This paper presents study that investigates brain activity (using ERP methodology) of male adolescents when solving short problems in algebra and geometry. The study design links mathematics education research with neuro-cognitive studies. We performed a comparative analysis of brain activity associated with the translation from visual to symbolic…

The goal of the study was to reconstruct and dismantle a sequence of events that preceded an insight solution to a challenging problem by a ninth-grade student. A three-week long solution process was analysed by means of the theory of shifts of attention. We argue that concurrent focusing on what, how and why the student attends to when working on…