The use of external representations has the potential to facilitate inquiry learning, especially hypothesis generation and reasoning, which typically present difficulties for students. This study describes a novel three-dimensional cognitive mapping (3DCM) approach that supports inquiry learning by allowing learners to combine the information on a…

A perspective is presented on how the representation mapping framework by Hahn and Chater (1998) may be used to characterize reasoning during problem solving in chemistry. To provide examples for testing the framework, an exploratory study was conducted with students and professors from three different courses in the middle of the undergraduate…

Do people with different kinds of bodies think differently? According to the "body-specificity hypothesis," people who interact with their physical environments in systematically different ways should form correspondingly different mental representations. In a test of this hypothesis, 5 experiments investigated links between handedness and the…

Surface and relational similarity were examined in two experiments involving isomorphic and nonisomorphic analogical transfer, using direct-mapping and cross-mapping conditions. In the first experiment, third and sixth graders exhibited mapping based on relational similarity more frequently than did kindergartners; in the second, most four- to…

Research involving cognitive modification and using intervention instruction in general prerequisite cognitive processes has shown that significant and long-term results are possible. Use of intervention instruction involving prerequisite data gathering skills with teachers has been successful in improving ability to use probing questions in…

Three experiments using college students examine the processes involved in deductive reasoning. Effects of training in classroom and laboratory situations confirmed the authors' hypothesis that people use pragmatic reasoning schemas rather than syntactics rules of logic for problem solving. Training materials used in experiments 1 and 3 are…

Hypothesizes that the human brain localizes mental operations which are integrated in the performance of cognitive tasks such as reading. Provides support of this hypothesis from studies in neural imaging, mental imagery, timing, and memory. (RT)

Illustrates how one can discover structure in mental abilities where none was obvious. Reports that two classes of processes are used to form images. Indicates that imagery is carried out by multiple processes, not all of which are implemented equally effectively in the same part of the brain. (RT)