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Intuitive reasoning about abstract and familiar physics problemsPrevious research has demonstrated that many people have misconceptions about basic properties of motion. Two experiments examined whether people are more likely to produce dynamically correct predictions about basic motion problems involving situations with which they are familiar, and whether solving such problems enhances performance on a subsequent abstract problem. In experiment 1, college students were asked to predict the trajectories of objects exiting a curved tube. Subjects were more accurate on the familiar version of the problem, and there was no evidence of transfer to the abstract problem. In experiment 2, two familiar problems were provided in an attempt to enhance subjects' tendency to extract the general structure of the problems. Once again, they gave more correct responses to the familiar problems but failed to generalize to the abstract problem. Formal physics training was associated with correct predictions for the abstract problem but was unrelated to performance on the familiar problems.
Document ID
19870040251
Acquisition Source
Legacy CDMS
Document Type
Reprint (Version printed in journal)
Authors
Kaiser, Mary Kister
(NASA Ames Research Center Moffett Field, CA, United States)
Jonides, John
(NASA Ames Research Center Moffett Field, CA, United States)
Alexander, Joanne
(Michigan, University Ann Arbor, United States)
Date Acquired
August 13, 2013
Publication Date
January 1, 1986
Publication Information
Publication: Memory and Cognition
Volume: 14
Issue: 4, 19
ISSN: 0090-502X
Subject Category
Behavioral Sciences
Accession Number
87A27525
Distribution Limits
Public
Copyright
Other

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