Neurocognitive Evidence for Different Problem-Solving Processes between Engineering and Liberal Arts Students

Abstract

Differences exist between engineering and liberal arts students because of their educational backgrounds. Therefore, they solve problems differently. This study examined the brain activation of these two groups of students when they responded to 12 questions of verbal, numerical, or spatial intelligence. A total of 25 engineering and 25 liberal arts students in Taiwan participated in the experiment. The results were as follows. (i) During verbal intelligence tasks, differences between the two groups were observed in the information flows of verbal message comprehension and contextual familiarity detection in the problem-identifying phase, whereas no significant differences were found in the resolution-reaching phase. (ii) During numerical intelligence tasks, differences between the two groups were observed in the information flows of mental calculation and message comprehensionin the problem-identifying phase and those of verbal perception and analogical reasoning in the resolution-reaching phase. (iii) During spatial intelligence tasks, differences between the two groups were observed in the information flows of spatial relation integration and spatial context memory retrieval in the problem-identifying phase and those ofspatial attentionand contextual relation integration in the resolution-reaching phase.