Learning counterintuitive scientific concepts can be difficult for students because they often have misconceptions about natural phenomena that lead them to commit errors. Recent studies showed that students with advanced scientific training recruit brain regions associated with inhibitory control and memory retrieval to avoid committing errors…

Science education studies have revealed that students often have misconceptions about how nature works, but what happens to misconceptions after a conceptual change remains poorly understood. Are misconceptions rejected and replaced by scientific conceptions, or are they still present in students' minds, coexisting with newly acquired…