Uso de conceptos científicos y contenido en la memoria puestos de manifiesto a través de la inducción de disponibilidades y de tareas de generación de propiedades

Laburpena

The studies included in this dissertation focus on the use of scientific concepts and on their storage in memory, using embodiment theories, particularly the Indexical Hypothesis (Glenberg, 1997, 2007; Glenberg & Kaschak, 2002; Kaschak & Glenberg 2000, 2003; Glenberg y Robertson, 1999) and LASS Theory (Barsalou, 1999a & 2003b; Barsalou, Santos, Simmons & Wilson, 2008; Santos, Chaigneau, Simmons & Barsalou, 2011; Simmons, Hamann, Harenski, Hu, & Barsalou, 2008;Wu & Barsalou, 2009; Yeh & Barsalou, 2006). The first experiments analyzed high school students’ difficulties to generate scientific affordances when trying to understand and to predict the behavior of a simple physical system. The use of scientific affordances was contrasted to those based on intuitive theories. The main finding was a limited use of scientific affordances in predicting the behavior of the physical system. The participating students resorted, instead, to perceptual affordances that were not easily modified by a short term manipulation. Two studies on property generation were carried out to analyze the conceptual content of scientific concepts, in comparison to concrete and abstract concepts. Wu and Barlasalou (2009) model was used to analyze the properties generated. This model integrates 37 subcategories organized in five main categories (taxonomic, entity, situational, and introspective). A central finding was that entity properties are central in scientific concepts in contrast to previous findings on abstract non-scientific concepts. Additionally, it was found that general-use scientific concepts (e.g., energy) had less entity properties and more situational references than specialized-used scientific concepts (e.g., electron). Finally analyses of the order of property generation in the process of situated simulation revealed that, in general, taxonomic properties were generated first, followed by entity properties, situational and introspective properties.