The Instantiation and Use of Conceptual Simulations in Evaluating Hypotheses: Movies-in-the-Mind in Scientific Reasoning

This study investigates the strategies used by expert scientists to evaluate hypotheses when they analyze data. We used an in vivo methodology to observe experts’ on-line thinking. In contrast to the results of laboratory studies of scientific reasoning, we found that the scientists rarely used experimentation but relied on a variety of other strategies, including conceptual simulation. This strategy was most prevalent in evaluating a hypothesis about a phenomenon that violated the scientists’ expectations.