Understanding how students learn is crucial for helping them succeed. We examined brain function in 107 undergraduate students during a task known to be challenging for many students--physics problem solving--to characterize the underlying neural mechanisms and determine how these support comprehension and proficiency. Further, we applied module…

This literature review explores visualisation within the context of learning in design, engineering and technology education. The investigation first defines visualisation, providing examples of activities that utilise visualisation skills within an applied field. Then exploration of the mental mechanisms of visualisation used to engage with those…

This study examined the relationships among visuospatial ability, motivation to learn science, and learner conceptions of force across commonly measured demographics with university undergraduates with the aim of examining the support for an evolved sense of force and motion. Demographic variables of interest included age, ethnicity, and gender,…

This study employed eye-tracking technology to examine how students with different levels of prior knowledge process text and data diagrams when reading a web-based scientific report. Students' visual behaviors were tracked and recorded when they read a report demonstrating the relationship between the greenhouse effect and global climate…

Do we perceive correctly whether a 2-D object is balanced or unbalanced? What would be the cause of biased equilibrium judgments? In two psychometric studies, we varied independently the characteristics of the objects and the equilibrium states. First, we observed that observers were excessively sensitive to the eccentricity of the object top.…

The application of Biggs' and Collis' Structure of Observed Learning Outcomes taxonomy in the evaluation of student learning about cell membrane transport via a computer-based learning environment is described in this study. Pre-test-post-test comparisons of student outcome data (n = 80) were made across two groups of randomly assigned students:…

Participants' usage of informational variables in learning visual relative-mass discrimination in collisions was tracked by means of PROBIT correlations. Four groups received feedback that was true or accorded with either of three nonspecificational cue variables. A majority in each group adopted the feedback, but several participants defied the…

Self-rated sense of direction is reliably related to people's accuracy when pointing in the direction of unseen landmarks from imagined or actual perspectives. It is proposed that the cognitive substrate of accurate pointing responses is a vector representation, which is defined as an integrated network of displacement vectors. Experiment 1…

Many people erroneously believe that an object carried by another moving object will, if dropped, fall in a straight vertical line. This belief may stem from a perceptual illusion in which objects dropped from a moving carrier are perceived as falling straight down or even backward. (Author/RD)

Appraises current explanations of how visual processing occurs. Highlights the basics of simultaneous and serial levels of processing. Discusses the results of a series of experiments on visual-search tasks and also on the role of prior knowledge in processing. (ML)

The aim of the 2018 International Association for Development of the Information Society (IADIS) Cognition and Exploratory Learning in the Digital Age (CELDA) conference was to address the main issues concerned with evolving learning processes and supporting pedagogies and applications in the digital age. There have been advances in both cognitive…