I-Chun Hung and Nian-Shing Chen at Oxford University Press blogs:
When younger learners study natural science, their body movements with external perceptions can positively contribute to knowledge construction during the period of performing simulated exercises. The way of using keyboard/mouse for simulated exercises is capable of conveying procedural information to learners. However, it only reproduces physical experimental procedures on a computer. […]
If environmental factors, namely bodily states and situated actions, were well-designed as external information, the additional input can further help learners to better grasp the concepts through meaningful and educational body participation.
Exciting research. Add to that implications from Damasio’s somatic marker hypothesis and the general question of the vanishing of movement and physicality from learning processes as an as yet underresearched psychological—or even philosophical, think peripatetics—observable.
This is a direction we should follow through in game-based learning research with some financial muscle, so to speak.