Manual exploratory behaviors during object interaction that form the basis of tool use behavior, are mostly qualitatively characterized in terms of their frequency and duration of occurrence. To fully understand their functional and clinical significance, quantitative movement characterization is needed alongside their qualitative analysis.…

Previous studies found that bodily states have an impact on divergent thinking, but it remains to be seen how generalizable this effect could be, how exactly it depends on cognitive control, and whether similar effects can be found on convergent thinking. To address these questions, we examined the bodily state effect on divergent thinking,…

Research has shown that using the Internet to access information can influence memory, metacognition, and how people choose to access information in the future. The current experiment sought to expand this line of work by investigating the impact of using the Internet on creative thinking. A total of 378 participants completed a version of the…

Teacher education and social education are increasingly challenged to adopt student-centred approaches by focusing on learning spaces and materiality. This study reports on an integrative literature review to determine how space and materiality are approached in the research literature on playful learning in higher education. A thematic analysis…

Fidget spinners have experienced a rapid rise in popularity, at least partially because they are marketed as attentional aides with the potential to enhance student learning. In the current study, college-aged students watched educational videos while either using a fidget spinner or not. Using a fidget spinner was associated with increased…

Online learning has become a daily mode of modern education, and its effect on learning outcomes has also been widely discussed. Engagement, satisfaction and academic performance are often used to measure learning outcomes, while factors such as physical motorization, information presentation and embodied learning experiences are often used to…

In the activity described in this communication, the authors present a simple experiment that can be implemented with moderate operational costs and that allows students to acquire the manipulative skills necessary for chromatographic analysis of a familiar fuel that still plays a fundamental role in providing energy for transport of passengers…

In sound symbolism, a word's sound induces expectations about the nature of a salient aspect of the word's referent. P. Walker (2016a) proposed that cross-sensory correspondences can be the source of these expectations, and the present study assessed three implications flowing from this proposal. First, sound symbolism will embrace a wide range of…

For the last decade, remedial spatial visualization training has been offered to first-year engineering students in traditional classroom settings where students attend class and interact face-to-face with an instructor and peers. An alternative to the traditional pedagogical approach is a multi-modal blended learning format that combines in-class…

Purpose: Studies have suggested that the use of visual information may underlie the benefit associated with an external focus of attention. Recent studies exploring this connection have primarily relied on motor tasks that involve manipulation of an object (object projection). The present study examined whether vision influences the effect of…

The present article describes two studies that examine the impact of teaching students to use gesture to support spatial thinking in the Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) discipline of chemistry. In Study 1 we compared the effectiveness of instruction that involved either watching gesture, reproducing gesture, or reading…

Some physiological concepts, such as physiology of filtration and absorption in the different nephron segments, are so detailed that they can be a challenge to be memorized. This article describes an exercise that solidifies learning as students manipulate, using paper models, "transporters" and "electrolytes" in the…

Two classes of hand action representations are shown to be activated by listening to the name of a manipulable object (e.g., cellphone). The functional action associated with the proper use of an object is evoked soon after the onset of its name, as indicated by primed execution of that action. Priming is sustained throughout the duration of the…

The present study tests whether presenting video modeling examples from the learner's (first-person) perspective promotes learning of an assembly task, compared to presenting video examples from a third-person perspective. Across 2 experiments conducted in different labs, university students viewed a video showing how to assemble an 8-component…

Transformations of hand movements by tools such as levers or electronic input devices can invoke performance costs compared to untransformed movements. This study investigated by means of the Psychological Refractory Period (PRP) paradigm at which stage of information processing such tool-transformation costs arise. We used an inversion…