The potential of embodied cognition to improve STEAM dynamic visualizations

An embodied cognition perspective recognizes that the evolution of the human mind has been shaped by the evolution of the species’ whole body in its interaction with the environment. For example, hand actions—such as object manipulations and gestures—have been fundamental for human survival, and thus they continue to trigger different areas of the evolved mind. One of these areas is the mirror neuron system, a major processor of bodily movement, which allows humans to learn manipulations and gestures with relative ease. A clear implication for instruction, across many Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts and Mathematics (STEAM) topics, is to profit from the effortlessness of hand actions in order to enhance the learning of difficult concepts or challenging educational materials. One example of demanding instructional materials is dynamic visualizations (e.g., animation, video), which can be too transient to follow, understand and learn from. However, we argue that dynamic visualizations may overcome the transiency problem by including embodied activity. In this chapter, we will review a diverse number of studies that show the instructional benefits of embodied cognition, manipulations, and gestures. Specifically, we will address how these evolved skills can be employed to effectively learn from STEAM dynamic visualizations.