Problem Finders in Problem Spaces: A Review of Cognitive Research for Drama in Education

Abstract

Given recent developments in neuroscience, today's research into cognition and learning theory makes it more possible to move beyond saying that learning happens through theatre and toward grounded theories about how that learning happens. The author considers the overlap between theatre practice and a review of recent cognition research. This article strives to accomplish three things: to summarize areas of cognitive research that could be of particular interest to theatre practitioners and researchers, to suggest possible areas of theatre research, and to share developments on ongoing work between cognition and theatre/drama in education.

Notes

¹See Cein Beilock's 2011 book, Choke: What the Secrets of the Brain Reveal About Getting It Right when You Have to.

²See the work of Richard J. Davidson, Ph.D., on investigating healthy minds: http://www.investigatinghealthyminds.org/index.html

³To try this test for yourself. See http://faculty.washington.edu/chudler/java/ready.html

⁴Though, from a mirror neuron system approach, there is reason to believe that the watching of theatre might have the same impact as doing it. See V. S. Ramachandran's 2011 book, The Tell-Tale Brain: A Neuroscientist's Quest for What Makes Us Human.