An Embodied/Grounded Cognition Perspective on Educational Technology - New Science of Learning - page 45

network links needed to be searched and how many other distracting links were
present. However, grounded cognition research has shown that perceptual variables
like size (e.g., the bigger the property to be retrieved the faster) affect verification
times and errors (Solomon & Barsalou, 2004). Also, neuroimaging results (e.g.,
fMRI) show that perceptual areas of the brain (involving shape, color, size, sound
and touch) also become active during this task, not just the symbolic areas (e.g.,
Martin, 2007). Thus, if one is familiar with horses and manes then doing even this
simple property verification involves a perceptual simulation.
Even text comprehension shows spatial (perceptual) effects. For example a
switch in point of view in a narrative creates longer reading times and more memory
errors because the reader has to switch the spatial perspective from which they are
viewing the narrative scene in their imagination. For example
John was working in the front yard then he went inside
is read faster than with a one word change that switches the point of view (Bower,
Black, & Turner, 1979):
John was working in the front yard then he came inside.
Thus, when reading even this brief sentence the reader is forming a simple spatial
layout of the scene being described and imaging an actor moving around it—i.e., this
is a simple perceptual simulation.
Glenberg, Gutierrez, Levin, Japuntich and Kaschak (2004) have shown how to
teach reading comprehension using a grounded cognition approach. Specifically,
these studies found that having 2nd grade students act out stories about farms using
farmers, workers, animals and objects increased their understanding and memory
of the stories they read. Further, if they also imagined these actions for another
related story after acting it out with toys, they seemed to acquire the skill of form-
ing the imaginary world of the story (Black, 2007) when reading other stories, and
this increased their understanding and memory of these stories. Thus, this grounded
cognition approach increased the students' reading comprehension. These studies
also seem to indicate that there are three steps involved in a grounded cognition
approach to learning something:
1. Have a perceptually grounded experience
2. Learn to imagine the perceptually grounded experience
3. Imagine the experience when learning from symbolic materials
Gaining Embodied/Grounded Experiences from Video Games
Hammer and Black (2009) showed that video games can serve to create perceptually
grounded experiences that can serve to increase later symbolic learning and under-
standing. Specifically, they found that expert players of the Civilization historical
simulation game did not show any superior knowledge of the history covered in the
game compared to expert players of another academically oriented game ( Sim City ),
so they did not seem to learn much about history directly from playing the game.