Six experiments were reported which examine the young child's ability to compare included and nonincluded sets. Subjects were children from nursery and primary schools in Edinburgh. (Author/MP)

Within the large range of potential theoretical perspectives on fractions, this paper considers one particular interpretation: fractions' duality as process and object. By considering the number-fractionbar-number composite symbol as simultaneously representing division and rational, some process-object theories imply that fraction-as-process and…

The proposed three-step strategy for research on human information processing--concept hierarchy analysis, analysis of example sets to teach relations among concepts, and analysis of problem sets to build a progressively larger schema for the problem space--may lead to practical procedures for instructional design and task analysis. Sixty-four…

A framework for analyzing the social organization of education in nonclassroom environments is developed, based on observations of students in an experiential learning program. The argument is made that the process of education must be understood by the effect of the broader social context in which it occurs. (Author/SK)

A total of 451 adults participated in 2 studies of the causes of age differences that occur in cognitive performance when tasks increase in complexity. Results support the hypothesis that more complex cognitive tasks place greater demands on a working memory resource that declines as age increases. (LB)

Discusses the use of applied cognitive task analysis (ACTA) to interview novices and gain insight into their cognitive skills and processes. Focuses particularly on novice Internet searchers at the University of Staffordshire (United Kingdom) and reviews attempts to modify ACTA, which is intended to gather information from experts as part of…

Examined effects of limitations in processing resources on error detection in self-produced and other-produced speech by means of a dual task paradigm. A production experiment and a perception experiment were carried out. In both cases, the percentage of repaired errors was larger in the single task condition than in the dual task condition,…

Reports two studies exploring whether there is a cost in switching languages in a lexical decision task. In the first experiment, German-English bilinguals were slower on switch trials compared to nonswitch trials. In the second experiment, the task was changed to one in which a word response could be given independent of language. There was still…

Two experiments explored the effect of linguistic input on 18-month-olds' ability to form an abstract categorical representation of support. Infants were habituated to 4 support events (i.e., one object placed on another) and were tested with a novel support and a novel containment event. Infants formed an abstract category of support (i.e.,…

Category knowledge allows for both the determination of category membership and an understanding of what the members of a category are like. Diagnostic information is used to determine category membership; prototypical information reflects the most likely features given category membership. Two experiments examined 2 means of category learning,…

According to a recent theory, anterior cingulate cortex is sensitive to response conflict, the coactivation of mutually incompatible responses. The present research develops this theory to provide a new account of the error-related negativity (ERN), a scalp potential observed following errors. Connectionist simulations of response conflict in an…

In 3 experiments, the authors examined the role of memory for prior instances for making relative judgments in conflict detection. Participants saw pairs of aircraft either repeatedly conflict with each other or pass safely before being tested on new aircraft pairs, which varied in similarity to the training pairs. Performance was influenced by…

This study investigated the relationship between theory of mind and executive functioning in children with autistic spectrum disorders through a training study. Ten children were trained on theory of mind, whilst ten were trained in executive function. Seven children were assigned to a control group, receiving no intervention. Training programmes…

Poorer performance in conditions involving task repetition within blocks of mixed tasks relative to task repetition within blocks of single task is called mixing cost (MC). In 2 experiments exploring 2 hypotheses regarding the origins of MC, participants either switched between cued shape and color tasks, or they performed them as single tasks.…

In a first study, we considered whether modelling and the type of an adult's request influenced children's ability at 1;8 and 2;2 to comprehend gestures and replica objects as symbols for familiar objects. In a second study, we evaluated whether modelling and type of request influenced children's ability at 1;8 (N=24) to understand unfamiliar…