Investigation of brain activations of students with different mental skills in current science topics via electroencephalography (EEG)

This study aimed to examine the brain activations of students with different cognitive abilities while solving test questions related to current science topics, using electroencephalography (EEG). The study group consisted of a total of 21 middle school students, including seven typically developing students, seven gifted students, and seven students with mild intellectual disabilities, selected through criterion sampling. The research was conducted using a comparative research design. Test questions were developed based on the Revised Bloom's Taxonomy (RBT), cognitive levels of remembering, understanding, analyzing, and evaluating, and were prepared using a web-based tool that enables the creation of interactive and animated visual content. EEG data were collected using a 19-channel Mitsar EEG device configured according to the international 10–20 system, and the data were analyzed using the SPSS 29 statistical software package. According to the findings, in the delta wave band, significant differences in favor of gifted students were found in the temporal lobe at the remembering level, the occipital lobe at the understanding level, the frontal lobe at the analyzing level, and the central lobe at the evaluating level. In the theta band, a significant difference in favor of gifted students was observed in the temporal lobe at the analyzing level. In the alpha band, significant differences in favor of gifted students were found in the temporal and parietal lobes at the evaluating level. In the beta 1 band, significant differences in favor of gifted students were observed in the parietal lobe at the remembering level and the central lobe at the evaluating level. In the beta 2 band, a significant difference in favor of students with mild intellectual disabilities was found in the frontal lobe at the evaluating level. No significant differences were found between groups in the gamma wave band across any of the cognitive levels of the Revised Bloom's Taxonomy. Overall, the results indicate that as cognitive tasks progress from lower- to higher-order thinking skills, students' brain activations become more distinct, and higher-order cognitive processes are associated with more intense brain activation.