The effects of computer animations and mental animation on people's mental models of a mechanical system are examined. In 3 experiments, students learned how a mechanical system works from various instructional treatments including viewing a static diagram of the machine, predicting motion from static diagrams, viewing computer animations, and viewing static and animated diagrams accompanied by verbal commentaries. Although students' understanding of the system was improved by viewing both static and animated diagrams, there was no evidence that animated diagrams led to superior understanding of dynamic processes compared to static diagrams. Comprehension of diagrams was enhanced by asking students questions that required them to predict the behavior of the machine from static diagrams and by providing them with a verbal description of the dynamic processes. This article proposes that predicting motion from static diagrams engages students' mental animation processes, including spatial visualization, and provides them with information about what they do and do not understand about how the machine works. Verbal instruction provides information that is not easily communicated in graphics and directs students' attention to the relevant information in static and animated diagrams. The research suggests that an understanding of students' mental animation abilities is an important component of a theory of learning from external animations.Throughout history, inventors, engineers, and designers have developed various graphic devices that have been used in conjunction with text to communicate dynamic processes, such as how machines work (Ferguson, 1977(Ferguson, , 1992; Tufte, COGNITION AND INSTRUCTION, 21(4), 325-360 Copyright © 2003, Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Inc. Requests for reprints should be sent to Mary Hegarty, Department of Psychology, University of California, Santa Barbara, Santa Barbara, CA 93106. E-mail: hegarty@psych.ucsb.edu 1997). These include static diagrams accompanied by verbal descriptions of the dynamic processes, static diagrams with arrows indicating the movement of the machine parts, and multiple static diagrams or "small multiples" (Tufte, 1997) showing different phases in the movement of parts of the device. Because these displays are static, but the processes to be understood are kinematic or dynamic, their comprehension often depends on the ability to mentally animate the processes (Hegarty, 1992), that is, infer motion from static displays.More recently, developments in computer graphics technologies have made it possible to show animations of machines in motion. These new media provide external animations that a user can view to learn how the system works. With these developments, many professions are beginning to use computer-based resources such as CD-ROMs and interactive Web sites for technical and professional training. Computer-based instruction, including animations, is now being used by car manufacturers, the military, and medical professions to communicate information about ...
We present the first direct comparison of language production in brain-injured children and adults, using agecorrected z scores for multiple lexical and grammatical measures. Spontaneous speech samples were elicited in a structured biographical interview from 38 children (5-8 years of age), 24 with congenital left-hemisphere damage (LHD) and 14 with congenital right-hemisphere damage (RHD), compared with 38 age-and gender-matched controls, 21 adults with unilateral injuries (14 LHD, 7 RHD), and 12 adult controls. Adults with LHD showed severe and contrasting profiles of impairment across all measures (including classic differences between fluent and nonfluent aphasia). Adults with RHD (and three nonaphasic adults with LHD) showed fluent but disinhibited and sometimes empty speech. None of these qualitative or quantitative deviations were observed in children with unilateral brain injury, who were in the normal range for their age on all measures. There were no significant differences between children with LHD and RHD on any measure. When LHD children were compared directly with LHD adults using age-corrected z scores, the children scored far better than their adult counterparts on structural measures. These results provide the first systematic confirmation of differential free-speech outcomes in children and adults, and offer strong evidence for neural and behavioral plasticity following early brain damage.For more than 3000 years, we have known that language production can be damaged or lost following brain injury (O'Neill, 1980), and since the 1860's we have also known that language deficits are overwhelmingly more likely if the injury involves the left side of the brain (Cotard, 1868, cited in Woods & Teuber, 1978Bernhardt, 1897). To account for these longstanding and well-documented facts, it seems reasonable to hypothesize that the left side of the human brain contains some kind of specialized organ for language and speech (Fodor, 1983;Newmeyer, 1997;Pinker, 1994; Rice, 1996), one that should be observable in its approximate adult form at birth, not unlike the liver or the heart. This hypothesis is buttressed by studies showing that adult-like structural asymmetries between the left and right sides of the brain are evident at and before birth (Witelson & Pallie, 1973), and by electrophysiological studies showing that the left side of the brain is significantly more active in response to complex auditory stimuli (including speech) in the human infant (Molfese & Segalowitz, 1988).In view of all these facts, it is difficult to understand why adults and children who acquired unilateral brain injuries early in life perform so well on language tasks (Bates, 1999;Bates, Vicari, & Trauner, 1999;Eisele & Aram, 1995;Elman et al., 1996;Feldman, Holland, Kemp, & Janosky, 1992; Nass, in press;Stiles, Bates, Thal, Trauner, & Reilly, 1998;Vargha-Khadem, Isaacs, & Muter, 1994;Vicari et al., 2000). In fact, in the absence of confounding factors (e.g., intractable seizures-Vargha-Khadem, Isaacs, van der Werf, Robb, ...
We examined the use of hand gestures while people solved spatial reasoning problems in which they had to infer how components of a mechanical device will move from a static diagram of the device (mental animation problems). In Experiment 1, participants were asked to think aloud while solving mental animation problems. They gestured on more than 90% of problems, and most gestures expressed information about the component motions that was not stated in words. Two further experiments examined whether the gestures functioned in the mechanical inference process, or whether they merely served functions of expressing or communicating the results of this process. In these experiments, we examined the effects of instructions to think aloud, restricting participants' hand motions, and secondary tasks on mental animation performance. Although participants who were instructed to think aloud gestured more than control groups, some gestures occurred even in control conditions. A concurrent spatial tapping task impaired performance on mechanical reasoning, whereas a simple tapping task and restricting hand motions did not. These results indicate that gestures are a natural way of expressing the results of mental animation processes and suggest that spatial working memory and premotor representations are involved in mental animation. They provide no direct evidence that gestures are functional in the thought process itself, but do not rule out a role for overt gestures in this type of spatial thinking. Gestures and Mental Animation 3 Use of Gestures in Mental Animation When people are asked to think aloud while solving problems, they often make hand movements, or gestures, and these gestures often communicate information about their thought processes that is not communicated in speech (e.g.
Because interacting with a robot is a novel experience for most adults, expectations about a robot's capabilities must come from sources other than past experiences. This paper explores the relationship between capabilities of robots portrayed in popular science fiction films and students' expectations about a real robot. A content analysis of 12 American science fiction films showed that fictional robots reliably display cognitive capabilities, but do not consistently exhibit many humanlike social behaviors. Survey data collected from students follow the same basic patterns: people expect robots to have humanlike cognitive capabilities, but not social capabilities. The results are discussed in terms of how an empirical evaluation of cultural artifacts can inform the study of human-robot interaction.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.
hi@scite.ai
10624 S. Eastern Ave., Ste. A-614
Henderson, NV 89052, USA
Copyright © 2024 scite LLC. All rights reserved.
Made with 💙 for researchers
Part of the Research Solutions Family.