An understanding of falling bodies across schooling and experience based on the conceptual prevalence framework.

In this article, we describe a study conducted online with 953 participants of varying levels of education and, when applicable, science/physics teaching experience. These participants were asked to solve a cognitive task in which many different pairs of objects were presented and to identify which, if any, would touch the ground first when dropped (in atmospheric or non-atmospheric environments). Recorded accuracies and response times allowed us to conduct an analysis based on the conceptual prevalence framework, which posits that the coexistence of conceptual and/or misconceptual resources can produce interference in response production. The results show that the influence of some of them decreases or, more surprisingly, increases with training. In fact, secondary and college physics teachers seem to cultivate some of them, and most likely have contributed to their spread. The implications for teaching and research are discussed.

Persistence of the "Moving Things Are Alive" Heuristic into Adulthood: Evidence from EEG.

Although a growing number of studies indicate that simple strategies, intuitions, or cognitive shortcuts called heuristics can persistently interfere with scientific reasoning in physics and chemistry, the persistence of heuristics related to learning biology is less known. In this study, we investigate the persistence of the "moving things are alive" heuristic into adulthood with 28 undergraduate students who were asked to select between two images, one of which one represented a living thing, while their electroencephalographic signals were recorded. Results show that N2 and LPP event-related potential components, often associated with tasks requiring inhibitory control, are higher in counterintuitive trials (i.e., in trials including moving things not alive or nonmoving things alive) compared with intuitive ones. To our knowledge, these findings represent the first neurocognitive evidence that the "moving things are alive" heuristic persists into adulthood and that overcoming this heuristic might require inhibitory control. Potential implications for life science education are discussed.

An fMRI study of scientists with a Ph.D. in physics confronted with naive ideas in science.

A central challenge in developing conceptual understanding in science is overcoming naive ideas that contradict the content of science curricula. Neuroimaging studies reveal that high school and university students activate frontal brain areas associated with inhibitory control to overcome naive ideas in science, probably because they persist despite scientific training. However, no neuroimaging study has yet explored how persistent naive ideas in science are. Here, we report brain activations of 25 scientists with a Ph.D. in physics assessing the scientific value of naive ideas in science. Results show that scientists are slower and have lower accuracy when judging the scientific value of naive ideas compared to matched control ideas. fMRI data reveals that a network of frontal brain regions is more activated when judging naive ideas. Results suggest that naive ideas are likely to persist, even after completing a Ph.D. Advanced experts may still rely on high order executive functions like inhibitory control to overcome naive ideas when the context requires it.

Inhibitory control and the understanding of buoyancy from childhood to adulthood.

Intuitive conceptions represent common obstacles to conceptual learning in science. A growing number of studies demonstrate that when learning occurs, these intuitive conceptions are not replaced by scientific conceptions but rather coexist with them and thus need to be inhibited to prevent systematic errors. However, to date no study has demonstrated that the increasing ability to mobilize a given scientific conception is rooted in the increasing ability to inhibit the intuitive conception that interferes with it. In the current study, we investigated whether the increasing ability from childhood to adulthood to solve a scientific problem regarding the buoyancy of marbles of different sizes and densities is rooted in the increasing ability to inhibit the "bigger objects sink more" intuitive conception. To do so, we designed a negative priming paradigm in which 11-year-old children, 17-year-old adolescents, and 24-year-old adults were asked to choose which of two marbles of various sizes and densities sinks more. Negative priming effects reported in children and adolescents suggest that, unlike adults, they must inhibit the "bigger objects sink more" intuitive conception to determine, for instance, that a small marble with high density (e.g., small lead marble) will sink more than a bigger marble with a lower density (e.g., big wooden marble). We also found that the amplitude of negative priming effects decreased with age, suggesting that the level of exposition to the scientific knowledge of buoyancy (increasing with age) may decrease the need to inhibit the "bigger objects sink more" intuitive conception.

Is inhibitory control involved in discriminating pseudowords that contain the reversible letters b and d?

Children tend to confuse reversible letters such as b and d when they start learning to read. According to some authors, mirror errors are a consequence of the mirror generalization (MG) process that allows one to recognize objects independently of their left-right orientation. Although MG is advantageous for the visual recognition of objects, it is detrimental for the visual recognition of reversible letters. Previous studies comparing novice and expert readers demonstrated that MG must be inhibited to discriminate reversible single letters. In this study, we investigated whether MG must also be inhibited by novice readers to discriminate between two pseudowords containing reversible letters. Readable pseudowords, rather than words, were used to mimic early non-automatic stages of reading when reading is achieved by decoding words through grapheme-phoneme pairing and combination. We designed a negative priming paradigm in which school-aged children (10-year-olds) were asked to judge whether two pseudowords were identical on the prime and whether two animals were identical on the probe. Children required more time to determine that two animals were mirror images of each other when preceded by pseudowords containing the reversible letter b or d than when preceded by different pseudowords containing the control letter f or t (Experiment 1) or by different pseudowords that differed only by the target letter f or k (Experiment 2). These results suggest that MG must be inhibited to discriminate between pseudowords containing reversible letters, generalizing the findings regarding single letters to a context more representative of the early stages of reading.