Extended Definitions
Reception Functions

R-1: Closure
Scenario: Richard, a third grade student who is experiencing difficulty in learning to read, takes a glimpse at a book and pushes it away. Richard's premature closure causes his data gathering to be discontinued before completion. The effect is a sharp reduction in Richard's opportunities to learn.

Long Definition: Closure is the cognitive function that helps the learner to give thinking a chance. Closure influences the opening and closing of the systems that are involved in thinking. Closure supports the rhythm and flow of the mental act, or thought process, across its phases: information collection, transformation and communication. Perception, memory, motivation and affect also interface to contribute to the learner's functioning on an on-going basis but it is the ability to regulate closure that enables the individual to secure a spot for thinking.

Premature closure most often affects the reception phase of the mental act, causing the data gathering process to be discontinued before completion. In extreme cases learners reject tasks out of hand.

Premature closure can occur when the learner confronts a task that is similar to ones that formerly let to a sense of failure or defeat. The learner feels vulnerable to further injury and rejects the task out of a need for protection. Premature closure combines a cognitive element with emotional and motivational elements. If the individual closes down quickly on what is perceived as a threatening situation, then the individual is protected from ascribing renewed failure to low ability or lack of knowledge. Rejection of the task ("I didn't try") shields the individual by leaving knowledge and ability questions indeterminate. Premature closure reduces opportunities to learn. Over time the loss of learning opportunities may serve to compound the problem. Premature closure concerning one type of task, such as reading, may become more generalized, leading to the rejection and avoidance of an increasing number of tasks and learning opportunities.

R-2: Attention
Scenario: Rachel is well known for her inability to stay focused. When her teacher gives directions in class she often comes back and asks to hear them again - and again. For example, her teacher asked her to get some materials from the supply room but when Rachel got there she discovered that she didn't know what she was there to pick up.

Long Definition: Attention is the cognitive function that helps the learner to maintain mental focus. In the receptive phase attention allows sensory data to be registered and kept in focus long enough to extract information and support this information by other knowledge construction functions such as spatial orientation R-3, temporal orientation R-4, which permit boundaries to be established and maintained among discrete elements of experience, the use of traces, symbols and signs R-5 interiorization T-6 which provides a mental foundation for transforming and combining these individual components.

When a student has a knowledge construction function under volitional control, he or she is aware of the function and can consciously work it. Once volitional control of attention is present, the learner may employ selective attention to screen incoming information, alternating attention to switch back and forth from one information source to another or divided attention to monitor separate sources of information simultaneously. For example, when her teacher talks, Anna uses selective attention to screen out noises from the noisy air-conditioning unit in her classroom. While watching a video of performers in a three-ring circus Dan uses alternating attention as he switches his attention back and forth from ring to ring. During a project activity Jacqueline is asked to monitor two teams of students to see which first completes a task. She uses divided attention.

Attention plays a role across all three phases of the mental act: Reception, transformation and communication. The function can be extremely sensitive to the pressures of affective and motivational factors, task properties and other knowledge construction functions. For example, Joey is easily distracted especially during tasks he considers boring.

R-3: Spatial orientation
Scenario: Katy is simply bad at directions that involve left and right, North and South. She has a hard time envisioning the landscape and distinctive markers when both giving and receiving directions. She has difficulty conceptualizing the whole and how its parts relate to one another. Katy's problems with spatial orientation make her insecure in many learning situations. She withdraws and tries to copy from other students.

Long Definition: Spatial orientation is the knowledge construction function that helps the learner to establish spatial referents. As children mature and learn, they are more likely to use spatial referents that do not rely on the self (e.g. North, South, East, West; longitude, latitude) but the self-referenced right, left, front, back, above and below remains the main system for spatial orientation throughout life. Deficiencies in spatial orientation may prevent the individual from relating objects and events to each other in terms of absolute and relative positions, directions and even proximity (near, far). Mild difficulty with this knowledge construction function is quite common. Many people have some difficulties, for example, finding their way using directions or orienting themselves using maps.

It is important to understand that spatial orientation as a function is distinct from the verbal tools (such as 'left' or 'lower right') which may be used to describe objects in space or spatial relationships. As a knowledge construction function spatial orientation represents a propensity to pin spatial referents to one's experience. For example, when she visits her friends Deirdre notices that she always takes just a moment to think about where her friend's house is in relation to her own.

The propensity to establish spatial relationships is often pervasive and highly automatized in learners who have developed this function. Any verbal account of its use is likely to be far from exhaustive and covering only a tiny portion of the numerous spatial relationships that have, in fact, been established. For example, Ruben has a sense of all the students in his class who sit in front of him, behind him, to his right and to his left. It would take him long to spell out all of the spatial knowledge he has stored. Most of the time he becomes aware of it when people move to new seats in the classroom where he did not expect them.

Although the vast number of spatial referents established at the input level of one's experience goes unarticulated they serve the critically important purpose of helping to form coherent mental images, or representations, of that experience T-7. For example, after watching a play, students rely on their mental representations of the drama to describe their feelings about it. Once established the mental representation is essentially independent of the physical and perceptual dimensions, allowing the learner to act upon it and modify it anywhere and any time. Along with temporal orientation, spatial orientation forms the crossroads of higher levels of cognitive functioning. When these orientations are poorly developed the learner is forced to operate at a concrete, imitative and reproductive level supported only by perception in the here and the now. Out of sight is out of mind.

R-4: Temporal orientation
Scenario: Susan is extremely good at reciting to her classmates the events of their trip. They marvel at the way she can string together the sequence of events, telling them about when each took place and how one event led to another. Not only is Susan very accurate in the first place, she can also see the relationships between events in a temporal sequence and self-correct when she senses something is out of order.

Long Definition: Temporal orientation helps the learner to establish referents of time among the elements of experience. As with spatial orientation, temporal orientation as a knowledge construction function is distinct from the verbal tools that are used to describe time (e.g. millisecond, second, minute, hour, day, week, month, year, decade, century, millennium) and temporal relationships (e.g. now, then, past, before, early, earlier than, after, late, later than, future). As a knowledge construction function temporal orientation represents a propensity to underpin one's experience with temporal referents. Temporal orientation is normally pervasive and highly automatized; often we are not even aware how we are recognizing and articulating evidence of this function in action. Even when we are actually focusing on temporal orientation, we really only involve a very tiny subsection of the temporal relationships that have, in fact, been established and which could be enunciated.

Although the vast number of temporal referents established at the input level of one's experience go unarticulated, they serve the critically important purpose of helping the individual to form coherent strings of mental images, or representations, of one's experience. Along with spatial orientation, temporal orientation plays a crucial role in the formation of mental representations T-7. Mental representations permit the learner to relate to objects or events after they have ceased to be present to the senses and remain only in memory. Temporal orientation is critical for the conceptualization of causal relationships T-25, for experiencing transformations over time T-12, for goal seeking and goal setting T-22, planning T-23 and goal achievement T-24. Difficulties with temporal orientation can produce a fragmented, episodic grasp of reality for the student where experience is disconnected, or disassociated, from preceding and subsequent experience.

R-5: Traces, symbols and signs
Scenario: Eugene asks his teacher about the difference between a photograph of his dog and his dog. He knows there are many differences between them: One is made of photographic paper and the other is made of flesh and blood. But Eugene is wondering how the two are related to one another. The teacher tells Eugene that the picture is a trace of the dog; a trace that points to the dog so that when he sees the picture he in a sense sees the dog. The trace of the dog enables Eugene to see the dog even when the dog is not there. Eugene's friend Paul still has difficulty with this knowledge construction function. He does not infer a vehicle from the tire marks in the sand, does not yet recognize the feeling of love from the carved shape of the arrow and heart and has trouble understanding the connection between the signs of a musical score and the sounds they represent in a melody.

Long Definition: Traces, symbols and signs help the learner infer something from something else that points to it. Traces, symbols and signs function as substitutes, referents or representations of reality. They can refer to objects, relationships, feelings, events or any other aspect of reality. Traces, symbols and signs point to something else beyond themselves. A particularly shaped footprint in the sand (a trace) points to a human being. A nation's flag (a symbol) points to the country whose nationality it represents. The letters T C A (signs) when ordered in a particular way are supported by an English language convention to represent or signify a familiar animal.

Traces, symbols and signs all share the characteristic of pointing beyond themselves to something else. Traces are actual marks, residues, impacts or influences. Detectives and scientists often study them intently. For example, can a criminal's identity be inferred from a shoeprint at the scene of the crime? (Marks and residues). Can the existence of an unseen planet be inferred from the wobbling of a star? (Impacts or influences).

Symbols and signs are occasionally used interchangeably. How do symbols and signs differ? Signs point by convention and can both be created and replaced by convention. For example, signs are used in mathematics (such as + ('add') and - ('subtract')), in traffic (such as traffic lights), and on maps (such as marks indicating small and large cities). Signs do not participate in the reality they point at, while symbols do. Unlike signs symbols cannot simply be created. Symbols evolve not out of intent, declaration or convention, but out of the individual and shared unconscious that accept them. At the outset of any baseball game in the U.S., there is a symbolic presence of a flag and a moment devoted to the national anthem. Also, there are symbols of team logos that act as signs, some even representing regional differences and symbolic identities. For example, placing the Atlanta Braves insignia alongside that of the New York Yankees arouses often a deep sense of rivalry between the two teams representing the regional divide between the northern and southern United States.

Symbols arise in the cultural and political histories of peoples, in their religions and their arts. Symbols enable people to experience their culture. Symbols provide access to dimensions of awareness and experience that cannot be accessed by science, analysis and logic and may evoke or uncover levels of reality unreachable by scientific analysis. Although this function is a pre-requisite for representational and abstract thinking, it is listed with the receptive functions due to its critical role in the identification and decoding of information.

R-6: Verbal tools and concepts
Scenario: Lakisha is quite good at doing a number of things. She is active physically and mentally and demonstrates a keen ability to register and consider other people's feelings. However, her classmates find it hard to participate in team situations with Lakisha because she has a hard time picking up on tasks, making distinctions and identifying details. As a result when Lakisha is assigned to collect information for the group her classmates frequently wonder how accurate a portrait she is rendering and how far off the mark they will be if they follow her instructions.

Long Definition: Verbal tools and concepts help the learner to register, store, transform and communicate information. The function is listed separately under the reception and communication phases of the mental act C-6 to underscore the special need for distinction between the available funds of vocabulary and concepts at the receptive and expressive phases of the mental act. The distinction is between recognition (decoding) versus production (encoding). For example, Jeffrey understands via listening and reading many words that he doesn't use when he communicates via speaking and writing.

The adequacy of the learner's verbal tools and concepts affects each phase of the mental act. In the reception phase an inability to identify and label sources of information affects both the quantity and quality of information gathered. The fewer the verbal tools and concepts that are available to the learner, the narrower the limits on the types and degrees of distinctions that the learner can make.

In the transformation phase, inadequate verbal tools and concepts can further impede a student's ability to organize and rank information. For instance, such inadequacies can impede attempts to transform concrete mental representations by hampering a search for similarities and differences, obscuring a basis for ordering and grouping, or precluding the identification of a stable rule. The concept of speed, for example, is necessary to link the concept of time with the concept of distance in space. Verbal tools and concepts make the construction of complex and abstract relationships possible.

In the communication phase inadequate verbal tools and concepts C-6 limit the expression of even adequately elaborated mental relationships leading to circumlocutions, imprecision, approximations, the selection of non-verbal modalities emphasizing facial expression and gesticulation, or a tilt towards a more emotional and less cognitive basis of communication.