Education and visual neuroscience: A mini‐review

Abstract

Neuroscience, especially visual neuroscience, is a burgeoning field that has greatly shaped the format and efficacy of education. Moreover, findings from visual neuroscience are an ongoing source of great progress in pedagogy. In this mini‐review, I review existing evidence and areas of active research to describe the fundamental questions and general applications for visual neuroscience as it applies to education. First, I categorize the research questions and future directions for the role of visual neuroscience in education. Second, I juxtapose opposing views on the roles of neuroscience in education and reveal the “neuromyths” propagated under the guise of educational neuroscience. Third, I summarize the policies and practices applied in different countries and for different age ranges. Fourth, I address and discuss the merits of visual neuroscience in art education and of visual perception theories (e.g., those concerned with perceptual organization with respect to space and time) in reading education. I consider how vision‐deprived students could benefit from current knowledge of brain plasticity and visual rehabilitation methods involving compensation from other sensory systems. I also consider the potential educational value of instructional methods based on statistical learning in the visual domain. Finally, I outline the accepted translational framework for applying findings from educational neuroscience to pedagogical theory.

The Effectiveness of Neuroscience to Improve Teacher Pedagogic Competence: Systematic Literature Review

“…Furthermore, it is said that neuroscience training will be very useful in the future; namely, it will have a very positive impact on the world of education (Coch, 2018;Melnyk et al, 2022;Thomas et al, 2019). As well as research conducted that said by participating in neuroscience training, teachers were able to find learning methods that were appropriate to the physical conditions of students with certain disabilities (Chen, 2020;Whiting et al, 2021). Based on the results of previous research, it can be said that neuroscience is very useful for teachers in determining effective learning models.…”

Visual Resources for Learning Thermodynamics: A Neuroeducation Perspective

“…It is well accepted in neuroscience that the brain has particular regions specialized in the processing of different sensory inputs and motor outputs, with specific areas implicated in the processing of sounds, self-posture and visual information, that is further segregated according to the nature of the stimulus (forms and faces, movements), but also in self-movement, speaking or writing. All this information converges in the hippocampus, a brain structure implicated in the formation of new memories; consequently, the more sensory and motor areas that send information to the hippocampus, the more efficient learning is [6]. The hippocampus is also strongly connected with the amygdala and other emotion-related brain areas; thus, creating emotions in students facilitates learning achievement.…”