Page 443 - Deep Learning

426 Notes to Pages 166–173

71. The literature of human evolution is by now extensive, with many different ideas
and principles proposed as central to the process. Donald (1991) and Mithen
(1996) especially emphasize changes in cognitive representation systems.
72. Eldredge (1989), Eldredge and Gould (1972), Gould (2002) and Somit and
Peterson (1992). For the quote, see Eldredge and Gould (1972, p. 193).

Chapter 6. The Growth of Competence
1. Bruner (1970, p. 65).
2. From Gagné. The Conditions of Learning, 1E. © 1965 Wadsworth, a part of Cengage
Learning, Inc. Reproduced by permission. www.cengage.com/permissions.
3. Furniss (2005, p. 49). See also www.space.com/news/spacehistory/leonov_
spacewalk_000318.html.
4. See, e.g., Horai et al. (1995). Cavalli-Sforza (2000), Olson (2002) and Stringer and
McKie (1997) provide readable summaries of the relevant evidence.
5. Olson (2002, Chap. 3).
6. Belich (2001).
7. Sténuit (1966) tells the story from the aquanaut’s own point of view; additional
details are available in Miller and Koblick (1995, pp. 28–30). Three underwater
habitats were created and operated by Jacques Costeau’s underwater research
organization. The Conshelf I experiment is described in Chapter 18 of the pop-
ular book, The Living Sea (Costeau, 1963); see also Miller and Koblick (1995,
pp. 30–33). The second habitat, Conshelf II, was located in the Red Sea and har-
bored a group of five divers, including Claude Wesley, for one month. Two of the
divers lived for six days in a smaller habitat anchored at a depth of 90 feet, breath-
ing an oxygen-helium mixture. The Conshelf II experiment is described and
photographically documented in the book World Without Sun (Costeau, 1964);
see also Miller and Koblick (1995, pp. 33–37). The third habitat, Conshelf III,
let six divers live at a depth of 100 meters for three weeks (Miller & Koblick, 1995,
pp. 65–71).
8. Two years before Skylab, the Soviet Union launched and manned the space sta-
tion Salyut, but after three weeks in space, the three-man crew was killed during
re-entry to earth’s atmosphere. The following Salyut-2 mission was also unsuc-
cessful, so the first successful Salyut mission did not occur until 1974, a year after
the Skylab triumph (Furniss, 2005, pp. 98–101). Additional information about
Skylab is available at www-pao.ksc.nasa.gov/history/skylab/skylab.html.
9. Questions like how fast people learn or how much they improve while practicing
are ill-defined in the general case because the answers depend on the type of task
being practiced, the amount of prior learning and other factors. However, we can
model improvement in terms of time to task completion by a so-called power law
-a
equation, T N = T 1 *N , where T N is the time to task completion on trial number
N, T 1 is the time to task completion on the first training trial and a is a parameter
that measures the learning rate; see Note 11, this chapter. Newell and Rosenbloom
(1981, Table 1.2, p. 25) summarize values for the rate parameter obtained in empir-
ical studies. Unfortunately, the reported values range from .06 to .95, providing
little guidance for what to designate as a typical case. Suppose we focus on a task