Can the gestures people produce when describing algebra word problems offer insight into their mental representations of the problems? Twenty adults were asked to describe six word problems about constant change, and then to talk aloud as they solved the problems. Two problems depicted continuous change, two depicted discrete change, and two depicted change that could be construed as either con...

Many cognitive processes rely on representations of magnitude, yet these representations are often malleable (H. Helson, 1964; J. Huttenlocher, L. V. Hedges, & J. L. Vevea, 2000; A. Parducci, 1965). It is likely that factors that affect these representations in turn affect the psychological processes that rely on them. The authors conducted 4 experiments to investigate whether language-expressi...

To use the notion of representation for experimental studies in learning sciences or in any other empirical science, it would be desirable to have a more clearly defined notion. This chapter offers a preliminary definition which can be adapted to special domains. Ideally, this definition will facilitate the process of operationalization and the search for the right indicators to measure mental ...

Place is a core component of human spatial knowledge and therefore a central topic in GI Science. People use externalizations of mental spatial representations to communicate about space. Textual descriptions and graphical descriptions are the two main modes of communication. In this paper a distinction of three scales of spatial descriptions is assumed and textual and graphical descriptions ar...

This paper examines the ways in which people organise their knowledge of external representations (ERs). These include diagrams, graphs, charts, textual forms such as lists and notations, maps, tables, pictures etc. We focus upon the kinds of ERs that are used in reasoning and problem solving. Twenty-eight subjects were given an untimed card-sorting task. Cluster analysis of the cardsort data r...

Phonology typically describes speech in terms of discrete signs like features. The field of intonational phonology uses discrete accents to describe intonation and prosody. But, are such representations useful? The results of mimicry experiments indicate that discrete signs are not a useful representation of the shape of intonation contours. Human behaviour seems to be better represented by a a...

When reasoning about sequences of events, English-speaking adults often invoke a “mental timeline,” stretching from left (past) to right (future). Although the direction of the timeline varies across cultures, linear representations of time are argued to be ubiquitous and primitive. On this hypothesis, we might predict that children should spontaneously invoke a timeline when reasoning about ti...

Definition The Supplantation Effect describes a function of media that conducts a mental operation by an external representation. If a learner is not able to accomplish a mental, covert operation internally and an external representation is able to replace this process, supplantation occurs. External representation supporting supplantation can either be static representations like graphs or dyn...

Recent research on mental representation of complex action has revealed distinct differences in the structure of representational frameworks between experts and novices. More recently, research on the development of mental representation structure has elicited functional changes in novices' representations as a result of practice. However, research investigating if and how mental practice adds ...