they can do to improve it.