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Kevin Niall Dunbar

University of Maryland, Human Development & Quantitative Methodology, Faculty Member

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We, The Laboratory for Complex Thinking, Reasoning & Educational Neuroscience, conduct research that spans the domains of Education, Cognitive Psychology, and Cognitive Neuroscience. The overall focus of our research is to discover and foster the psychologically and educationally important processes underlying Conceptual change and Creativity in the Arts and STEM fields. Our recent research using fNIRS, ERP, and fMRI has been on analogical reasoning, causal reasoning, and facilitating Creativity. The goal of our work is to harness these findings in ways that facilitate the learning and generation of new concepts and facilitate their transfer into the real world. We use controlled laboratory experiments (standard cognitive research), real-world settings (science museums, molecular biology labs, and undergraduate biology labs), genetic analyses (DNA genotyping & DNA microarrays), and neuroimaging methods (fMRI, fNIRS, and ERP to investigate these issues.

Put another way, our work has many important practical implications involving the ways that Creative environments in Science and the Arts are best structured to ensure success. The hallmark of our research is that we investigate creativity in Science and the Arts from multiple perspectives; we use many different methodologies to discover the cognitive, social, and brain based mechanisms underlying both the creation and learning of new concepts. The use of different converging methodologies make it possible for us to provide strategies, procedures, and contexts where people can generate new and original concepts as well as understand difficult concepts that are the bedrock of 21st century education.
Phone: 301 405-7233
Address: Department of Human Development and Quantitative Methodology,
3304 Benjamin Building (#143)
University of Maryland
College Park, MD 20742

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Papers by Kevin Niall Dunbar

How Scientists Really Reason: Scientific Reasoning in Real-World Laboratories

The Nature of Insight, 1994

UC Merced Proceedings of the Annual Meeting of the Cognitive Science Society Title Creativity Evaluation through Latent Semantic Analysis

The Uses of Objects Task is a widely used creativity test. The test is usually scored by humans, ... more The Uses of Objects Task is a widely used creativity test. The test is usually scored by humans, which introduces subjectivity and individual variance into creativity scores. Here, we present a new computational method for scoring creativity: Latent Semantic Analysis (LSA), a tool used to measure semantic distance between words. 33 participants provided creative uses for 20 separate objects. We compared both human judges and LSA scores and found that LSA methods produced a better model of the underlying semantic originality of responses than traditional measures.

ABSTRACT: What effects do different setups of museum exhibits have on visitors con-versations and... more ABSTRACT: What effects do different setups of museum exhibits have on visitors con-versations and interactions? The study reported here is an investigation of the role that labels and associated materials play in visitors conversations and interactions at a heat camera exhibit. After we introduced a label to help visitors explore the insulating prop-erties of clothing, we found a dramatic shift in the kinds of activities and participation structures of visitors. Not only were visitors, as expected, discussing why clothing was warm, but they were doing so in a fashion more consistent with formal education than the typically more collaborative conversations seen in informal learning environments. Overall, our analyses reveal that labels and activities presented serve to frame both the activities that visitors engage in and the types of conversations that ensue and that this has deep inßuences on visitors experiences at the exhibit. C © 2008 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Sci Ed 93:161184,

Brain, Behavior and Conceptual Change DO NAÏVE THEORIES EVER GO AWAY? USING BRAIN AND BEHAVIOR TO UNDERSTAND CHANGES IN CONCEPTS

naïve theories ever go away?

Author's Personal Copy the Micro-category Account of Analogy

Here, we investigate how activation of mental representations of categories during analogical rea... more Here, we investigate how activation of mental representations of categories during analogical reasoning influences subsequent cognitive processing. Specifically, we present and test the central predictions of the ‘‘Micro-Category’’ account of analogy. This account emphasizes the role of categories in aligning terms for analogical mapping. In a semantic priming paradigm, a four-word analogy task was compared to two other four-word tasks. Stimuli were identical in all tasks; only the instructions given to participants differed. Participants were instructed to identify analogy relations, category relations, or conventionalized semantic relations in the four-word sets. After each four-word set, a single target word appeared and participants named this word aloud. Target words that referred to category relations in the preceding four-word sets were primed as strongly when participants identified analogies as when participants identified categories, suggesting that activation of category ...

Are There Developmental Milestones in Science Reasoning

UTnclassified 2a SECURITYF CLASSIFICATION AUTHORITY 3 DISTRIBUTION / AVAILABILITY OF REPORT Appro... more UTnclassified 2a SECURITYF CLASSIFICATION AUTHORITY 3 DISTRIBUTION / AVAILABILITY OF REPORT Approved for public release; 2b DECLA.SSiFICATIN/OWNGRADiNG SCHEDULE Distribution unlimited 4 PERFORMIG ORGANIZATION REPORT NUMBER(S) S. MONITORING ORGANIZATION REPORT NUMBER(S) ALP-119 6a NAME OF PERFORMING ORGANIZATION 6b. OFFICE SYMBOL 7a NAME OF MONITORING ORGANIZATION

Evidence evaluation and planning heuristics in a molecular biology laboratory

PsycEXTRA Dataset

Scientific Reasoning

Encyclopedia of the Mind

Conceptual Judgments of Expert Versus Novice Chemistry Students: An fMRI Study

PsycEXTRA Dataset

The effect of analogy on memory: Testing the micro-category account

PsycEXTRA Dataset

Brain-Based Mechanisms Underlying Causal Reasoning

Neural Correlates of Thinking, 2009

Since well before the time of contemporary psychological and neuroscientific research, philosophe... more Since well before the time of contemporary psychological and neuroscientific research, philosophers and scientists have been fascinated with the concept of causality. Recent advances of neuroscientific techniques, specifically, neuroimaging using functional MRI, have allowed scientists to probe the brain in order to uncover the mechanisms underlying people's conceptions of causality. In this chapter, we provide an overview of a portion of this recent work, specifically as it pertains to the nature of how people interpret and reason about causality.

Simulating Brain Damaged Performance in Normal Subjects: Working Memory Deficits and the Wisconsin Card-Sort Task

PsycEXTRA Dataset

Constructing causality: How task set modulates the interpretation of causality

PsycEXTRA Dataset

Strategies for hypothesis induction

PsycEXTRA Dataset

Analogical Reasoning Alters Underlying Representations of a Target

PsycEXTRA Dataset

Real-world Decision Making: How and When Scientists Make Use of Surprising Findings

PsycEXTRA Dataset

Examining the representation of causal knowledge

Thinking & Reasoning, 2006

Three experiments investigated reasoners' beliefs about causal powers; that is, their beliefs abo... more Three experiments investigated reasoners' beliefs about causal powers; that is, their beliefs about the capacity of a putative cause to produce a given effect. Covariation-based theories (e.g., Cheng, 1997; Kelley, 1973; Novick & Cheng, 2004) posit that beliefs in causal power are represented in terms of the degree of covariation between the cause and its effect; covariation is defined in terms of the degree to which the effect occurs in the presence of the cause, and fails to occur in the absence of the cause. To test the degree to which beliefs in causal power are reflected in beliefs about covariation information, participants in three experiments rated their beliefs that putative causes have the capacity to produce a given effect (i.e., possess the causal power to produce an effect) as well as their beliefs regarding the degree to which the putative cause and effect covary. A strong positive correlation was discovered between participants' beliefs in causal power and their beliefs that the effect occurs in the presence of the cause. However, no direct relationship was found between participants' beliefs in causal power and their belief that the effect will fail to occur in the absence of the cause. These findings were replicated using both within-(Experiments 1 and 3) and between-subject designs (Experiment 2). In Experiment 3, we extended these analyses to measures of familiarity, imageability, and detailedness of the representation. We found that participants' beliefs in causal power were strongly associated with familiarity, and imageability, but not the perceived detailedness of the cause and effect

Scientific and Technological Thinking

Review of General Psychology, 2006

Studies of scientific and technological thinking can be organized via a taxonomy of methodologica... more Studies of scientific and technological thinking can be organized via a taxonomy of methodological approaches that reveal areas for further study. Dunbar provides such a taxonomy, using biological methods like in vivo and in vitro as examples. In vitro corresponds to laboratory simulations of scientific thinking; In Vivo corresponds to field studies of actual scientists and inventors. Dunbar expands this taxonomy to incorporate historical studies of scientists and inventors, computer simulation and the possibility of neurological studies. These methods can and should be combined: Computational simulations are frequently based on historical case-studies, for example. In this article, a wide range of studies are classified according to this taxonomy, and their main points summarized. Consideration is also given to studies of scientific and technological thinking in collaborative dyads and teams. The article concludes with suggestions for future research.

Dissociating Processes Supporting Causal Perception and Causal Inference in the Brain

Neuropsychology, 2005

An understanding of relations between causes and effects is essential for making sense of the dyn... more An understanding of relations between causes and effects is essential for making sense of the dynamic physical world. It has been argued that this understanding of causality depends on both perceptual and inferential components. To investigate whether causal perception and causal inference rely on common or on distinct processes, the authors tested 2 callosotomy (split-brain) patients and a group of neurologically intact participants. The authors show that the direct perception of causality and the ability to infer causality depend on different hemispheres of the divided brain. This finding implies that understanding causality is not a unitary process and that causal perception and causal inference can proceed independently.

Relational reasoning in medical education: Patterns in discourse and diagnosis

Journal of Educational Psychology, 2014

Relational reasoning, which has been defined as the ability to discern meaningful patterns within... more Relational reasoning, which has been defined as the ability to discern meaningful patterns within any informational stream, is a foundational cognitive ability associated with education, including in scientific domains. This study entailed the analysis of instructional conversations in which an attending clinical neurologist and his team of residents made diagnostic and therapeutic decisions about actual patients in a hospital setting. The primary goal was to investigate the role of 4 manifestations of relational reasoning (i.e., analogy, anomaly, antinomy, and antithesis) in medical education and diagnostic and therapeutic decision making. Results indicated that the degree to which members of the medical team used the 4 forms of relational reasoning depended on their role and expertise, as well as the time point in the problem-solving process. Specific reasoning patterns that emerged in the discourse and a prototypical model of the reasoning process are described and implications for research and practice are considered.

How Scientists Really Reason: Scientific Reasoning in Real-World Laboratories

The Nature of Insight, 1994

UC Merced Proceedings of the Annual Meeting of the Cognitive Science Society Title Creativity Evaluation through Latent Semantic Analysis

The Uses of Objects Task is a widely used creativity test. The test is usually scored by humans, ... more The Uses of Objects Task is a widely used creativity test. The test is usually scored by humans, which introduces subjectivity and individual variance into creativity scores. Here, we present a new computational method for scoring creativity: Latent Semantic Analysis (LSA), a tool used to measure semantic distance between words. 33 participants provided creative uses for 20 separate objects. We compared both human judges and LSA scores and found that LSA methods produced a better model of the underlying semantic originality of responses than traditional measures.

ABSTRACT: What effects do different setups of museum exhibits have on visitors con-versations and... more ABSTRACT: What effects do different setups of museum exhibits have on visitors con-versations and interactions? The study reported here is an investigation of the role that labels and associated materials play in visitors conversations and interactions at a heat camera exhibit. After we introduced a label to help visitors explore the insulating prop-erties of clothing, we found a dramatic shift in the kinds of activities and participation structures of visitors. Not only were visitors, as expected, discussing why clothing was warm, but they were doing so in a fashion more consistent with formal education than the typically more collaborative conversations seen in informal learning environments. Overall, our analyses reveal that labels and activities presented serve to frame both the activities that visitors engage in and the types of conversations that ensue and that this has deep inßuences on visitors experiences at the exhibit. C © 2008 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Sci Ed 93:161184,

Brain, Behavior and Conceptual Change DO NAÏVE THEORIES EVER GO AWAY? USING BRAIN AND BEHAVIOR TO UNDERSTAND CHANGES IN CONCEPTS

naïve theories ever go away?

Author's Personal Copy the Micro-category Account of Analogy

Here, we investigate how activation of mental representations of categories during analogical rea... more Here, we investigate how activation of mental representations of categories during analogical reasoning influences subsequent cognitive processing. Specifically, we present and test the central predictions of the ‘‘Micro-Category’’ account of analogy. This account emphasizes the role of categories in aligning terms for analogical mapping. In a semantic priming paradigm, a four-word analogy task was compared to two other four-word tasks. Stimuli were identical in all tasks; only the instructions given to participants differed. Participants were instructed to identify analogy relations, category relations, or conventionalized semantic relations in the four-word sets. After each four-word set, a single target word appeared and participants named this word aloud. Target words that referred to category relations in the preceding four-word sets were primed as strongly when participants identified analogies as when participants identified categories, suggesting that activation of category ...

Are There Developmental Milestones in Science Reasoning

UTnclassified 2a SECURITYF CLASSIFICATION AUTHORITY 3 DISTRIBUTION / AVAILABILITY OF REPORT Appro... more UTnclassified 2a SECURITYF CLASSIFICATION AUTHORITY 3 DISTRIBUTION / AVAILABILITY OF REPORT Approved for public release; 2b DECLA.SSiFICATIN/OWNGRADiNG SCHEDULE Distribution unlimited 4 PERFORMIG ORGANIZATION REPORT NUMBER(S) S. MONITORING ORGANIZATION REPORT NUMBER(S) ALP-119 6a NAME OF PERFORMING ORGANIZATION 6b. OFFICE SYMBOL 7a NAME OF MONITORING ORGANIZATION

Evidence evaluation and planning heuristics in a molecular biology laboratory

PsycEXTRA Dataset

Scientific Reasoning

Encyclopedia of the Mind

Conceptual Judgments of Expert Versus Novice Chemistry Students: An fMRI Study

PsycEXTRA Dataset

The effect of analogy on memory: Testing the micro-category account

PsycEXTRA Dataset

Brain-Based Mechanisms Underlying Causal Reasoning

Neural Correlates of Thinking, 2009

Since well before the time of contemporary psychological and neuroscientific research, philosophe... more Since well before the time of contemporary psychological and neuroscientific research, philosophers and scientists have been fascinated with the concept of causality. Recent advances of neuroscientific techniques, specifically, neuroimaging using functional MRI, have allowed scientists to probe the brain in order to uncover the mechanisms underlying people's conceptions of causality. In this chapter, we provide an overview of a portion of this recent work, specifically as it pertains to the nature of how people interpret and reason about causality.

Simulating Brain Damaged Performance in Normal Subjects: Working Memory Deficits and the Wisconsin Card-Sort Task

PsycEXTRA Dataset

Constructing causality: How task set modulates the interpretation of causality

PsycEXTRA Dataset

Strategies for hypothesis induction

PsycEXTRA Dataset

Analogical Reasoning Alters Underlying Representations of a Target

PsycEXTRA Dataset

Real-world Decision Making: How and When Scientists Make Use of Surprising Findings

PsycEXTRA Dataset

Examining the representation of causal knowledge

Thinking & Reasoning, 2006

Three experiments investigated reasoners' beliefs about causal powers; that is, their beliefs abo... more Three experiments investigated reasoners' beliefs about causal powers; that is, their beliefs about the capacity of a putative cause to produce a given effect. Covariation-based theories (e.g., Cheng, 1997; Kelley, 1973; Novick & Cheng, 2004) posit that beliefs in causal power are represented in terms of the degree of covariation between the cause and its effect; covariation is defined in terms of the degree to which the effect occurs in the presence of the cause, and fails to occur in the absence of the cause. To test the degree to which beliefs in causal power are reflected in beliefs about covariation information, participants in three experiments rated their beliefs that putative causes have the capacity to produce a given effect (i.e., possess the causal power to produce an effect) as well as their beliefs regarding the degree to which the putative cause and effect covary. A strong positive correlation was discovered between participants' beliefs in causal power and their beliefs that the effect occurs in the presence of the cause. However, no direct relationship was found between participants' beliefs in causal power and their belief that the effect will fail to occur in the absence of the cause. These findings were replicated using both within-(Experiments 1 and 3) and between-subject designs (Experiment 2). In Experiment 3, we extended these analyses to measures of familiarity, imageability, and detailedness of the representation. We found that participants' beliefs in causal power were strongly associated with familiarity, and imageability, but not the perceived detailedness of the cause and effect

Scientific and Technological Thinking

Review of General Psychology, 2006

Studies of scientific and technological thinking can be organized via a taxonomy of methodologica... more Studies of scientific and technological thinking can be organized via a taxonomy of methodological approaches that reveal areas for further study. Dunbar provides such a taxonomy, using biological methods like in vivo and in vitro as examples. In vitro corresponds to laboratory simulations of scientific thinking; In Vivo corresponds to field studies of actual scientists and inventors. Dunbar expands this taxonomy to incorporate historical studies of scientists and inventors, computer simulation and the possibility of neurological studies. These methods can and should be combined: Computational simulations are frequently based on historical case-studies, for example. In this article, a wide range of studies are classified according to this taxonomy, and their main points summarized. Consideration is also given to studies of scientific and technological thinking in collaborative dyads and teams. The article concludes with suggestions for future research.

Dissociating Processes Supporting Causal Perception and Causal Inference in the Brain

Neuropsychology, 2005

An understanding of relations between causes and effects is essential for making sense of the dyn... more An understanding of relations between causes and effects is essential for making sense of the dynamic physical world. It has been argued that this understanding of causality depends on both perceptual and inferential components. To investigate whether causal perception and causal inference rely on common or on distinct processes, the authors tested 2 callosotomy (split-brain) patients and a group of neurologically intact participants. The authors show that the direct perception of causality and the ability to infer causality depend on different hemispheres of the divided brain. This finding implies that understanding causality is not a unitary process and that causal perception and causal inference can proceed independently.

Relational reasoning in medical education: Patterns in discourse and diagnosis

Journal of Educational Psychology, 2014

Relational reasoning, which has been defined as the ability to discern meaningful patterns within... more Relational reasoning, which has been defined as the ability to discern meaningful patterns within any informational stream, is a foundational cognitive ability associated with education, including in scientific domains. This study entailed the analysis of instructional conversations in which an attending clinical neurologist and his team of residents made diagnostic and therapeutic decisions about actual patients in a hospital setting. The primary goal was to investigate the role of 4 manifestations of relational reasoning (i.e., analogy, anomaly, antinomy, and antithesis) in medical education and diagnostic and therapeutic decision making. Results indicated that the degree to which members of the medical team used the 4 forms of relational reasoning depended on their role and expertise, as well as the time point in the problem-solving process. Specific reasoning patterns that emerged in the discourse and a prototypical model of the reasoning process are described and implications for research and practice are considered.

Video of Dunbar Poptech tech talk (18 minutes): Mistakes, Epiphanies and the unexpected

Time course of analogical reasoning brain fNIRS

Mistakes, Errors, or Epiphanies: How scientists interpret the unexpected