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Contemporary art is often challenging for the viewer, especially when it violates classic rules of representation. Also, viewers usually have little knowledge about this type of art, making its reception even more difficult. Our main research question was how the cognitive challenge associated with contemporary art affects eye movement. In particular, we aimed to assess the impact on eye movements of (a) object‐related cognitive challenge in terms of image properties (syntactic and semantic violations) and (b) subject‐related cognitive challenge (composite subjective estimate of image inconsistency, ambiguity, and complexity). The eye movements of expert and naive participants were recorded while they freely viewed digital copies of contemporary paintings (four groups of five paintings each, differing in presence of semantic and syntactic violations). We found that neither violations nor art expertise alone predicted eye movements, although perceived, subjectively experienced cognitive challenge did. In particular, subject‐related cognitive challenge was associated with an increase in visual exploration (longer and more numerous fixations, bigger area of exploration, longer viewing time). The roles of object‐related and subject‐related indicators of cognitive challenge in perception of contemporary art are discussed.

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The paper presents the results of research on the relationship between self-assessed comprehension of physics lectures and final grades of junior high school students (aged 13–15), high school students (aged 16–18) and physics students at the Pedagogical University of Cracow, Poland (aged 21). Students' declared level of comprehension was measured during a physics lecture on a prearranged scale of 1–10 with the use of a personal response system designed for the purpose of this experiment. Through the use of this tool, we obtained about 2000 computer records of students' declared comprehension of a 45 min lecture, which we named ‘the spectrum of comprehension’. In this paper, we present and analyse the correlation between students' declared comprehension of the content presented in the lecture and their final learning results.

This study presents the results of research using an eye-tracking technique which enables following eyeball movements while solving a scientific task. Also presented is an analysis of the visual attention for participants (further called subjects) of a different mathematical experience while solving a mathematics test task. The aim of the research is to determine the profile of methods of solution of tasks which require the analysis of a diagram. The research opens new cognitive possibilities in mathematics didactics by showing the utility of the eye-tracking technique in a deeper recognition of the processes of learning and teaching Maths.

The temperature dependence (30-500 • C) of electric permittivities of Na 0.5 Bi 0.5 TiO 3 -PbTiO 3 system under mechanical load (0-1.5 kbar) has been investigated. The hysteresis loops have been also measured. It is found that external stress significantly influences the dielectric and ferroelectric properties. This influence is connected with: (i) the shift of phase transition, suppressing the dielectric dispersion, diffuseness of permittivity characteristics, and reduction of the thermal hysteresis, and (ii) decrease in field-polarization hysteresis. The results were discussed in terms of domain walls, large polarizability of Pb +2 and Bi +3 ions and internal stresses. The results were compared with the data for pure Na 0.5 Bi 0.5 TiO 3 . The electrostrictive coefficients, latent heats and corresponding entropy changes of phase transformation were also calculated.

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