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This article notes the convergence of recent thinking in neuroscience and grounded cognition regarding the way we understand mental representation and recollection: ideas are dynamic and multi-modal, actively created at the point of recall. Also, neurophysiologically, re-entrant signalling among cortical circuits allows non-conscious processing to support our deliberative thoughts and actions. The qualitative research we describe examines the exchanges occurring during semi-structured interviews with 360 children age 3-13, including 294 from New Zealand (158 boys, 136 girls) and 66 from China (34 boys, 32 girls) concerning their understanding of the shape and motion of the Earth, Sun and Moon (ESM). We look closely at the relationships between what is revealed as children manipulate their own play-dough models and their apparent understandings of ESM concepts. In particular, we focus on the switching taking place between what is said, what is drawn and what is modelled. The evidence is supportive of Edelman's view that memory is non-representational and that concepts are the outcome of perceptual mappings, a view which is also in accord with Barsalou's notion that concepts are simulators or skills which operate consistently across several modalities. Quantitative data indicate that the dynamic structure of memory/concept creation is similar in both genders and common to the cultures/ethnicities compared (New Zealand European and Māori; Chinese Han) and that repeated interviews in this longitudinal research lead to more advanced modelling skills and/or more advanced shape and motion concepts, the results supporting hypotheses (Kolmogorov-Smirnov alpha levels .05; r s : p \ .001).

The research reported here investigated the everyday and scientific repertoires of children involved in semi-structured, Piagetian interviews carried out to check their understanding of dynamic astronomical concepts like daytime and night-time. It focused on the switching taking place between embedded and disembedded thinking; on the imagery which subjects referred to in their verbal dialogue and their descriptions of drawings and play-dough models of the Earth, Sun and Moon; and it examined the prevalence and character of animism and figurative speech in children's thinking. Five hundred and thirty-nine children (aged 3-18) from Wairarapa in New Zealand (171 boys and 185 girls) and Changchun in China (99 boys and 84 girls) took part in the study. Modified ordinal scales for the relevant concept categories were used to classify children's responses and data from each age group (with numbers balanced as closely as practicable by culture and gender) analysed with KolmogorovSmirnov two-sample tests (at an alpha level of 0.05). Although, in general, there was consistency of dynamic concepts within and across media and their associated modalities in keeping with the theory of conceptual coherence (see Blown and Bryce 2010; Bryce and Blown 2016), there were several cases of inter-modal and intra-modal switching in both cultures. Qualitative data from the interview protocols revealed how children switch between everyday and scientific language (in both directions) and use imagery in response to questioning. The research indicates that children's grasp of scientific ideas in this field may ordinarily be under-estimated if one only goes by formal scientific expression and vocabulary.Keywords Everyday and scientific language . Embedded and disembedded thinking . Switching . Animism and figurative speech . Astronomy . Daytime and night-time Much of the published research into the acquisition of scientific ideas by young people has concentrated upon their growing accumulation of correct or appropriately expressed terms for important concepts. This paper explores the boundaries between such language and the communications which precede and pre-determine its character. The empirical research which Res Sci Educ (2017) 47:621-653

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