Findings confirmed the hypothesis that children would exhibit a higher percentage of mature play categories relative to other forms of play during longer play periods than during shorter ones. Subjects engaged in significantly higher percentages of group play, constructive play, and group-dramatic play in longer periods. (RH)

Cognitive processes underlying the empirical correlation between IQ and choice reaction time (CHRT) were examined using the Culture Fair Intelligence Test and nine CHRT tasks (N=50 university students). IQ predicted well for simple control tasks and available attention, but not for attention flexibility, feature extraction, or response choices…

Theoretical/empirical foundations on which reaction times are measured and interpreted are discussed. Models of human information processing are reviewed. A hybrid procedure and analytical framework are introduced, using a speed-accuracy decomposition technique to analyze the intermediate products of rapid mental processes. Results invalidate many…

Children often confuse what is said and what is meant in referential communication. Five- and six-year olds were exposed as listeners or evaluators to a message in which they were either aware or not aware of the referent intended. Found that only six-year olds benefited from instructions to focus on the literal meaning of the message. (BC)

This study compared 24 adult stutterers and 24 nonstutterers for response initiation and completion times on manual task conditions varying as to decision complexity. It was concluded that response planning and organization deficits in stutterers are independent of decision complexity but related to spatial and temporal coordination. (Author/DB)

In 2 studies with 85 and 88 undergraduates, respectively, peripheral nerve conduction velocity (NCV) was significantly correlated with IQ score and reaction times, and NCV and reaction time contributed significantly, in combination, to prediction of IQ. Results are interpreted in terms of a neural efficiency model of intelligence. (Author/SLD)

This study examined the effect of exemplar typicality on reaction time and accuracy of categorization. High-functioning children (age 9-12), adolescents (age 13-16), and adults with autism (age 17-48) and matched controls were tested in a category verification procedure. All groups showed improved processing throughout the lifespan for typical and…

In experimental time estimation research, it has consistently been found that the more a person is engaged in some kind of demanding cognitive activity within a given period of time, the more experienced duration of this time interval decreases. However, the role of individual differences has been largely ignored in this field of research. In a…

The authors argue that nonword repetition priming in lexical decision is the net result of 2 opposing processes. First, repeating nonwords in the lexical decision task results in the storage of a memory trace containing the interpretation that the letter string is a nonword; retrieval of this trace leads to an increase in performance for repeated…

The concept of error detection plays a central role in theories of executive control. In this article, the authors present a mechanism that can rapidly detect errors in speeded response time tasks. This error monitor assigns values to the output of cognitive processes involved in stimulus categorization and response generation and detects errors…

Superior detection and rejection of 1 versus another class of items during recognition is called the mirror effect. Some mirror effects may involve strategic criterion adjustments based on item distinctiveness and its relation to memorability. Three experiments demonstrated mirror effects for known versus unknown scenes and 1 suggested a similar…

Based on a previously validated cognitive processing model of reading comprehension, this study experimentally examines potential generative components of text-based multiple-choice reading comprehension test questions. Previous research (Embretson & Wetzel, 1987; Gorin & Embretson, 2005; Sheehan & Ginther, 2001) shows text encoding and decision…

Visual search studies with adults have shown that stimuli that contain a unique perceptual feature pop out from dissimilar distractors and are unaffected by the number of distractors. Studies with very young infants have suggested that they too might exhibit pop-out. However, infant studies have used paradigms in which pop-out is measured in…

In two picture-word interference experiments we examined whether phrase boundaries affected how far in advance speakers plan the sounds of words during sentence production. Participants produced sentences of varying lengths (short determiner + noun + verb or long determiner + adjective + noun + verb) while ignoring phonologically related and…