People often make judgments about the valence, pleasantness, or likeability of objects and other stimuli they encounter. These judgments can occur even before a stimulus is processed for meaning (Zajonc, 1980). But, what drives people's judgments of how much they like an object or how pleasant they deem it to be? Preferences for one object over another have been shown to be based on perceptual features such as symmetry, high figure-ground contrast, object size, and typicality. Moreover, previous experience interacting with an object can increase the perceptual ease or fluency of processing it, which in turn increases positive affect towards the item in question (for a review, see Reber, Schwarz, & Winkielman, 2004).In the current work we review and introduce evidence that preference and valence judgments about stimuli in one's environment are also driven, at least in part, by the motor system.We begin by turning to research showing that the active bodyby way of specific facial expressions, head movements, and approach-avoidance arm movements-impacts individuals' valence and preference judgments of both valenced (i.e., with an inherent emotional content) and non-valenced stimuli. We then introduce evidence that, even when a person is not moving or has no explicit intention to act, the motor system can drive preferences for objects in one's environment.Before we begin, it is important to be explicit about what we mean by terms such as preference and how they are connected to related terms such as emotion. This will not only help you, the reader, to understand where we, the authors, are coming from, but it will help to clarify how we use these terms in relation to other articles in this special section. In our view, an individual's preference for a particular stimulus, or how much a AbstractThe position of individuals' bodies (e.g., holding a pencil in the mouth in a way that either facilitates or inhibits smiling musculature) can influence their emotional reactions to the stimuli they encounter, and can even impact their explicit preferences for one item over another. In this article we begin by reviewing the literature demonstrating these effects, explore mechanisms to explain this body-preference link, and introduce new work from our lab that asks whether one's bodily or motor experiences might also shape preferences in situations where the body is not contorted in a particular position, or when there is no intention to act. Such work suggests that one consequence of perceiving an object is the automatic and covert motor simulation of acting on this object. This, in turn, provides individuals with information about how easy or hard this action would be. It transpires that we like to do what is easy, and we also prefer objects that are easier to act on. The notion that judgments of object likeability are driven by motoric information furthers embodied cognition theories by demonstrating that even our preferences are grounded in action.

We tested whether analogical training could help children learn a key principle of elementary engineering-namely, the use of a diagonal brace to stabilize a structure. The context for this learning was a construction activity at the Chicago Children's Museum, in which children and their families build a model skyscraper together. The results indicate that even a single brief analogical comparison can confer insight. The results also reveal conditions that support analogical learning.

This article presents the findings of an evaluation of the eMINTS (enhancing Missouri’s Instructional Networked Teaching Strategies) professional development program. eMINTS is an intensive teacher professional development program designed to promote inquiry-based learning, support high-quality lesson design, build community among students and teachers, and create technology-rich learning environments. This evaluation included 60 high-poverty rural schools across Missouri that were randomly assigned to two treatment conditions and a control condition, with approximately 200 teachers and 3,000 students in the 2011–2012 baseline academic year. The researchers conclude that after 3 years, the eMINTS treatment group and an eMINTS treatment group with an additional year of Intel support resulted in changed teacher instructional behaviors and increased student achievement in mathematics.

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