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International Journal of Science Education

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Spatial Learning and Computer Simulations in Science

Robb Lindgren a; Daniel L. Schwartz a a Stanford University, California, USA

To cite this Article Lindgren, Robb and Schwartz, Daniel L.(2009) 'Spatial Learning and Computer Simulations in Science',

International Journal of Science Education, 31: 3, 419 438 To link to this Article: DOI: 10.1080/09500690802595813 URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/09500690802595813

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International Journal of Science Education Vol. 31, No. 3, 1 February 2009, pp. 419438

RESEARCH REPORT

Spatial Learning and Computer Simulations in Science

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Robb Lindgren* and Daniel L. Schwartz

Stanford University, California, USA
robblind@stanford.edu Mr. and (print)/1464-5289 (online) 0 RobbLindgren Ltd 3000002008 Journal of Science Education 31 2008 Research Francis 0950-0693 Francis International 10.1080/09500690802595813 TSED_A_359749.sgm Taylor & Article

Interactive simulations are entering mainstream science education. Their effects on cognition and learning are often framed by the legacy of information processing, which emphasized amodal problem solving and conceptual organization. In contrast, this paper reviews simulations from the vantage of research on perception and spatial learning, because most simulations take a spatial format and the pedagogical intent is to promote learning. Four learning effects help clarify the positive and negative aspects of current simulation designs: picture superiority, noticing, structuring, and tuning.

Keywords: K-12; Spatial learning; Perceptual learning; Computer simulations; Undergraduate Interactive simulations are a powerful tool for scientific thinking. They are dynamic; they can be highly interactive; they can scaffold inquiry; they can provide multiple representations; and they can be readily disseminated and incorporated into both industry and classroom settings. Simulations are a growing part of the scientific enterprise. A worthwhile goal for science education is to develop simulation pedagogies that maximize student learning. Thus far, simulation research in science education has been informed largely by the information processing literature, and more recently the socio-cultural literature. A third relevant field of work comes from research on spatial learning. One purpose of this paper is to introduce four reliable effects from spatial learning research. A second purpose is to introduce readers to the variety of current science education simulations and to use the learning effects to illuminate the strengths and missed opportunities in their designs.

*Corresponding author. Stanford University, Building 160, 450 Serra Mall, Stanford, CA 94305, USA. Email: robblind@stanford.edu ISSN 0950-0693 (print)/ISSN 1464-5289 (online)/09/03041920 2009 Taylor & Francis DOI: 10.1080/09500690802595813

420 R. Lindgren and D. L. Schwartz From Amodal Problem Solving to Spatial Learning A well-leveraged literature in science education comes from the information processing tradition of cognitive science. Information processing grew from information theory (Shannon, 1948), which proposed that communication between or within systems can be described as the manipulation of information. The amount of information being communicated can be quantified, which made it possible to theorize much more precisely about cognitive processes. Information processing, as originally developed, is not an ideal match for examining the spatial aspect of simulations and their effects on learning. One mismatch comes from its primary emphasis on problem solving (e.g., Newell & Simon, 1972), and the constructs that support problem solving such as working memory, mental models, search, and metacognition. A good deal of science education research examines problem solving on the assumption that learning is a likely side effect of successful problem solving, which it can be. Nevertheless, a stronger focus on learning would have led to a more refined vocabulary for describing the mechanisms and contexts by which knowledge changes. For example, an emphasis on learning would have entailed including motivation and reward in the information processing lexicon, but this has not been the case. A second mismatch is that the turn to information as an abstract unit of measurement came with a concomitant argument that cognition is amodal (cf. Goldstone & Barsalou, 1998). Amodal means that with respect to the description of cognition, it does not matter whether people experience words, images, or feelings. All thought should be described in terms of information units, which are independent of a specific internal or external communicative medium. For example, it does not matter whether an internet service comes by cable, phone, or wireless; the information is the same. The turn to amodal representations meant less attention was dedicated to determining what made spatial cognition unique. As a result, there is less of a theoretical vocabulary for analyzing the properties and learning that may come from spatial simulations as opposed, for example, to solving a series of word problems. For instance, in a seminal paper by Larkin and Simon (1987) the benefits of spatial diagrams were described as effectively indexing branch points in problem solving; there was no mention of the affordances of visual displays for detecting holistic form (e.g., Wertheimer, 1938). In the shadow of information processing, however, there were several lines of research that took perceptual-motor phenomena and learning as primary including Gestalt psychology, perceptual learning, and spatial cognition. This work yielded important vocabulary and empirical findings for describing learning with spatial phenomena. Schwartz and Heiser (2006) provide a review on the internal (mental) processes relevant to spatial thinking and learning. Here, we recast these in ways that make them more relevant to the design of external interactive environments that can support spatial learning. We focus on four effects: (1) The picture superiority effect. People have an impressive memory for visual information and spatial structure. Given peoples constant need for navigation and

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tool manipulation, it should not be surprising that we have evolved a special facility for remembering space. Integrating visual components into the presentation of conceptual knowledge can have benefits for learning. (2) The noticing effect. A characteristic of perceptual learning is the increasing ability to perceive more in a given situation. Experts can notice important subtleties that novices simply do not see. This literature helps explain how people can come to perceive what they previously could not, and how the ability to notice often corresponds to competence in a domain. (3) The structuring effect. Perception differs from sensation, because perception is structured experience. Sensory input is continually changing based on factors such as distance or angle of observation, and yet people will perceive stability and constant form. Perception can help extract structure that is difficult to uncover in a verbal presentation. (4) The tuning effect. Perception is dedicated to action, and therefore, it is tightly coupled with the motor system. Recalibration tunes perceptual expectations and motor activity. For example, when first learning to use a new computer, people often find the mouse moves too quickly or too slowly, but over time, they adjust. Recalibration learning is typically automatic, and it has relevance for immersive simulations that involve mapping motor activity to visual changes. Current Research on Pedagogical Simulations Practicality alone may be sufficient for simulations to pervade science education. Simulations typically save money over physical experiments; they permit access to activities that would otherwise depend on specialized equipment or travel; and they can seamlessly collect data on student performance, with the prospect of real-time feedback and direction (Hickey, Kindfeld, Horwitz, & Christie, 2003; Shavelson, Baxter, & Pine, 1992). Simulations are major scientific and industrial tools. Simulations permit professionals to ask what if questions and model phenomena that are difficult to describe in closed form. They are also becoming available to the public; for example, people frequently run financial simulations using software from their investment companies. These types of simulations have been specifically designed to help people answer questions in domains they know relatively well. They are not necessarily designed for novices who are trying to learn about a domain in the first place. Pedagogical simulations may require additional features to support learning. One concern is that instructors will simply show students which simulation parameters to set and ask the students to record the answers, or they may use the simulation as a demonstration experiment at the front of the class. These practices undermine the potential of simulations for supporting authentic inquiry practices that include formulating questions, hypothesis development, data collection, and theory revision (de Jong & van Joolingen, 1998; Edelson, Gordin, & Pea, 1999; Hennessy et al., 2007; Singer, Marx, Krajcik, & Chambers, 2000; Windschitl, 2000). Support for the use of simulations to promote inquiry comes from teacher

422 R. Lindgren and D. L. Schwartz reports of students increased adherence to standard inquiry procedures (Hennessey et al., 2007), an increase in student reflections on their own learning (Soderberg & Price, 2003), and improved content knowledge (Huppert, Yaakobi, & Lazarowitz, 1998). Windschitl and Andre (1998), for example, had two groups of students use the same cardiovascular simulation. Students who were directed to follow procedures, per a demonstration experiment, learned less than students who used the simulation to develop and test hypotheses per an inquiry experiment. More generally, studies have found that the inclusion of optional and just-in-time supports in the context of inquiry have a positive effect on learning relative to more oppressive supports or directives (Hulshof & de Jong, 2006). Most studies of simulations have considered how to facilitate verbal problem solving, which is appropriate given an emphasis on inquiry. For example, the simulation described in Fund (2007) takes a set of problems from a science textbook and poses them to students in the context of a virtual science laboratory. The focus on inquiry-driven problem solving is important. However, there are other aspects of simulations and learning that are also beneficial, which we discuss further. Method for Selecting Simulations Spatial simulations are highly versatile, so it is not surprising that authors focus on different active ingredients. Some have stressed the importance of simulations for simplifying and communicating abstractions (Baudrillard, 1983), while others emphasize the phenomenological aspects of simulations, such as Gredler (1994) who defines simulations as experiential exercises. People have also made distinctions among different types of simulations. Winn et al. (2006), for example, distinguish between model-based simulations and physical simulations such as commercial flight simulators. In our review of simulations, we will be agnostic with respect to these and other distinctions. Instead, our approach will be to look at the properties of representative simulations from a perceptual learning perspective. We reviewed simulations described or referenced in peer-reviewed journal articles published in the last decade. Using the ERIC and PsychInfo databases, we searched for articles using the keywords simulation and science education. In all, we identified more than a hundred simulation packages. Whenever possible we downloaded the simulation software so that we could assess its affordances for spatial reasoning and learning. In what follows, we describe the perceptual learning effects in more detail, and we use them to analyze a representative subset of the simulations we found in our search. The Picture Superiority Effect Memory for Spatial Material Spatial information and visual displays have a unique relation to memory. This has been known at least since the time of the Greek method of loci, which was based on the discovery that people could remember speeches better by tying specific

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components of the speech to statues set systematically around a theater. Shepard (1967) conducted one of the first studies of visual memory. Participants saw approximately 600 colored photographs. Immediately afterwards, they completed a forced choice task in which they had to judge which of two pictures they had seen before. Accuracy for the pictures was 98%, which compared favorably to 90% for single words and 88% for sentences. This so-called picture superiority effect is even more potent for striking or vivid pictures. Standing (1973) found that subjects presented with 1,000 pictures at 5 seconds each showed a subsequent recognition of 91%, but their memory for vivid pictures was 95% (e.g., a picture of a dog with a cigar in its mouth compared to a picture of a dog). Media studies indicate peoples memory for vivid images is positively correlated both with physiological measures and subjective ratings of arousal (Bradley, Greenwald, Petry, & Lang, 1992). To explain the picture superiority effect, Paivio (1971) proposed the dual coding hypothesis: people encode both a picture and its verbal interpretation. Thus, people create two retrieval paths, which increase the chances of remembering. Moreover, visual and verbal processes often enhance one another through elaborative processing. For example, a persons memory for verbal information is enhanced if it is associated with a relevant image. Reciprocally, a drawing with an enlightening caption is more likely to be remembered and accurately re-created than the drawing alone (Anderson & Bower, 1973). The permeability and mutual reinforcement of visual and verbal processes is important for science education. Simply remembering striking visual information runs the risk of excellent memory for irrelevant surface features and little understanding. Verbal processes can help make sense of visual images in useful ways. At the same time, visual presentation supports subsequent memory, so students can reconstruct their original understanding. Memory Effects of Images in Simulation Environments Many of the science education simulations that we found used symbolic spatial conventions. The prototypical configuration is an interface comprising numeric parameters and a line graph. A simulation of disease transmission (Figure 1a) allows the user to specify four disease parameters (e.g., rate of transmission). Given the parameters, the simulation plots the number of organisms infected by the disease over time. Simple spatial representations are a powerful means for communicating complicated structural relations. Nevertheless, it would seem that some of the screen real estate could include richer images that would enhance retention and understanding without distraction. One approach is the selective presentation of actual photographs, animations, or video clips of scientific phenomena and practice that can help students ground abstract uses of space. One example comes from the LiveChem simulation (Figure 1b), which is part of the Virtual Chemistry suite developed at the University of Oxford. Students click and drag a salt from the top menu to the central staging area, and then choose a reagent from the menu at the bottom. Students click play movie to view the effects of this
Figure 1. (a) A simulation of disease transmission (Biological Sciences Curriculum Study, 1999). (b) LiveChem (Adcock, 2005): Students choose chemicals, and the simulation shows video clips of the physical reactions. (c) SimQuest (University of Twente, 2008): The line graph and car both simulate velocity given constant acceleration. (d) PhET simulation of projectile motion (Dubson, 2008): The inclusion of incongruous images should enhance memory

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Figure 1. (a) A simulation of disease transmission (Biological Sciences Curriculum Study, 1999). (b) LiveChem (Adcock, 2005): Students choose chemicals, and the simulation shows video clips of the physical reactions. (c) SimQuest (University of Twente, 2008): The line graph and car both simulate velocity given constant acceleration. (d) PhET simulation of projectile motion (Dubson, 2008): The inclusion of incongruous images should enhance memory

reaction (e.g., color change, bubbling, etc.). These video snippets provide grounding while avoiding the minutiae involved in an extended chemistry experiment, so the student can rapidly examine different reactions. A similar approach is to yoke graphs with an unfolding visual event. SimQuest (Figure 1c) combines a dynamic graph with the phenomenon being simulated (van der Meij & de Jong, 2006). Thus, in addition to a fairly rich resource of spatial information, the simulation is highly suggestive of familiar situations. The result should be a strong verbal and spatial memory (cf. Richards, Barowy, & Levin, 1992). Further advances in graphics and video technologies will make it increasingly possible to render realistic visualizations of simulated phenomena. The vividness of the images should also enhance memory. The literature on bizarre imagery may also be useful to consider for improving memory (Collyer, Jonides, & Bevan, 1972). Images that are incongruous or do not make initial sense are well-remembered if they can eventually be interpreted. This is due to a combination of the distinctiveness of the image (McDaniel & Einstein, 1986), and the elaborative processing of interpretation. For example, there are numerous simulations of projectile motion. Most of these simulations allow the

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learner to specify a few parameters (e.g., initial velocity), and then observe the outcome typically via a moving dot that leaves a trail. Figure 1d shows a simulation developed by the PhET group at the University of Colorado at Boulder that has the same basic ingredients of setting parameters and illustrating a trajectory (Wieman & Perkins, 2006). However, the PhET simulation uses a more memorable visual implementation. Users can choose from a pumpkin, a piano, and even a person to blast out of simulated cannon. Each object has default parameters (e.g., mass), but these quantities can be changed by a curious learner. The simulation also has an implicit goal of hitting a target. While these relatively minor visual elements may seem trivial, they are likely to provoke an elaborative effort (e.g., would a piano and a baseball shot out of the cannon at the same velocity really travel the same distance?), which leads to better memory of the simulated events. Gratuitous imagery is not the best way to improve learning. Visual components of simulations need to be designed so that students remember the right things, and cogent guidelines for how to incorporate pictures into science education materials exist (e.g., Reid, 1990). Our point here is simply that science education simulations could be enhanced by selecting visual elements that improve memory and evoke elaborative processing. Ideal visual elements are vivid or distinctive, provide grounding, and invite interpretive effort.

The Noticing Effect Differentiation of Perception Learning is often characterized as the development of abstract knowledge that permits inferences that go beyond the information given (Bruner, 1957). By this account, learning moves one progressively further from the world through abstraction (Gibson & Gibson, 1955). However, for those who study perceptual learning, the consequence of learning is that one gets closer to the world, not further. For example, a wine connoisseur can perceive flavors that a novice cannot, and an expert teacher can notice subtle differences in student responses that a novice might simply characterize as wrong (Marton & Booth, 1997). Appropriate experience enables people to extract more information from the stimulus array. In their seminal paper on perceptual differentiation, Gibson and Gibson (1955) describe a study in which participants were presented with nonsense scribbles. People had to identify which scribbles were the same as a target scribble. Despite a lack of feedback, people improved over time. Their descriptions of the squiggles became more attuned to a set of dimensions that differentiated the squiggles (e.g., degree of horizontal compression). The authors concluded:
There is a great quantity of evidence about progressive change in acuity, variability, and accuracy of perception, including both relative judgments and absolute judgments. It proves beyond a shadow of doubt that the notion of fixed thresholds for a certain set of innate sensory dimensions is oversimplified. Discrimination gets better with practice, both with and without knowledge of results. (p. 39)

426 R. Lindgren and D. L. Schwartz Perceptual learning has been documented in many domains. For example, radiologists ability to detect abnormal signs in complex X-rays is correlated with the number of years of experience in radiology (Myles-Worsley, Johnston, & Simmons, 1988). Appropriate instruction can support perceptual learning. Goodwin (1994) describes the ways that archeology experts will articulate and reinforce the important perceptual distinctions as a way of establishing professional vision (e.g., the color, texture, and consistency of dirt at an excavation site). Biederman and Shiffrar (1987) were able to bring novices to near expert levels at determining the sex of chicks by using carefully selected cases that highlighted distinctive features. The benefits of perceptual learning do not stop with perception. The ability to see important distinctions prepares students to understand conceptual treatments that depend on and explain these differences. For example, many beginning students gloss the mean, mode, and median as the average, which means they are unprepared to learn about non-normal distributions. Discrimination activities can prepare students to better learn from relevant expository instruction (Schwartz & Bransford, 1998). To promote perceptual learning, people need exposure to appropriate variability. Often times, instruction strips out all the variability so that students can focus on an abstraction (e.g., a formula). Variability, however, is essential for learning to notice what is important and what is not important. Posner and Keele (1968) found that greater variability led to slower learning in the short term, but resulted in a more potent learning that could be applied to a set of transfer problems. This suggests that giving learners more time and breadth for exploring a variable problem space can lead to more adaptive behaviors, compared to, for example, applying a told procedure to a set of similar word problems. To create optimal variability for perceptual learning, Bransford, Franks, Vye, and Sherwood (1989) suggest the use of carefully selected contrasting cases. Contrasting cases are similar instances that vary on one or two dimensions, like tasting two wines one after the other. People notice the features that differentiate the cases. Perceptual Differentiation in Simulation Environments The controlled and replicable nature of simulations makes them ideal for delivering optimal variability for perceptual learning. Simulations, for example, can present side-by-side contrasts. Figure 2a shows a screen shot from Crocodile Physics, part of the Crocodile Clips software suite. Basketballs, dropped from identical heights, are bouncing on three different surfaces: the Earth, the Moon, and Mars. The simulation displays the weight of the ball in each location, and the student has the opportunity to observe how high and for how long the ball bounces. Students could bounce a ball in their classrooms and be told how it would behave differently on the moon, but this would likely lead to declarative knowledge, and students may never learn to notice the contrasts that a full understanding of gravity explains. The simulation examples offered so far have been experimentation simulations, which are ideal for juxtaposing contrasting cases and emphasizing the empirical side
interactive (a) A Crocodile on the right Figure 2. 3D environment Physics simulation of a ball bouncing in three different gravitational environments (Crocodile Clips, 2008): The side-by-side contrast should aid perceptual differentiation. (b) RockSim (Apogee Components, 2008): A design environment for model rockets that allows the user to simulate a launch under various conditions. (c) StarLogo TNG (MIT Scheller Teacher Education Program, 2006): Code assembled on the left dictates the behavior of the

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Figure 2. (a) A Crocodile Physics simulation of a ball bouncing in three different gravitational environments (Crocodile Clips, 2008): The side-by-side contrast should aid perceptual differentiation. (b) RockSim (Apogee Components, 2008): A design environment for model rockets that allows the user to simulate a launch under various conditions. (c) StarLogo TNG (MIT Scheller Teacher Education Program, 2006): Code assembled on the left dictates the behavior of the interactive 3D environment on the right

of science activities. Another class of relevant simulations emphasizes the model building activities of science. With modeling simulations, students design and implement models of empirical phenomena. Modeling simulations often provide generic drag-and-drop components and a basic physics engine that implements constraints on how things will behave. An example of a modeling simulation for designing model rockets is shown in Figure 2b. The power of these design environments for creating perceptually realistic simulations will continue to grow as 3D graphics engines and virtual reality development tools become more accessible. For example, the visual programming environment StarLogo TNG allows users to specify and tinker with character behavior in a virtual world (Figure 2c). A key feature of both experimentation and modeling simulations is the iterative process of configuring and testing. This creates two potential contrasts for learning. One contrast is the difference between expected and observed, which helps students align their mental model with the perceptual phenomena (Monaghan & Clement, 1999). The second contrast, more consonant with perceptual learning, is the difference between two runs of the simulation.

428 R. Lindgren and D. L. Schwartz An important direction for research is determining how to design environments that help students engage in inquiry that creates optimal variability. Children do not naturally vary only one thing at a time to maximize the contrast value (Kuhn, 1989). Left to their own devices, they may create so much variability that they cannot extract perceptual regularities. At the same time, dictating what contrasts to make undermines inquiry. The noticing effect is particularly useful in the context of assessment, because it provides convenient ways to measure student learning from a simulation. One simple technique is to show students a visual display and ask them to write down what they notice. For example, if a geology expert and a novice see a photograph of a landslide, the expert will be much more likely to notice the features that contributed to the landslide. The same is true for all domains. Even abstract visual presentations like a line graph can be useful as an assessment in this context do students notice the slope, an inflection point, the intercept, and so forth? Asking students what they notice in a simulation is an illuminating assessment.

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The Structuring Effect Appreciation of Structure If you rotate a piece of office paper in your hands, you will continue to see it as a rectangle, even though the images that are hitting your retina comprise an ever shifting trapezoid. Human perception extracts form from the buzzing confusion of sensory data. For humans it is effortless, whereas computers still have difficulty segmenting pixels into objects and sound waves into words. Evolution has afforded human perception the ability to make rapid and cumulative assessments of structure. Gestalt Psychologists demonstrated that the perception of whole configurations has structural characteristics that are not present when viewing the individual parts (Wertheimer, 1938). Leveraging the structuring abilities of perception is a powerful way to help students see the forest and not just the trees. Scientific visualization tools help scientists see patterns that might be overlooked in a stream of numbers. More generally, converting concepts to space has been an important scientific tool for the discovery of structure. Kekul famously reported that it was visions of molecules and atoms dancing in the air that led him to formulate the structure of the benzene ring (Rocke, 1985). In his studies of expert scientists, Clement (1994) describes how new discoveries and inferences are often made using imagistic simulations, rather than relying on declarative principles or equations (cf. Finke, 1990). Several researchers in science education and elsewhere have prescribed the use of visualizations to promote learning difficult concepts (e.g., Clark & Jorde, 2004; Wilder & Brinkerhoff, 2007). Visualizations may be especially useful for helping students see structure in phenomena and processes that are traditionally invisible to students. A process can be invisible if it is too small (bacterial reproduction), too big (tectonic shifting), too fast (chemical reactions), or too slow (evolution). Visualizations can make these processes accessible so learners can perceive the important structures.

Spatial Learning and Computer Simulations Appreciation of Structure in Simulation Environments

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We consider uses of simulations for supporting the appreciation of three types of structure: invisible, temporal, and thought. Science education simulations can illuminate the invisible deep structure beneath surface changes. Simulations of molecules, for example, can explain the surface expansion of a balloon. In some cases simulations purify phenomena, so it is easier to see the deep structure without the noise of incidental surface variation. Figure 3a shows a refraction simulation that uses a simple visual representation to show the path of a single ray of light as it travels from one medium to another, such as air to water. Students vary the angle of incidence to perceive the non-linear relationship between angle of incidence and angle of refraction. More generally, simulations may help students develop an intuitive spatial understanding of many science phenomena, such as quantum mechanics, that otherwise depend on advanced mathematics for conveying structure (McKagan et al., 2008). Temporal structure is another important place for spatial representation and simulation. Simple examples involve spatial displacement over time, as in the case of
Figure 3. (a) Components of a Physics Java Applet simulating the refraction of light (Fendt, 2008). (b) A Connected Chemistry simulation showing the relationship of temperature and pressure on molecular activity (Wilensky, 2005). (c) Avieda-Ed (Pennock, 2007): A simulation of microorganism growth. (d) Bettys Brain (Teachable Agents Group at Vanderbilt University, 2005): A simulation of an agents thinking about environmental factors

Figure 3. (a) Components of a Physics Java Applet simulating the refraction of light (Fendt, 2008). (b) A Connected Chemistry simulation showing the relationship of temperature and pressure on molecular activity (Wilensky, 2005). (c) Avieda-Ed (Pennock, 2007): A simulation of microorganism growth. (d) Bettys Brain (Teachable Agents Group at Vanderbilt University, 2005): A simulation of an agents thinking about environmental factors

430 R. Lindgren and D. L. Schwartz projectile motion. More complex examples occur when changes do not involve spatial displacement, and it is important to visualize the underlying invariant structure. Echevarria (2003) presented students with a genetics simulation that was designed to confront the students with anomalous outcomes of genetic inheritance in fruit flies. By observing the patterns over time, students learned more about the structure of trait inheritance and could explain the anomalies. Even more complex examples involve emergent structure, where there appears to be a qualitative change in the structure of the system. Agent-based simulations use elements with local interaction rules that combine to make higher-order structure over time. The Connected Chemistry suite (Figure 3b) promotes understanding of chemical interactions by demonstrating the effects of changes in an environments parameters (e.g., concentration of a particular element) (Stieff & Wilensky, 2003). This is in contrast to simply giving students the formulas that define the structural relationships. Figure 3c is a similar simulation that shows the process of bacterial reproduction. These complex system simulations all typically include an area for inputting and adjusting parameters and an area for displaying a visual representation of the system over time. The graphic display permits students to make qualitative assessments of the system state (e.g., reaction equilibrium, over-population, etc.). Not only is it important for students to see structure in phenomena, but it is also important for them to appreciate the structure in scientific thought about those phenomena. Teachable Agents simulate how one might reason about a domain by making thinking visible (Schwartz, Blair, Biswas, Leelawong, & Davis, 2007). Students teach a computer agent, such as Bettys Brain (Figure 3d), by using predefined spatial forms to input and organize important causal relations (e.g., animals exhale carbon dioxide). Using simple artificial intelligence techniques, the agent can animate its path of reasoning when asked inference questions (e.g., if the number of factories increases, what happens to the temperature of the earth?). This helps students develop better abilities to reason through the causal chains that are ubiquitous in science.

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The Tuning Effect Tuning PerceptionAction Links The power of the human perceptual system lies in its ability to entertain and facilitate possible actions. Perception and action are so tightly linked that action influences perception. People are quicker to perceive a revealed object if their hand was positioned at the right orientation for grasping (Craighero, Fadiga, Rizzolatti, & Umilta, 1999). People are also better at predicting the destination of an object moving behind an occluder if they had previously controlled the objects movement (Wexler & Klam, 2001). Perception helps guide action, and action helps shape the predictions of perception. Perceptionaction links are important not only for performance, but also for understanding. The literature on embodied cognition, in direct response to amodal

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brands of information processing, argues that all thought is an evolved simulation of perceptual-motor activity (Barsalou, 1999). Empirical support for embodied cognition comes from Glenberg, Gutierrez, Levin, Japuntich, and Kaschak (2004) who had second graders read a short passage describing a scenario (e.g., feeding animals on a farm). Children scored higher on measures of comprehension for the given passage if they had an opportunity to manipulate figurines described in the passage. Further, when the children were instructed to simply imagine manipulating the figures, they were better at comprehending new passages. A good deal of everyday perceptual learning involves tuning perception and action through a process called recalibration (Redding & Wallace, 2006). This happens automatically, for example, when learning to drive a new car where applying pressure on the gas or brake pedals has different effects. In one study, participants completed a driving simulation with the goal of stopping at a specified target (Fajen, 2005). After numerous trials, the braking strength was changed, but it took just a few trials for participants to recalibrate and use the brake effectively. Prism adaptation studies show recalibration to the extreme. Kohler (1964), for example, wore prism glasses that made the world appear upside down. At first it was extremely difficult for him to interact with the world, but over a period of several days the world eventually flipped upright as his motor and visual system recalibrated. The human capacity for quick recalibration suggests the utility of supporting spatial interactions that engage the perceptual-motor system. The driving simulator study above and other studies of recalibration in virtual environments (e.g., Richardson & Waller, 2007) indicate that even mainstream 3D software run on a desktop computer are capable of achieving this effect. The impact of using virtual worlds for tuning perceptionaction links has not yet been fully explored, but the relevance of recalibration to learning seems to be a ripe area for investigation, especially in light of rapidly advancing media technologies. Tuning PerceptionAction Links in Simulation Environments The most obvious simulations relevant to tuning are embodied, immersive learning environments. Although we do not know of academic research, it seems obvious that people like embodied simulationswitness the enthusiastic reception of the Nintendo Wii. Input devices in embodied simulations can have a direct mapping to the real-world input devices, as in the use of a brake pedal. However, training simulations do not need to copy the input devices from the real world, unless the goal is immediate high proficiency at the real task. Rather, most pedagogical simulations simply need to map the structural correspondences between input and output. A case in point is the dissection simulation BioLab Frog (Figure 4a). It includes a realistic rendering of a frogs anatomy and the ability to remove and classify organs. Although students used a mouse, the virtual activity of dissecting the frog transferred to improve physical dissection of an actual frog (Akpan & Andre, 1999). One reason for considering motor activity in simulation design is that people often recruit the motor system to make complex physical inferences. Schwartz and Black

Figure 4. (a) Biolab Frog (Doltar, 2002): A dissection simulation showing the realistic configuration of a frogs internal organs. (b) Molecular Rover (Concord Consortium, 2008): A simulation for navigating through configurations of molecules in 3D

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Figure 4. (a) Biolab Frog (Doltar, 2002): A dissection simulation showing the realistic configuration of a frogs internal organs. (b) Molecular Rover (Concord Consortium, 2008): A simulation for navigating through configurations of molecules in 3D

(1996), for instance, demonstrated that people fallback to explicit motor simulations to work out gear problems (e.g., moving their hands as if they were gears), when they cannot solve the problems verbally. One goal of simulation design can be to help students tune motor movements to perception, so they can recruit the motor system to help develop intuitive inferences. In the design of simulations that rely on tuning effects, the key issue is motor realism not visual realism. After all, many simulations represent invisible processes. The key question is: Do the motor activities map into spatial changes in the simulation such that people could recruit those same motor patterns later to help with inferences? If people complete a simulation by taking discrete button presses, then the motor system is unlikely to get tuned to spatial changes in their environment. In this scenario, the tuning involves learning a fundamentally new relation rather than recalibrating an old one. It takes a long time before people can simulate playing a piano to help imagine what a song will sound like. However, if the motor action takes a continuous form with continuous spatial consequences to the simulation, then there should be better prospect of connecting motor activity to help future mental simulations. The Molecular Rover simulation (Figure 4b) is a nice instance of mapping the motor system into a science concept. Students use a mouse to navigate through complex molecular configurations, such as those that comprise greenhouse gases or hemoglobin. Students can view these molecules from different angles, observe interactions between molecules, and even apply forces to test the strength of molecular bonds. A good study would compare mouse navigation in this environment with textual commands for making changes to perspective. By hypothesis, the mouse version would help students subsequently conduct mental simulations of molecules more effectively.

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As technologies for creating virtual objects and virtual environments become more accessible and easier to use, there is the additional potential for students to learn through creating their own three-dimensional models of systems in science. Some researchers have touted the educational benefits of having students use VRML and other platforms for creating physically accurate three-dimensional representations (Barnett, Yamagata-Lynch, Keating, Barab, & Hay, 2005). Just like those who have advocated for the building of hands-on physical models to increase understanding of the constraints and complexities of spatial processes (e.g., Erdogan, 2006), the building of virtual models has been said to have similar affordances for learning. The underlying assumption in these claims is that students can recalibrate quickly to a new virtual space. The knowledge that people are capable of constructing and tuning perceptionaction links opens up numerous possibilities for learning in simulated environments. Much like researchers in the area of communication have demonstrated that people treat their computers like real people (Reeves & Nass, 1996), the hope is that students will treat virtual phenomena enough like real physical objects and events that they facilitate powerful and authentic learning experiences. Conclusions We have examined each of the four spatial learning effects in turn and offered examples of simulations that potentially support each effect. These have included simulations of experimentation, modeling activity, navigation, and manipulation. While we have separated out the effects for exposition, they do not operate in isolation. The structure effect, for example, is complemented by the picture superiority effect by making instances of important structures more likely to be remembered than if the structures had been described verbally. As another example, the noticing effect supports tuning by allowing the motor system to respond to more and more fine-grained perceptual distinctions. That said, it may not be possible for a single simulation module to support all four effects simultaneously. For example, a visually immersive environment that promotes new perceptionaction links may not be very effective at leveraging memory effects because the user will be exposed to a steady stream of vivid images that lack distinctiveness. The design of simulations should try to maximize these four effects while remaining conscious of their trade-offs and interactions. The design of a simulation should be explicit about the types of learning that it hopes to elicit. Improved problem solving is one type of learning, but as we have argued, there are others. For example, effective memory of spatial structure and the ability to notice the relevant information is a prerequisite to problem solving. One way to help be explicit about desired learning outcomes in simulation design is to think in terms of assessment. While most current assessments use problem solving, the four spatial learning effects discussed here provide natural ways to measure specific types of learning that do not exclusively rely on verbal problem solving. For the picture superiority effect, one simple assessment is to show a picture that students have seen alongside a slightly varied picture that includes impossible

434 R. Lindgren and D. L. Schwartz states. The students task is to decide which one they saw. For the structure effect, it is useful to ask students to redraw what they saw. The drawing will be readily analyzable for its inclusion of important structural relations (e.g., ratios) versus its inclusion of uninformative surface features (e.g., locations of buttons). For the noticing effect, students can be given a new, but relevant photograph of a situation, for example from GIS data. If they are asked to annotate what they notice, it will be easy to separate whether students notice the diagnostic features versus incidental features. For tuning, the simplest assessments are for training simulations. Have the students calibrated their motor behaviors so they can perform the task precisely? For more conceptually directed simulations, the question is whether students have developed facility with imagining transformations to the system. An appropriate assessment question would be, what would happen if you moved this object this way? The most direct measure of tuning would be whether they use their hands to help model the system. More indirectly, one can look for evidence of mental imagery; for example, do they close their eyes or look off into space? Swaak and de Jong (2001) had students make speeded judgments of which outcomes of a ball collision is correct on the assumption that this tapped their intuitive simulations of the system. In conclusion, most pedagogical simulations are designed to help students learn so they can subsequently operate in non-simulation environments. One approach is to make the simulation environment as similar to the non-simulation environment as possible. However, doing so would undermine many of the affordances of simulations for pedagogy; for example, well-chosen images, contrasting cases, and affordances for detecting structure. An alternative is to view simulations as preparation for future learning (Bransford & Schwartz, 1999). Simulations prepare students to learn and adapt more effectively when the students eventually reach the nonsimulation context. Simulations that explicitly capitalize on peoples innate spatial learning mechanisms are a powerful way to help them get started.

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Acknowledgments This material is based upon work supported by the National Science Foundation under grant SLC-0354453 and the Department of Education under grant IES R305H060089. Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the granting agencies.

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