Use of eye-gaze patterns to survey intuitive learning

B.E. RYAN; M.L. FREIJE; G. GÓMEZ; K.V. RODRIGUEZ; G. GASANEO

Buenos Aires

Encuentro; 2nd Latin American Brain Mapping Network Meeting; 2017

People have a well-established system of commonsense beliefs about how the physical world works. These personal rules were constructed from years of experience interacting with the surrounding world. For example, and given the physical dimensions of our bodies, we perceive phenomenon that is governed mostly by what is known as Classical Mechanics (CM). Our movements and actions in this classical world are calculated with high accuracy and efficiency by our brain. Walking, biking, driving a car, manipulating objects with our hands, playing sports are just some examples. If we consult anyone about how these movements occur, it would be able to give us an explanation based on concepts such as speed, strength and physical concepts. The model we created intuitively and which is expressed by verbalization of our experiences with the world is called informal model (IM), also known as intuitive physics. Understanding physics, on the other hand, involves a formal model (FM) based on physical knowledge, that are assemble them in a way that they could modify the IM explicitly if it is wrong or incomplete. FM may or may not agree with the IM and how that link is addressed during learning may be critical for the proper and efficient acquisition of new knowledge.The aim of this work is to understand the process of learning at a basic level. We study how the brain incorporates the abstract model that represents physics knowledge and how this is linked to the intuitive model that person generates living day to day in a classical world.For this purpose, we use an eye-tracker to obtain the eye-gaze pattern of first year engineering students meanwhile they solve a physical conceptual test. We perform temporary maps constructed from the sectors in which they "look" when solving it.