Bridging Brain and Educational Sciences: An Optical Brain Imaging Study of Visuospatial Reasoning

In this paper we present an experimental study where we investigated neural correlates of visuospatial reasoning during math problem solving in a computer-based environment to exemplify the potential for conducting interdisciplinary research that incorporates insights from educational research and cognitive neuroscience. Functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS) technology is used to measure changes in blood oxygenation in the dorsolateral and inferior prefrontal cortex while subjects attempt to solve tangram puzzles. The study aimed to identify which areas in the frontal cortex are responsive to geometric reasoning elicited by tangram puzzles and explored how the activation patterns change in response to problem types and difficulty levels.