This study investigated the relationship of 3-year olds' reliance on desire when predicting behavior and their performance on false-belief tasks. Results suggested that young children may use the desires of the agent, rather than their own desires, to predict behavior in standard false-belief paradigms. Older preschoolers also have difficulty…

Event-related potential (ERP) studies have shown that emotional stimuli elicit greater amplitude late positive-polarity potentials (LPPs) than neutral stimuli. This effect has been attributed to arousal, but emotional stimuli are also more semantically coherent than uncategorized neutral stimuli. ERPs were recorded during encoding of positive,…

Interest regarding neural information processing in autism is growing because atypical perceptual abilities are a characteristic feature of persons with autism. Central to our review is how characteristic perceptual abilities, referred to as "perceptual signatures," can be used to suggest a neural etiology that is specific to autism. We review…

This essay considers whether the brain can accelerate the speed with which it absorbs or dispenses information in ways similar to those of a computer, and, if so, whether any of these speed-up approaches increase the speed of the processing of the information in the brain. It is suggested that there are tasks for which speed is important in both…

Specific and unique information processing patterns have been developed by Black Americans as a result of coping with and adapting to a color-conscious society. A review of the literature shows that the major variation in the processing of information which seems to be uniquely Black American occurs in their patterns of perception. Specifically,…

This study investigated the problem representations formed by college students while solving mathematics problems. Problem representation characteristics indicative of understanding were identified by analyzing audio-tapes and written work of sixteen subjects, ages 16 to 24, who solved mathematics problems using the think-aloud technique. These…

Article considered three fields in which cognitive psychology was related to education and defined the meaning and purpose of cognitive psychology. (Author/RK)

Research supported by a U.S. Public Health Service fellowship grant and by grant No. 01368-04 from the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development.

This report describes the cognitive procedures which a group of Australian stipendiary utilize in court to make decisions. The study was based on an assumption that magistrates represent a group of professionals whose work involves making decisions of human significance, and on an assumption that the magistrates' own perceptions of their ways of…

KINDS OF ERRORS, AND THEIR VALUE TO HELP TEACHERS KNOW AS MUCH AS POSSIBLE ABOUT HOW THEIR STUDENTS' MINDS WORK, ARE DISCUSSED. THE TERM "ERROR" IS USED TO REFER TO MISTAKES IN THE PROCESS OF REASONING RATHER THAN TO INCORRECT OUTCOMES OF REASONING. THE AUTHORS STATE, "CORRECT OUTCOMES MAY OR MAY NOT FOLLOW UPON ERRORS (OR MISTAKEN…

In the pair of experiments reported here the authors investigated the relationship between meaningfulness of problem statements and subjects' use of these statements in problem-solving tasks. Subjects (96 university students) were required to memorize meaningful formulae such as "volume = area x height" or corresponding symbolic formulae such as…

Two experiments were conducted to determine the effect of aging on encoding and response selection stages of a choice reaction time task. Results suggested reducing stimulus discriminability may affect information processing prior to the encoding stage, but the encoding stage is the primary locus of the slowing which accompanied aging. (Author)

Discusses a study based on the assumption that change of meaning is, under certain circumstances, of fundamental importance to the information integration process. (MH)

This research was undertaken to explicate the role of behavioral rigidity and hypothesis behavior in concept learning of schizophrenics. (Author/RK)

Reports results from an experiment conducted to discover relationships between theatre audience members' information processing abilities and their responses to performed plays and to the characters in the play. (MH)