Proceedings of the Annual Meeting of the Cognitive Science Society

Current theories of knowledge acquisition suggest that newlylearned knowledge does not always supplant prior knowledge,even when newly learned knowledge repairs errors. Newknowledge may suppress prior knowledge, particularly foroverlearned, explicit responses, creating internal competitionbetween knowledge elements. Competition between new and priorknowledge may be one reason misconceptions are highly resistantto repair. The present study examines misconceptions in a specificdomain: pre-service educators’ beliefs about neuromyths.Addressing misconceptions in pre-service educators is importantbecause these misconceptions are likely to be transmitted tostudents and may reduce the effectiveness of instruction. Acomputer mouse-tracking paradigm measured explicit beliefs inneuromyths as well as implicit uncertainty during thedecision-making process. The findings demonstrated thatpre-service educators often endorsed neuromyths but wereuncertain about the veracity of neurofacts. These findings add toour knowledge of misconceptions, their durability, anddemonstrate a need to address misconceptions in educatorpreparation.