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,…

Repetition is a salient strategy used by human and non-human cohorts for learning and controlling behavior. It this research project, a case study was conducted to explore deliberate voluntary repetition in younger cohorts during their spontaneous solitary play with single or multiple objects. Two main types of repetition -- blocked and random --…

The current study examined children's spontaneous private speech during the vertical and the horizontal Tube Task to shed light on the cognitive, motivational, and emotional processes underlying tool innovation. Tool innovation is defined as solving a novel problem by using or modifying objects in a new and useful way without prior instructions.…

The grounding of cognition in embodied actions has resulted in both theoretical formulations of encoding of information and instructional applications of these encodings. Actions on objects typically occur within matched formats: physical actions on physical objects, virtual actions on virtual objects, or mental actions on mental objects. Instead,…

Young children sometimes attempt an action on an object, which is inappropriate because of the object size--they make scale errors. Existing theories suggest that scale errors may result from immaturities in children's action planning system, which might be overpowered by increased complexity of object representations or developing teleofunctional…

Empirical evidence indicates that students are not learning geometry with relational understanding of the concepts. Studies have shown that digital technologies can support students in mathematics. The purpose of this study was to find which technologies and technological affordances are specific to learners of geometry. This paper presents the…

Although action experience has been shown to enhance the development of spatial cognition, the mechanism underlying the effects of action is still unclear. The present research examined the role of visual cues generated during action in promoting infants' mental rotation. We sought to clarify the underlying mechanism by decoupling different…

This article focuses on how the representational properties of manipulatives affect the strategies children employ in problem solving. Two studies examined the effect of physical materials on 4-7-year-old children's problem solving strategies in a numerical (i.e., additive composition) task. The first study showed how children not only identified…