Research has consistently demonstrated that learners are strikingly poor at metacognitively monitoring their learning and comprehension of texts. The aim of the present meta-analysis is to explore three important questions about metacomprehension: (a) To what extent can people accurately discriminate well-learned texts from less well learned ones?…

Failure to learn and generalize abstract relational rules has critical implications for education. In this study, we aimed to determine which training conditions facilitate relational transfer in a relatively simple (patterning) discrimination versus a relatively complex (biconditional) discrimination. The amount of training participants received…

Vibrotactile intensity-discrimination thresholds for sinusoidal stimuli applied to the thenar eminence of the hand declined as a function of practice. However, improvement was confined to the tactile information-processing channel in which learning had occurred. Specifically, improvements in performance with training within the Pacinian-corpuscle…

Thirty-six healthy participants received a discrimination learning task requiring the identification of a relevant stimulus dimension. After successful learning, the relevant dimension was shifted unannounced. All exemplars of the two dimensions presented after the shift were novel, implying a "total change" design. In three experimental…

Discussions about transfer have mainly dealt with how people manage to do something in a situation thanks to having done something similar in a previous situation. From an educational point of view, however, it appears more fruitful to consider the case when the learner, having learned to do something in 1 situation, might be able to do something…

Children often perseverate, repeating prior behaviors when inappropriate. This work tested the roles of verbal labels and stimulus novelty in such perseveration. Three-year-old children sorted cards by one rule and were then instructed to switch to a second rule. In a basic condition, cards had familiar shapes and colors and both rules were stated…