Interpreting how people accord meaning to life situations is an old challenge in sociology. Emphasis has been given to values shared within social groups; other sociologists have stressed the discursive or communicative dimensions of society. This paper seeks an alternative interpretation by combining sociological inquiry and insights from…

Science learning requires students to build new mental models of imperceptible mechanisms (photosynthesis, circadian rhythms, atmospheric pressure, etc.). Since mechanisms are structurally complex and dynamic, building such mental models requires mentally simulating novel structures, their state changes, and higher-order transformations…

Purpose: To explore how advisors communicate with farmers and the mental frames that they use in their communication. Method: A case study in Norway observing meetings between farmers and advisors at 17 farm visits and 43 separate interviews with 26 different informants (advisors and farmers) related to these visits. Empirical analysis is based on…

Generic sentences such as "Birds lay eggs" are used frequently and effortlessly, but there is no simple quantitative rule that determines whether they are true or false. For instance, while "Birds lay eggs" is considered true, "Birds are female" is considered false, even though there are necessarily fewer birds that…

Research on mental model representations developed by programmers during parallel program comprehension is important for informing and advancing teaching methods including model-based learning and visualizations. The goals of the research presented here were to determine: how the mental models of programmers change and develop as they learn…

Metamemory monitoring, study behavior, and memory are presumably causally connected. When people misjudge their memory, their study behavior should be biased accordingly. Remedying "metamemory illusions" should debias study behavior and improve memory. One metamemory illusion concerns source memory, a critical aspect of episodic memory.…

Difficulties in understanding physics concepts are often experienced by students such as in the material of regular uniform motion. This study aims to describe the mental models of first-year secondary school students on regular straight-line motion. This research utilized a case study method of 167 students at the secondary level with an average…

Working memory (WM) is a critical cognitive system that supports processing a variety of information. Remembering different types of objects may impose different levels of cognitive demands on WM performance. In the present study, we examined 205 children's WM in representing different types of content and its developmental trajectories in early…

The aim of this paper is to sketch a conception of a posthuman subject in which we can recognize a cognitive dimension. Through Hayles's widened notion of cognition, I argue that we can retain the interpreting subject within posthumanism and thereby view it as entrenched in the surrounding world. Nonconscious- and conscious cognition, which are…

Descriptions of durational relations can be ambiguous, for example, the description "one meeting happened during another" could mean that one meeting started before the other ended, or it could mean that the meetings started and ended simultaneously. A recent theory posits that people mentally simulate descriptions of durational events…

The usability of items is connected to cognition, or how the brain processes information. Many of the related processes occur subconsciously and are guided by the mental models individuals have created based on their experiences. The better communication professional and communication students understand such dynamics, the more effectively they…

Energy is a crosscutting concept in science, but college students often perceive a mismatch between how their biology and chemistry courses discuss the topic. The challenge of reconciling these disciplinary differences can promote faulty reasoning--for example, biology students often develop the incorrect idea that breaking bonds is exothermic and…

Despite proficient math skills, students may struggle to make sense of and solve story problems. While educators are encouraged to promote the use of comprehension strategies, students must first understand vocabulary at all levels as they work to make sense of and solve math story problems. Language skills are a prerequisite for schema…

Given the relevance of caregivers' perceptions, cognitions, and emotions about their child's mental states for caregiving behavior and children's development, researchers from multiple theoretical perspectives have developed constructs to assess caregivers' cognitions, resulting in a large but scattered body of literature. In this article, we…

Creativity has been conceptualized not just as a measure of artistic ability, but also as an adaptive trait of everyday innovation. We posit the relevance of "everyday creativity" to the field of psychotherapy. Although creativity has been theorized in psychotherapy models of change and the therapy process, little empirical research has…