Resource-Adaptive Design of Visualizations for Supporting the Comprehension of Complex Dynamics in the Natural Sciences

The content of this page is displayed in standardized format to serve as quick reference; and facilitate its use during preparation of new applications. Do not change the content of this page without consulting with the project coordinator. For encyclopedic details about the project, please refer to its main page. Research Plan The basic idea of the research project is that a successful knowledge acquisition with dynamic visualizations is a resource intensive process which requires simultaneous and optimized availability of different learning resources. This particularly comprises different processing capabilities of the cognitive system, functionalities of the applied computer technology and didactically substantiated contents and representations. Accordingly, the instructional potential of dynamic visualizations can only effectively evolve if these different learning resources are available in a coordinated way for a concrete knowledge acquisition scenario. This hypothesis will be investigated in formal learning settings (e.g. school, university) as well as in informal learning settings (e.g. aquarium, diving excursion) for a natural sciences domain, the locomotion of fish.

Formal Project Description Contract Title Resource-Adaptive Design of Visualizations for Supporting the Comprehension of Complex Dynamics in the Natural Sciences Lead Partner Cyprus Neuroscience and Technology Institute Grant Pact for Research and Innovation of the Competition Fund 2006 of the Leibniz-Association Dates {{{start_day}}}/{{{start_month}}}/{{{start_year}}} - {{{end_day}}}/{{{end_month}}}/{{{end_year}}} Website www.mentalmaps.org

Specific objective(s) Theoretical and Experimental Questions The aim of the project is to support the understanding of complex dynamic processes in the Natural Sciences. Thereby we draw attention to conducive design of dynamic visualizations while considering and developing findings from cognitive and media psychology. Within this context we study the following topics: mental resources processing capacity, working memory attention modality- and codality-based processing channels learner requirements domain specific knowledge structures within long-term memory expertise regarding cognitive and metacognitive processing strategies spatial ability, visual literacy