Three postulates are proposed concerning the manner in which persons infer the validity of propositions that do not necessarily follow logically from the information available. Implications of the proposed postulates for existing formulations of social inference and cognitive organization are discussed. (Editor/RK)

Considers the hypothesis that thought results in the "reinterpretation" of inconsistent beliefs so as to make them more consistent with the initial attitude direction. The resulting cognitions, being more univocal would, in turn, produce attitude polarization. (Author/RK)

Investigates potential causes of decrements in children's understanding of the words "big" and "tall" by comparing results of studies of English-speaking children and results of a study of Arabic-speaking children. (Author/RH)

Investigates the reflectivity hypothesis by assessing (1) individual differences in preschool children's decentration ability and cognitive style of reflection-impulsivity and (2) the effects of instructing preschool children to adopt a reflective search strategy in their use of intention and consequence information in moral judgments. (Author/RH)

This paper presents the Featural and Unitary Semantic Space (FUSS) hypothesis of the meanings of object and action words. The hypothesis, implemented in a statistical model, is based on the following assumptions: First, it is assumed that the meanings of words are grounded in conceptual featural representations, some of which are organized…

Two experiments are reported that examine the possibility that exercise selectively influences different types of cognition. To our knowledge, these experiments represent the first attempt to study higher-cognitive processes during exercise. Theoretical thinking was guided by the transient hypofrontality hypothesis. In both experiments, athletes…

Judgments of learning (JOLs) made during multiple study-test trials underestimate increases in recall performance across those trials, an effect that has been dubbed the underconfidence-with-practice (UWP) effect. In 3 experiments, the authors examined the contribution of retrieval fluency to the UWP effect for immediate and delayed JOLs. The UWP…

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.…

Applying Bloch's law to visual word recognition research, both exposure duration of the prime and its luminance determine the prime's overall energy, and consequently determine the size of the priming effect. Nevertheless, experimenters using fast-priming paradigms traditionally focus only on the SOA between prime and target to reflect the…

Inflated perceptions of responsibility are hypothesized to contribute to compulsive checking. Reassurance seeking, proposed to be a form of checking, may exacerbate checking behaviour in the long run. A sample of non-clinical participants (N = 100) performed a complex manual classification task under 1 of 4 experimental conditions: high…

Examined effects of cognitive focusing training in early and late concrete operational children. Focusing was manifested by the late concrete operational children regardless of whether or not they had been trained. The amount of negative feedback and the nature of the probe techniques affected the manifestation of focusing. (Author/DB)

Describes a process model for sentence verification, including sentences expressing the implications of their antecedents. The model's distinctive features are the assumption that verification is based upon a focal element in the test sentence, and the comparison of this element with information corresponding to it in the antecedent…