Creative idea generation plays an important role in design process. Our study aimed to use physiological signals to evaluate the effect of music on idea generation in individual and group conditions. Thirty graduate students with design experience were recruited to generate ideas for specific design topics and sketch these ideas. The experiment…

Chance favors the prepared mind, said Louis Pasteur. Sometimes, significant breakthroughs occur when we creatively integrate new information, leading to a creative insight or an Aha! moment, while at other times when we fail to use a clue, we remain stuck in our habitual thinking patterns. In this study, we hypothesized that the brain's transient…

Many students face difficulties with fractions. Research in mathematics education and cognitive psychology aims at understanding where and why students struggle with fractions and how to make teaching of fractions more effective. Additionally, neuroscience research is beginning to explore how the human brain processes fractions. Yet, attempts to…

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…

It is proposed that the problem of the mind-brain relationship can be overcome by a non-classical materialistic model of personality based on the information defined as a special form of negentropy with a structure and activity, which in five intra-individual categories, organizes all and each of the levels of the personality, and, in an…

Where do scientists' superior abilities originate from when generating a creative idea? What different brain functions are activated between scientists and i) general academic high school students and ii) science high school students when generating a biological hypothesis? To reveal brain level explanations for these questions, this paper…

Wilhelm applies two of his core beliefs--that anyone can learn the next appropriate concept or process if they are provided with a meaningful situation and proper assistance, and that literacy and the kinds of texts we call literature provide a unique and powerful way of knowing and of transforming the self--to a look at how recent research on the…

This article considers the social problem of violence and the alternative of resolution through cooperation and compassion from the perspective of cognitive neuroscience. Violence is a social problem, the manifestations of which have a biological basis reflected in the development of aggression and the neural mechanisms that regulate it.…

This paper explores the relationships between the development of expertise and transitions. It sets out what we know about the development of expertise, changes in the brain as expertise develops, and how transitions between different learning contexts and the challenges that they present may impact on developing expertise. It sets out a series of…

Background: Neuroscience is unlikely to produce findings for immediate application in the classroom. The educational significance and practical implications of knowledge about mind and brain inevitably require some level of interpretation, yet the multiplying examples of unscientific "brain-based" educational concepts suggest this process of…

This paper considers mathematical abstraction as arising through a natural mechanism of the biological brain in which complicated phenomena are compressed into thinkable concepts. The neurons in the brain continually fire in parallel and the brain copes with the saturation of information by the simple expedient of suppressing irrelevant data and…

This book examines learning science from multiple perspectives--especially a child's. The whimsical character of Mary Froggins guides readers through the steps of igniting students' natural sense of wonder, incorporating brain research, integrating science concepts with other subjects, and applying science to daily life. The authors demonstrate…

Arguing that evolution designed us to both teach and learn, this book explains how, and how much, babies and young children know and learn, and how much parents naturally teach them. The chapters are: (1) "Ancient Questions and a Young Science," including the concept of brain as computer, and the developmental science of Piaget and…

This study examined theory of mind (ToM) and concepts of human biology (eyes, heart, brain, lungs and mind) in a sample of 67 children, including 25 high functioning children with autism (age 6-13), plus age-matched and preschool comparison groups. Contrary to Baron-Cohen [1989, "Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders," 19(4),…

The most popular activities from APA's successful "Activities Handbooks for the Teaching of Psychology" are gathered together and updated in this book of teachers' favorites. The lesson plans, which encourage active learning and involve the whole class, have stood the test of time and proven themselves to be entertaining, effective, and easy to…