Given the importance of fresh water, we investigated undergraduate students’ understanding of wat... more Given the importance of fresh water, we investigated undergraduate students’ understanding of water flow and its consequences. We probed introductory geology students’ pre-instruction knowledge using a classroom management system at two large research-intensive universities. Open-ended clicker questions, where students click directly on diagrams using their smart device (e.g., cell phone, tablet) to respond, probed students’ predictions about: (1) groundwater movement and (2) velocity and erosion in a river channel. Approximately one-third of students correctly identified groundwater flow as having lateral and vertical components; however, the same number of students identified only vertical components to flow despite the diagram depicting enough topographic gradient for lateral flow. For rivers depicted as having a straight channel, students correctly identified zones of high velocity. However, for curved river channels, students incorrectly identified the inside of the bend as the...
Science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) disciplines commonly illustrate 3D relat... more Science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) disciplines commonly illustrate 3D relationships in diagrams, yet these are often challenging for students. Failing to understand diagrams can hinder success in STEM because scientific practice requires understanding and creating diagrammatic representations. We explore a new approach to improving student understanding of diagrams that convey 3D relations that is based on students generating their own predictive diagrams. Participants' comprehension of 3D spatial diagrams was measured in a pre- and post-design where students selected the correct 2D slice through 3D geologic block diagrams. Generating sketches that predicated the internal structure of a model led to greater improvement in diagram understanding than visualizing the interior of the model without sketching, or sketching the model without attempting to predict unseen spatial relations. In addition, we found a positive correlation between sketched diagram accuracy and improvement on the diagram comprehension measure. Results suggest that generating a predictive diagram facilitates students' abilities to make inferences about spatial relationships in diagrams. Implications for use of sketching in supporting STEM learning are discussed.
Being able to estimate quantity is important in everyday life and for success in the STEM discipl... more Being able to estimate quantity is important in everyday life and for success in the STEM disciplines. However, people have difficulty reasoning about magnitudes outside of human perception (e.g., nanoseconds, geologic time). This study examines patterns of estimation errors across temporal and spatial magnitudes at large scales. We evaluated the effectiveness of hierarchical alignment in improving estimations, and transfer across dimensions. The activity was successful in increasing accuracy for temporal and spatial magnitudes, and learning transferred to the estimation of numeric magnitudes associated with events and objects. However, there were also a number of informative differences in performance on temporal, spatial, and numeric magnitude measures, suggesting that participants possess different categorical information for these scales. Educational implications are discussed.
Two experiments tested the hypothesis that imagery ability and figural complexity interact to aff... more Two experiments tested the hypothesis that imagery ability and figural complexity interact to affect the choice of mental rotation strategies. Participants performed the Shepard and Metzler (1971) mental rotation task. On half of the trials, the 3-D figures were manipulated to create “fragmented” figures, with some cubes missing. Good imagers were less accurate and had longer response times on fragmented figures than on complete figures. Poor imagers performed similarly on fragmented and complete figures. These results suggest that good imagers use holistic mental rotation strategies by default, but switch to alternative strategies depending on task demands, whereas poor imagers are less flexible and use piecemeal strategies regardless of the task demands.
Five-month-old infants viewed point-light displays depicting the human actions of walking, kickin... more Five-month-old infants viewed point-light displays depicting the human actions of walking, kicking, throwing, and running. These actions were presented as upright canonical displays and spatially scrambled displays in which the global form of the action was disrupted. Significant differences were observed between event-related potential (ERP) waveforms to the canonical and scrambled displays at mid-parietal, lateral parietal, temporal, and occipital electrode sites. These differences were clearest at lateral parietal electrode sites (P7 and P8) where the scrambled stimuli elicited a more positive waveform than the canonical stimuli. The findings represent initial neurophysiological evidence that infants in the first half year of life are sensitive to disruptions in the human form, and provide a basis for further work on the neurocognitive developments associated with changes in young infants' perception of human motion.
... Fitting the Mind to the World: Adaptation and After-Effects in High-Level Vision Edited by Co... more ... Fitting the Mind to the World: Adaptation and After-Effects in High-Level Vision Edited by Colin WG Clifford and Gillian Rhodes Human ... Many thanks to Corey Maley for technical assistance, and to him and the other members of the Dynamic Cognition Laboratory at Washington ...
Given the importance of fresh water, we investigated undergraduate students’ understanding of wat... more Given the importance of fresh water, we investigated undergraduate students’ understanding of water flow and its consequences. We probed introductory geology students’ pre-instruction knowledge using a classroom management system at two large research-intensive universities. Open-ended clicker questions, where students click directly on diagrams using their smart device (e.g., cell phone, tablet) to respond, probed students’ predictions about: (1) groundwater movement and (2) velocity and erosion in a river channel. Approximately one-third of students correctly identified groundwater flow as having lateral and vertical components; however, the same number of students identified only vertical components to flow despite the diagram depicting enough topographic gradient for lateral flow. For rivers depicted as having a straight channel, students correctly identified zones of high velocity. However, for curved river channels, students incorrectly identified the inside of the bend as the...
Science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) disciplines commonly illustrate 3D relat... more Science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) disciplines commonly illustrate 3D relationships in diagrams, yet these are often challenging for students. Failing to understand diagrams can hinder success in STEM because scientific practice requires understanding and creating diagrammatic representations. We explore a new approach to improving student understanding of diagrams that convey 3D relations that is based on students generating their own predictive diagrams. Participants' comprehension of 3D spatial diagrams was measured in a pre- and post-design where students selected the correct 2D slice through 3D geologic block diagrams. Generating sketches that predicated the internal structure of a model led to greater improvement in diagram understanding than visualizing the interior of the model without sketching, or sketching the model without attempting to predict unseen spatial relations. In addition, we found a positive correlation between sketched diagram accuracy and improvement on the diagram comprehension measure. Results suggest that generating a predictive diagram facilitates students' abilities to make inferences about spatial relationships in diagrams. Implications for use of sketching in supporting STEM learning are discussed.
Being able to estimate quantity is important in everyday life and for success in the STEM discipl... more Being able to estimate quantity is important in everyday life and for success in the STEM disciplines. However, people have difficulty reasoning about magnitudes outside of human perception (e.g., nanoseconds, geologic time). This study examines patterns of estimation errors across temporal and spatial magnitudes at large scales. We evaluated the effectiveness of hierarchical alignment in improving estimations, and transfer across dimensions. The activity was successful in increasing accuracy for temporal and spatial magnitudes, and learning transferred to the estimation of numeric magnitudes associated with events and objects. However, there were also a number of informative differences in performance on temporal, spatial, and numeric magnitude measures, suggesting that participants possess different categorical information for these scales. Educational implications are discussed.
Two experiments tested the hypothesis that imagery ability and figural complexity interact to aff... more Two experiments tested the hypothesis that imagery ability and figural complexity interact to affect the choice of mental rotation strategies. Participants performed the Shepard and Metzler (1971) mental rotation task. On half of the trials, the 3-D figures were manipulated to create “fragmented” figures, with some cubes missing. Good imagers were less accurate and had longer response times on fragmented figures than on complete figures. Poor imagers performed similarly on fragmented and complete figures. These results suggest that good imagers use holistic mental rotation strategies by default, but switch to alternative strategies depending on task demands, whereas poor imagers are less flexible and use piecemeal strategies regardless of the task demands.
Five-month-old infants viewed point-light displays depicting the human actions of walking, kickin... more Five-month-old infants viewed point-light displays depicting the human actions of walking, kicking, throwing, and running. These actions were presented as upright canonical displays and spatially scrambled displays in which the global form of the action was disrupted. Significant differences were observed between event-related potential (ERP) waveforms to the canonical and scrambled displays at mid-parietal, lateral parietal, temporal, and occipital electrode sites. These differences were clearest at lateral parietal electrode sites (P7 and P8) where the scrambled stimuli elicited a more positive waveform than the canonical stimuli. The findings represent initial neurophysiological evidence that infants in the first half year of life are sensitive to disruptions in the human form, and provide a basis for further work on the neurocognitive developments associated with changes in young infants' perception of human motion.
... Fitting the Mind to the World: Adaptation and After-Effects in High-Level Vision Edited by Co... more ... Fitting the Mind to the World: Adaptation and After-Effects in High-Level Vision Edited by Colin WG Clifford and Gillian Rhodes Human ... Many thanks to Corey Maley for technical assistance, and to him and the other members of the Dynamic Cognition Laboratory at Washington ...
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