Chapter Eight - The Role of Automatic, Bottom-Up Processes: In the Ubiquitous Patterns of Incorrect Answers to Science Questions

Abstract

Nonexperts often exhibit regular and persistent patterns of errors when answering questions about science concepts. Typically, these patterns are considered to be due to high-level mental structures such as concepts or mental models that are different from the relevant expert concepts. Here, I consider the systematic influence of automatic, bottom-up processes on answering patterns to science questions. General evidence of the existence of top-down and bottom-up processes is surveyed from a variety of areas in cognitive science. Specifically, it is found that patterns of incorrect answering are a significant empirical driving force behind many investigations in learning and performance, and many of these areas invoke the need for bottom-up mechanisms to explain observations. The application of some of these mechanisms to the area of student answering of science questions is discussed. In particular, it is hypothesized that patterns of incorrect answering on a broad class of science questions are strongly influenced by the phenomenon of competition between relevant and irrelevant information in the questions. I investigate the particular cases in which the outcomes of this competition are mediated by the relative processing times and allocation of attention to relevant and irrelevant information in questions. These mechanisms result in predictable patterns of response choice, response time, and eye gaze fixations, and I discuss some studies suggesting that these mechanisms are at work when students answer specific physics questions. If, as suggested, automatic, bottom-up processes play a role in performance on science tasks, then this has important implications for models of understanding and learning science.