Does a concurrent cognitive task affect the dynamics of bimanual rhythmic coordination? In-phase coordination was performed under manipulations of phase detuning and movement frequency and either singly or in combination with an arithmetic task. Predicted direction-specific shifts in stable relative phase from 0 degrees due to detuning and…

Why are human observers particularly sensitive to human movement? Seven experiments examined the roles of visual experience and motor processes in human movement perception by comparing visual sensitivities to point-light displays of familiar, unusual, and impossible gaits across gait-speed and identity discrimination tasks. In both tasks, visual…

Two or three years ago, there was an exchange of several articles in "Primary Science Review" about the question: "What is the best way of naming the forces acting on a descending parachute?" (Harrison, 2001; Harlen, 2002; Sell, 2002). Stuart Harrison reported that, according to the Qualifications and Curriculum Authority (QCA), a third of…

Newton's Cradle is a series of bifilar pendulums used in physics classrooms to demonstrate the role of the principles of conservation of momentum and kinetic energy in elastic collisions. The paper reviews the way in which textbooks use Newton's Cradle and points out the unsatisfactory nature of these treatments in almost all cases. The literature…

The analysis of tautochrone problems involves the solution of integral equations. The paper shows how a reasonable assumption, based on experience with simple harmonic motion, allows one to greatly simplify such problems. Proposed solutions involve only mathematics available to students from first year calculus.

This article is a short introduction on how to use Modellus (a computer package that is freely available on the Internet and used in the IOP "Advancing Physics" course) to build physics games using Newton's laws, expressed as differential equations. Solving systems of differential equations is beyond most secondary-school or first-year college…

People update egocentric spatial relations in an effortless and on-line manner when they move in the environment, but not when they only imagine themselves moving. In contrast to previous studies, the present experiments examined egocentric updating with spatial scenes that were encoded linguistically instead of perceived directly. Experiment 1…

The present study aims to investigate the relationship between the rhythmical and the kinetic parts of the Hasapikos dance--both slow and fast--so that, after their relation is determined and recorded, the authentic form of the dance can be formally expressed with rhythmical numeration for teaching purposes. The collection of the data was based on…

In 3 experiments, participants, on signal, moved a cursor from a central position to 1 of 8 numerically labeled locations on the circumference of a clock face. Movements were controlled by a mouse in 1 of 4 conditions: vertical reversal, horizontal reversal, combined reversals, or normal (i.e., no reversals). Participants were trained in 1, 2, or…

In individuals with autism or autism-spectrum-disorder (ASD), conflicting results have been reported regarding the processing of biological motion tasks. As biological motion perception and recognition might be related to impaired imitation, gross motor skills and autism specific psychopathology in individuals with ASD, we performed a functional…

In this article, we present the results of a qualitative research project on the effect of motion analysis activities in a Video-Based Laboratory (VBL) on students' understanding of position, velocity and frames of reference. The participants in our research were 48 pre-service teachers enrolled in Education Departments with no previous strong…

This study continues a line of empirical work examining the extent to which incorporating movement into learning conditions enhances performance for African American students. To date, few studies have examined different types of movement opportunity. As such, five qualitatively different movement conditions were tested in an urban sample of 100…

A major focus of research on language acquisition in infancy involves experimental studies of the infant's ability to discriminate various kinds of speech or speech-like stimuli. This research has demonstrated that infants are sensitive to many fine-grained differences in the acoustic properties of speech utterance. Furthermore, these empirical…

This paper describes our flight aboard NASA's C9 "Weightless Wonder," an aircraft that creates multiple periods of microgravity by conducting a series of parabolic maneuvers over the Gulf of Mexico. Because passengers often develop motion sickness during these parabolic maneuvers, the C9 is more affectionately known as the "Vomit Comet." To…

Background: Previous research suggested that persons with Down syndrome (DS) used a different strategy to drum than typical adults. Methods: The present study examined continuous bimanual drumming strategies in response to different instructions in 10 persons with DS, 10 mental age-matched and 10 chronological age-matched groups. The drumming task…