2016 Volume 35 Issue 1 Pages 72-78
In this article, we introduce science outreach activities of a committee in the Japanese Psychonomic Society. The committee named as “The JPS committee for developing teaching materials for high school students” started in 2012, aiming at developing interactive teaching materials and media workshops (MWS) for science education, specifically for education of the “brain and mind.” The committee members consist of the researchers of various fields, such as cognitive psychology, engineering education, interaction design, virtual reality and media arts. Media technologies enable us to create teaching materials that are directly linked to the students' experiences. Specifically, using computer graphics technologies, we developed a visualization system called “Face Homunculus Viewer (FHV)” and a face image transformation system called “Accidental Resemblance Generator (ARG).” The usage of the systems in the MWS can provide opportunities for students to gain deeper understanding of their brain and mind, and to learn the methods used in psychological experiments. The committee provided FHV application and documented procedures of the MWS for public, in order to broaden the user of the application, such as teachers at schools and science communicators at science museums. The MWS of ARG was also used for the validity evaluation of face image transformation method. For further development of the MWS we are planning to hold an “ideathon” (idea marathon) of concepts of new teaching materials.
