In Simon-type interference tasks, participants are asked to perform a 2-choice reaction on a stimulus dimension while ignoring the stimulus position. Commonly, robust congruency effects are found; that is, reactions are faster when the relevant stimulus attribute and the assigned response match the location of the stimulus. Simon congruency…

Flow, a subjective state of optimal engagement and immersion, is characterized by a balance of perceived challenges and skills, interest, attention, and a sense of control (Csikszentmihalyi, 1990). Investigating flow in language learning can provide valuable insights into effective learning processes and contexts (Egbert, 2003). Self-regulated…

Listening to speech in a noisy background is difficult for everyone. While such listening has historically been considered mainly in the context of auditory processing, the role of cognition has attracted considerable interest in recent years. This has been particularly true in the context of life-span research and the comparison of younger and…

The public debate on the use of the German nonbinary gender asterisk ("Lehrer*in" 'teacher') is emotionally charged. While it has been adopted by political and educational institutions, opponents argue that it is inappropriate for making persons identifying themselves beyond the male-female-dichotomy more visible. We investigated this…

If a child asks a friend to play football and the friend replies, 'I have a cough', the requesting child must make a 'relevance inference' to determine the communicative intent. Relevance inferencing is a key component of pragmatics, that is, the ability to integrate social context into language interpretation and use. We tested which cognitive…

While some individuals are able to confidently make competent choices, others make poor decisions but are unjustifiably confident. What are their individual characteristics? This study examined individual differences in cognitive and metacognitive competence and arrogance. In doing so, we determined the role of metacognitive confidence and…

Self-generated information is better recognized and recalled than read information. This so-called generation effect has been replicated several times for different types of stimulus material, different generation tasks, and retention intervals. The present study investigated the impact of individual differences in learners' disposition to engage…

Numerical comparison is a primary measure of the acuity of children's approximate number system. Approximate number system acuity is associated with key developmental outcomes such as symbolic number skill, standardized test scores, and even employment outcomes (Halberda, Mazzocco, & Feigenson, 2008; Parsons & Bynner, 1997). We examined…

The relations between the developing mind and developing brain are explored. We outline a theory of intellectual development postulating that the mind comprises four systems of processes (domain-specific, attention and working memory, reasoning, and cognizance) developing in four cycles (episodic, realistic, rule-based, and principle-based…

The purpose of this study was to examine whether components of the Planning, Attention, Simultaneous, and Successive (PASS) processing theory of intelligence predict reading and mathematics proficiency in a group of intellectually gifted children. One hundred forty-two intellectually gifted children (70 females, 72 males; M[subscript…

Chuderski and Jastrzêbski (2017) found a positive relationship between working memory capacity and insight problem solving, and concluded that "people with less effective cognition" are therefore "less creative" (p. 2003). This interpretation discounts substantial evidence that devoting less executive control facilitates…

Early scientific thinking in kindergarten (6-year-olds) was investigated in a large study involving 227 participants. We investigated (1) whether individual differences across 3 scientific-thinking components (experimentation, data interpretation, and understanding the nature of science) are stable across children, (2) whether children's increased…

Preparing for the future during ongoing activities is an essential skill. Yet it is currently unclear to what extent we can prepare for the future in parallel with another task. In two experiments, we investigated how characteristics of a present task influenced whether and when participants prepared for the future, as well as its usefulness. We…

Identifying characteristics of individuals who will be negatively impacted by interactive learning environments (ILE) was explored in a field study conducted among learners whose high-stakes performance depended upon grasping training scenarios quickly. Gauging the appropriateness of computer-based simulations for individuals became a pedagogical…

Purpose: It is generally accepted that adults use visual cues to improve speech intelligibility in noisy environments, but findings regarding visual speech benefit in children are mixed. We explored factors that contribute to audiovisual (AV) gain in young children's speech understanding. We examined whether there is an AV benefit to…