An Innovative Information Technology Educational Framework Based on Embodied Cognition and Sensory Marketing

This article describes and implements an innovative framework for information technology (IT) education. The proposed framework creates metaphors for various IT topics using music. The theory of embodied cognition or grounded cognition argues that all aspects of cognition, including decision making, are shaped by aspects of the body. Various theories of neuroscience, the interdisciplinary study of the nervous system, are used to explain how the brain processes the information and multi-modal stimuli generated by the authors' model. The framework proposed in this article can also be considered a form of sensory marketing, which is also based upon embodied cognition, theories of neuroscience and the cognitive significance of metaphors. The model was implemented at the secondary and university levels using both a formative and summative evaluation process. The survey results support the theoretical arguments supplied by many theories of embodied cognition and neuroscience.

[1]  R. Passingham,et al.  Action observation and acquired motor skills: an FMRI study with expert dancers. , 2005, Cerebral cortex.

[2]  D. Whitney,et al.  Serial dependence in visual perception , 2011, Nature Neuroscience.

[3]  Practical Applications of Mind-Body Phenomena: The Modulation of Motor Performance by Action Visualization , 2010 .

[4]  M. Iacoboni.  Imitation, empathy, and mirror neurons. , 2009, Annual review of psychology.

[5]  J. Changeux,et al.  Experimental and Theoretical Approaches to Conscious Processing , 2011, Neuron.

[6]  V. Gallese.  The ‘‘shared manifold’’ hypothesis: from mirror neurons to empathy , 2001 .

[7]  L. Barsalou,et al.  Embodiment in Attitudes, Social Perception, and Emotion , 2005, Personality and social psychology review : an official journal of the Society for Personality and Social Psychology, Inc.

[8]  L. Nyberg,et al.  Motor Representations and Practice Affect Brain Systems Underlying Imagery: An fMRI Study of Internal Imagery in Novices and Active High Jumpers , 2008, The open neuroimaging journal.

[9]  F. Pulvermüller.  Semantic embodiment, disembodiment or misembodiment? In search of meaning in modules and neuron circuits , 2013, Brain and Language.

[10]  A. Wyllie,et al.  More than one way to go. , 2001, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America.

[11]  S. Dehaene,et al.  Levels of processing during non-conscious perception: a critical review of visual masking , 2007, Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences.

[12]  G. Lakoff.  The Cambridge Handbook of Metaphor and Thought: The neural theory of metaphor , 2009 .

[13]  J. Decety,et al.  The functional architecture of human empathy. , 2004, Behavioral and cognitive neuroscience reviews.

[14]  R. Zatorre,et al.  Intensely pleasurable responses to music correlate with activity in brain regions implicated in reward and emotion , 2001, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America.

[15]  Seung Hwan Lee,et al.  Embodied cognition and social consumption: Self-regulating temperature through social products and behaviors , 2014 .

[16]  Klaus Oberauer,et al.  Accessing information in working memory: can the focus of attention grasp two elements at the same time? , 2009, Journal of experimental psychology. General.

[17]  Friedemann Pulvermüller,et al.  Meaning and the brain: The neurosemantics of referential, interactive, and combinatorial knowledge , 2012, Journal of Neurolinguistics.

[18]  N. Schwarz,et al.  Sensory marketing, embodiment, and grounded cognition: A review and introduction , 2014 .

[19]  F. Pulvermüller,et al.  Words in the brain's language , 1999, Behavioral and Brain Sciences.

[20]  Brian P. Meier,et al.  Embodiment in Social Psychology , 2012, Top. Cogn. Sci..

[21]  Richard Paul,et al.  The Thinker's Guide to Analytic Thinking: How to Take Thinking Apart and What to Look for When You Do , 2016 .

[22]  J. Decety.  Naturaliser l'empathie. , 2008 .

[23]  A. Goldman,et al.  Mirror neurons and the simulation theory of mind-reading , 1998, Trends in Cognitive Sciences.

[24]  John A Bargh,et al.  The Scaffolded Mind: Higher mental processes are grounded in early experience of the physical world. , 2009, European journal of social psychology.

[25]  A. Borghi,et al.  Embodied cognition and beyond: Acting and sensing the body , 2010, Neuropsychologia.

[26]  R. Leys,et al.  The Turn to Affect: A Critique , 2011, Critical Inquiry.

[27]  B. Bläsing,et al.  The cognitive structure of movements in classical dance , 2009 .

[28]  Jay Seitz.  The neural, evolutionary, developmental, and bodily basis of metaphor , 2005 .

[29]  J. Marshall.  Mirror neurons , 2014, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

[30]  Trey Ideker,et al.  Cytoscape 2.8: new features for data integration and network visualization , 2010, Bioinform..

[31]  Emily S. Cross,et al.  Building a motor simulation de novo: Observation of dance by dancers , 2006, NeuroImage.

[32]  Bert Reynvoet,et al.  Mechanisms of masked priming: a meta-analysis. , 2009, Psychological bulletin.

[33]  J. Mazziotta,et al.  Grasping the Intentions of Others with One's Own Mirror Neuron System , 2005, PLoS biology.

[34]  L. Trainor,et al.  Frontal brain electrical activity (EEG) distinguishes valence and intensity of musical emotions , 2001 .

[35]  J. Bargh,et al.  Experiencing Physical Warmth Promotes Interpersonal Warmth , 2008, Science.

[36]  Dennis T. Kennedy,et al.  A Strategic Perspective on Using Symbolic Transformation in STEM Education: Robotics and Automation , 2016, Int. J. Strateg. Decis. Sci..

[37]  Caro C Williams-Pierce,et al.  Five Key Ingredients for Improving Student Motivation , 2011 .

[38]  Nina Kraus,et al.  The ability to tap to a beat relates to cognitive, linguistic, and perceptual skills , 2013, Brain and Language.

[39]  S. Preston,et al.  Empathy: Its ultimate and proximate bases. , 2001, The Behavioral and brain sciences.

[40]  Brian P. Meier,et al.  A metaphor-enriched social cognition. , 2010, Psychological bulletin.

[41]  Michael L. Anderson.  Neural reuse: A fundamental organizational principle of the brain , 2010, Behavioral and Brain Sciences.

[42]  Umberto Castiello,et al.  Language in shadow , 2006, Social neuroscience.

[43]  Michael J. Smith,et al.  Implementing New Technology , 2004 .

[44]  R. Núñez,et al.  Embodied cognition as grounding for situatedness and context in mathematics education , 1999 .

[45]  A. Krishna,et al.  An Integrative Review of Sensory Marketing: Engaging the Senses to Affect Perception, Judgment and Behavior , 2011 .

[46]  Michael J. Martinez,et al.  Cerebral Cortex doi:10.1093/cercor/bhj057 Cerebral Cortex Advance Access published October 12, 2005 The Neural Basis of Human Dance , 2022 .

[47]  Luciano Fadiga,et al.  Role of Broca's area in encoding sequential human actions: a virtual lesion study , 2009, Neuroreport.

[48]  R. Passingham,et al.  Seeing or Doing? Influence of Visual and Motor Familiarity in Action Observation , 2006, Current Biology.

[49]  L. Barsalou,et al.  Whither structured representation? , 1999, Behavioral and Brain Sciences.

[50]  Richard J. Davidson,et al.  The emotional life of your brain : how its unique patterns affect the way you think, feel, and live--and how you can change them , 2012 .

[51]  M K Kaiser,et al.  How baseball outfielders determine where to run to catch fly balls. , 1995, Science.