Learning to categorize perceptually similar stimuli can result in people becoming more sensitive to differences along perceptual dimensions that are relevant to category membership and/or less sensitive to equivalent differences along irrelevant perceptual dimensions. These effects of acquired distinctiveness and acquired equivalence may be caused…

Recent context-control learning studies have shown that switch costs are reduced in a particular context predicting a high probability of switching as compared to another context predicting a low probability of switching. These context-specific switch probability effects suggest that control of task sets, through experience, can become associated…

To grasp how individuals and groups perceive social objects of their environment, word association tasks enable the cognitions associated with a given object to be collected. However, the lack of information regarding the meaning of these responses implies interpretation and subjectivity in their analysis. To reduce this subjectivity, this…

Two lines of evidence emerged in the past suggesting that lexical form seemed to play a more important role in the organization of the second language (L2) mental lexicon than in that of the first language (L1) lexicon. They were masked orthographic priming in L2 word recognition and an elevated proportion of form-related responses in L2 word…

Feedback is highly contingent on behavior if it eventually becomes easy to predict, and weakly contingent on behavior if it remains difficult or impossible to predict even after learning is complete. Many studies have demonstrated that humans and nonhuman animals are highly sensitive to feedback contingency, but no known studies have examined how…

The current study aims to determine science student teachers' cognitive structure on the concept of food pyramid. Qualitative research method was applied in this study. Fallacies detected in the pre-service teachers' conceptual structures are believed to result in students' developing misconceptions in their future classes and will adversely…

Task-cuing experiments are usually intended to explore control of task set. But when small stimulus sets are used, they plausibly afford learning of the response associated with a combination of cue and stimulus, without reference to tasks. In 3 experiments we presented the typical trials of a task-cuing experiment: a cue (colored shape) followed,…

Attentional theories of associative learning and categorization propose that learning about the predictiveness of a stimulus influences the amount of attention that is paid to that stimulus. Three experiments tested this idea by looking at the extent to which stimuli that had previously been experienced as predictive or nonpredictive in a…

In 4 word-translation experiments, we examined the different representational frameworks theory (Crutch & Warrington, 2005; 2010) that concrete words are represented primarily by category, whereas abstract words are represented by association. In our experiments, Chinese-English bilingual speakers were presented with an auditory Chinese word…

We propose that biases in attitude and stereotype formation might arise as a result of learned differences in the extent to which social groups have previously been predictive of behavioral or physical properties. Experiments 1 and 2 demonstrate that differences in the experienced predictiveness of groups with respect to evaluatively neutral…

Given the use of information and communication technology (ICT) and computer as synonyms in ICT-integration research on the one hand, and the potential problems in doing so on the other, this contribution tries to gain insight in the understanding of the words computer and ICT in different settings. In five different countries (Belgium, Finland,…

Decisions made by high school and college basketball athletes are becoming increasingly complex as sport has evolved into a true industry. The decisions made during the formative years have a tremendous impact upon the individual as well as the institution that the athlete chooses to attend. Most of the studies about athletes and their institution…