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Contextual sensitivity of inhibitory control in physics conceptual change: Evidence from a negative priming study

Rui Dai1, Benjie Wang2, Jinrui Zhang3, Chen Wu1, Haibo Yu4,*, and Yang Xiao5,6,†

  • 1School of Physics, Northeast Normal University, Changchun 130024, China
  • 2Faculty of Education, Northeast Normal University, Changchun 130024, China
  • 3No. 11 Middle School of Changchun, Changchun 130062, China
  • 4National Research Center for Educational Materials in Primary and Secondary School Science, Northeast Normal University, Changchun 130024, China
  • 5Guangdong Basic Research Center of Excellence for Structure and Fundamental Interactions of Matter, National Demonstration Center for Experimental Physics Education, School of Physics, South China Normal University, Guangzhou, Guangdong 510006, China
  • 6Key Laboratory of Atomic and Subatomic Structure and Quantum Control (Ministry of Education), South China Normal University, Guangzhou, Guangdong 510006, China

  • *Contact author: yuhb551@nenu.edu.cn
  • †Contact author: xiaoyang@m.scnu.edu.cn
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Phys. Rev. Phys. Educ. Res. 22, 020157 – Published 5 November, 2026

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1103/fbj3-y3ls

Abstract

Scientific knowledge does not necessarily replace intuitive misconceptions; successful physics reasoning may therefore require learners to control responses that remain cognitively available. However, inhibitory-control accounts have yet to explain whether the same conceptual conflict elicits a stable amount of control across representational contexts or whether control mobilization varies with contextual typicality and physics training. This study addressed this issue using a negative-priming (NP) paradigm in the domain of static friction. High-school students and undergraduate physics majors made static-friction judgments in a prototypical context and a nonprototypical context. Within the inhibitory account adopted here, NP magnitude was interpreted as a behavioral index of the control mobilized during the preceding incongruent prime. Probe-phase reaction times were analyzed on the log scale using a linear mixed-effects model with Group, Context, and Prime Type and their interactions. The analysis revealed a context-dependent pattern of NP, with the magnitude of this contextual modulation differing between the two groups. Specifically, NP was negligible in the prototypical context for both high-school students and physics majors. By contrast, reliable NP emerged in the nonprototypical context. This increase was substantially larger among high-school students than among physics majors. When translated back to the original reaction-time scale, NP in the nonprototypical context corresponded to an approximately 20.77% increase for high-school students, compared with a 5.65% increase for physics majors. Taken together, these findings show that the inhibitory control mobilized by the same conceptual conflict is not fixed across representations. The nonprototypical representation amplified inhibitory-control demand, whereas physics training attenuated this amplification. The training-related advantage is therefore better characterized as reduced contextual sensitivity of inhibitory mobilization than as a context-invariant absence of conceptual conflict. The results advance process-based accounts of conceptual change by linking problem representation, domain knowledge, and task-evoked inhibitory control.

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Phys. Rev. Phys. Educ. Res. 22, 020157– Published 5 November, 2026
  • Received 11 February 2026
  • Accepted 6 October 2026
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