Rochester Institute of Technology, College of Science
Distinguished Speakers Series
13 February, 2009

ABSTRACT
Two decades ago a short video called A PRIVATE UNIVERSE raised concern in education circles by demonstrating that even the very best instruction (even from prestigious institutions like Harvard) an fail to alter seemingly indelible non-scientific beliefs students tend to hold. Student beliefs that disagree with prevailing scientific views have been pejoratively referred to as "misconceptions." But scientists working at the cutting edge of knowledge also formulate naive ideas, but in these cases we call such ideas "mental models," visual metaphors essential to understanding. Metaphorical representations such as Einstein's elevator, Feynman's diagrams, or students' naive ideas, areÊoften expressed visually, and for better or worse these visually formed ideas are both powerful andÊtenacious. We suggest that the power of visual thinking, so important in science, stems from the visual system's capacity for concurrent processing, that allows the construction of memory through visuospatialÊpriming: a mechanism that may undergird the power and pitfalls of visual thinking in science.