Abstract

The present study tested the hypothesis that maturation of the prefrontal lobes is a crucial factor determining the performance of scientific reasoning tasks, Functions of the prefrontal lobes, such as activating relevant information, sequential planning and monitoring, and inhibiting irrelevant information, are related thinking patterns with scientific reasoning. Therefore, we inferred the idea that the prefrontal lobes play an important role in scientific reasoning. To test the hypothesis. the present study investigated a prefrontal lobe patient's task solving procedures in scientific reasoning tasks and the correlation and regression analysis between a test of prefrontal lobe function and two scientific reasoning tasks, The perseverative errors in the Wisconsin Card Sorting Test(WCST) was used as a measure of the prefrontal lobe function, The Melinark Type Task and the Classroom Test of Scientific Reasoning were used as measures of scientific reasoning abilities. Ages and Group Embedded Figure Test were also used as measures of two alternative hypotheses, general maturation and field independency respectively. The prefrontal lobe patient showed a crucial deficiency in solving scientific reasoning tasks. In the tasks, the patient could not used the reasoning of If... and... then... therefore pattern. In correlation study, the perseveration errors of the WCST showed a significantly negative correlation with two scientific reasoning tasks. Multiple regression study also showed that the perseveration errors measured as a function of the prefrontal lobes have more contribution to scientific reasoning ability than contributions of alternative hypotheses. Therefore, the present study supported the hypothesis that prefrontal lobes play a crucial role in scientific reasoning ability, What function of the prefrontal lobes do play crucial role in scientific reasoning? The present study provided an explanation for the question, which inhibiting ability of the prefrontal lobes is responsible for the scientific reasoning ability, in a part at least. That is, perseverative tendency in task-solving procedures causes a deficiency of an ability to inhibit the wrong information to solve a task. The present study provided a possibility of neuropsychological approach in science education research. The present study also showed an importance of the prefrontal lobe development in the performance of scientific reasoning task.

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