Studies the optimum launch angle for maximizing the long jump from a kinematical point of view. (CCM)

Analyzes the motion of a charged point particle started from rest near the center of a charged circular ring. (CCM)

Part of a larger work on the history, philosophy, and utilization of pendulum motion studies, addresses the fate of Christiaan Huygens' 1673 proposal to use the length of a seconds pendulum as a universal, natural, and objective standard of length. (SAH)

Reports part of larger study concerned with understanding learning as it emerges from enacted curriculum. Presents results of two studies on students' discourse about rotation phenomena with particular focus on the consistency of this talk across different phenomena. Concludes that only a minority of students provided adequate observational and…

Motion in a circle troubled Newton and his contemporaries and troubles students today. Presents a clear presentation of certain aspects, particularly centripetal acceleration and centrifugal force. (Author/MM)

The effects of 2 weeks of no, general, and task-related enhanced movement experiences on 8- to 12-week-old infants' (N=30) hand and foot interactions with objects were assessed using standard video and motion analysis. For hand object interaction ability, general and task experience led to greater success than did no experience, and task…

In speech research, it is often desirable to assess quantitatively the variability of a set of speech movement trajectories. This problem is studied here using synthetic trajectories, which consist of a common pattern and terms representing amplitude and phase variability. The results show that a technique for temporal alignment of the records…

Prior studies of time-to-contact (TTC) focused on judgments of unoccluded approaching objects. P. R. DeLucia, M. K. Kaiser, J. M. Bush, L. E. Meyer, and B. T. Sweet (2003) showed that partial occlusion decreases an object's optical size and expansion rate and that the value of tau derived from the reduced optical size (relative rate of accretion;…

In 4 experiments, the authors varied the extent and nature of participant movement in a virtual environment to examine the influence of action on estimates of geographical slant. Previous studies showed that people consciously overestimate hill slant but can still accurately guide an action toward the hill (D. R. Proffitt, M. Bhalla, R.…

The Wing-Kristofferson model (A. M. Wing & A. B. Kristofferson, (1973a, 1973b) decomposes the variance of isochronous finger tapping into 2 components: a central clock component and a peripheral motor component. The method assumes that there is no drift in the intertap intervals. A new method is introduced that further decomposes the clock…

Modern visualization techniques in science education present a challenge of sorting out the contributions of perception to understanding science. These contributions range over degrees to which perception is influenced by belief (including systematic sets of beliefs which comprise scientific theories) and social setting. This paper proposes a…

Real-world situations involve attending to spatially extended objects, often under conditions of motion and high processing load. The present experiments investigated such processing by requiring observers to attentionally track a number of long, moving lines. Concurrently, observers responded to sporadic probes as a measure of the distribution of…

If a moving stimulus (i.e., launcher) contacts a stationary target that subsequently begins to move, observers attribute motion of the target to the launcher (Michotte, 1946/1963). In experiments reported here, a stationary launcher adjacent to the target appeared or vanished and displacement in memory for the position of the target was measured.…

Commercial computer games contain "physics engine" components, responsible for providing realistic interactions among game objects. The question naturally arises of whether these engines can be used to develop educational materials for high school and university physics education. To answer this question, the author's group recently conducted a…

Does speed provide a "model for" rate of change in other contexts? Does JavaMathWorlds (JMW), animated simulation software, assist in the development of the "model for" rate of change? This project investigates the transference of understandings of rate gained in a motion context to a non-motion context. Students were 27 14-15 year old students at…