ACC oscillations reflect scientific conceptual change at different levels of cognitive conflict
Poster No:
699
Submission Type:
Abstract Submission
Authors:
Chuan-Cheng Shih1, Hsiao-Ching She1, Meng-Jun Chen1, Li-Yu Huang2, Wen-Chi Chou2, Tzyy-Ping Jung3
Institutions:
1National Yang Ming Chiao Tung University, Hsinchu City, Taiwan, 2National Changhua University of Education, Changhua, Taiwan, 3University of California, San Diego, La Jolla, CA
First Author:
Co-Author(s):
Introduction:
Research has shown that students harbor misconceptions that are difficult and highly resistant to change despite receiving formal science education (Osborne & Cosgrove, 1983; Carey, 1986). Scientific conceptual change involves transforming and restructuring alternative conceptions into scientific conceptions which has is the top issue in science education since past decades. It has been proposed in many studies that creating cognitive conflict plays a key role in triggering conceptual change (Strike and Posner,1985; She, 2002, 2004). Several studies have also found that the scientific concepts encompass more underlying concepts, which makes conceptual change difficult (She, 2002, 2004). Botvinick et al. (1999) suggested that ACC activity is more significant during trials with high rather than low levels of conflict. Krug and Carter (2010) suggested that the ACC detects response conflict during correct high-conflict and error trials. She et al. (2023) reported the ACC was more active when retrieving of correct scientific concepts than incorrect ones (She et al., 2023). Other studies have found that parietal alpha are crucial for successful memory encoding and retrieving scientific concepts (Liang et al., 2020; Tsai et al., 2019). The present study investigates whether conceptual change is more difficult for high conflict tasks than low conflict tasks. Additionally, we investigated whether successful conceptual changes would lead to greater ACC theta and parietal alpha activity than low-conflict tasks.
Methods:
Fifty eight participants (41male and 17 female, 22-26 years of age) were recruited to participate in the scientific conceptual change tasks with the use of high density EEG (64 channels). The 40 scientific question items, 22 were low conflict and 18 were high conflict task. Figure 1 depicted the protocol of a single trial of high and low conflict of scientific concepts which consisted of six stages, question presentation, prediction making, confidence rating, experiment video watching, conflict rating, and thinking and explaining. Each trial lasted for an average of 85.5 s, total are 90 minutes. We used Neuroscan SynAmps2 amplifier (Neuroscan, El Paso, TX, USA) equipped with 66 electrodes mounted on an elastic cap to record participants' EEG. We analyzed the data using custom MATLAB scripts built on the open-source EEGLAB toolbox (Delorme & Makeig, 2004) (http://sccn.ucsd.edu/eeglab).
·Figure 1. The protocol of each scientific conceptual change trial: presenting questions, prediction making, confidence rating, experiment videos watching, conflict rating, and thinking and explaining.
Results:
Results indicated that low conflict task had significantly higher conceptual change accuracy (F = 50.44, p < 0.001) than to the high conflict task during scientific conceptual change process. The level of conflict reporting by students are significantly higher for high conflict than low conflict tasks (F=170.67, p < 0.001). When conceptual change was successfully achieved, high conflict tasks displayed significantly higher ACC oscillations across stages than low conflict tasks (Figure 2). While conceptual change failed, the oscillation power of ACC did not differ significantly between low- and high-conflict tasks (Figure 3). Low conflict tasks exhibited slightly higher parietal alpha suppression than high conflict tasks, but no statistically significant differences were observed. The regression also indicated that oscillation power of ACC at the video watching and thinking and explanation stage can predict the success of conceptual change.
Conclusions:
Conceptual change accuracy was significantly higher for low conflict tasks than for high conflict tasks, confirming previous suggestions that high conflict tasks subsume scientific concepts, thus making conceptual change difficult. Moreover, high conflict tasks evoke significantly higher ACC oscillation power than low conflict tasks only when conceptual change is successfully achieved.
Education, History and Social Aspects of Brain Imaging:
Education, History and Social Aspects of Brain Imaging 1
Higher Cognitive Functions:
Higher Cognitive Functions Other
Novel Imaging Acquisition Methods:
EEG 2
Keywords:
Computational Neuroscience
Electroencephaolography (EEG)
Learning
1|2Indicates the priority used for review
Provide references using author date format
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