• Journal of The Korean Association For Science Education
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• v.24 no.4
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• pp.722-730
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• 2004

The purpose of this study was to test the notion that the inter-individual difference in hypothesis-generating is presumably detected by differentiating subjects' EEG correlation patterns of the prefrontal lobes. To test the notion of the inter-individual difference by EEG analysis, eight healthy undergraduate volunteers' EEG signals on the prefrontal lobes were recorded during hypothesis-generating and resting with eyes-closed condition. Their EEG signals were analyzed by time durations and transformed into correlation patterns. The results showed that subjects' EEG correlation patterns during hypothesis-generating were significantly different among individuals. In addition, the EEG correlation patterns were decreased during hypothesis-generating thinking. Furthermore, subject's EEG correlation showed a fluctuationpattern through-out hypothesis-generating, which is presumably caused by the difference of subjects' thinking activities in hypothesis-generating. This study also suggests a possibility that student's scientific thinking ability and the difficulty of scientific knowledge generating may be measured by the analysis of subject's EEG correlation pattern of the prefrontal lobes.