In the experiments outlined in this article, the authors investigate lexical access processes in language production. In their earlier work, T. Pechmann and D. Zerbst (2002) reported evidence for grammatical category constraints in a picture-word interference task. Although grammatical category information was not activated when subjects produced…

Studies of patients with category-specific agnosia (CSA) have given rise to multiple theories of object recognition, most of which assume the existence of a stable, abstract semantic memory system. We applied an episodic view of memory to questions raised by CSA in a series of studies examining normal observers' recall of newly learned attributes…

There is debate about whether preschool-age children interpret words as referring to kinds or to classes defined by shape similarity. The authors argue that the shape bias reported in previous studies is a task-induced artifact rather than a genuine word-learning strategy. In particular, children were forced to extend an object's novel label to…

This report investigates the relations between duration of examining and heart rate (HR) across several trials of an object-examination task. A total of N= 20 11-month-olds were familiarized with a sequence of 10 different exemplars from the same global category (animals or furniture) before they received an exemplar from the contrasting category…

Tool use is central to interdisciplinary debates about the evolution and distinctiveness of human intelligence, yet little is actually known about how human conceptions of artifacts develop. Results across these two studies show that even 2-year-olds approach artifacts in ways distinct from captive tool-using monkeys. Contrary to adult intuition,…

Previous evidence suggests that the structure of similarity neighbourhoods in the developing mental lexicon may differ from that of the fully developed lexicon. The similarity relationships used to organize words into neighbourhoods was investigated in 20 pre-school children (age 3;7 to 5;11) using a two alternative forced-choice classification…

In the application of the "Original" Bloom's taxonomy since its publication in 1956, several weaknesses and practical limitations have been revealed. Besides, psychological and educational research has witnessed the introduction of several theories and approaches to learning which make students more knowledgeable of and responsible for their own…

This paper sits within the research on the affordances of new technologies in the mathematics classroom and focuses on a specific feature that is available in dynamic geometry environments, i.e. measuring tools, within the context of conjecturing and proving in open geometry problems. We develop a classification of different modalities of…

This study sought to determine whether categorizing information would increase students' ability to recall that information. Two recall tests, consisting of a list of 30 words in random order and a list of the same 30 words grouped into 6 categories, was developed and administered to 2 groups of 16 fourth- and fifth-grade students enrolled in a…

Development of the ability to classify auditory patterns was studied at grades 2, 6, 10, and 12 and at adult age levels. Both accuracy and feature use in classification were consistent across age; the age changes that did occur appeared to be due to differences in perception rather than process. (JMB)

A probabilistic approach is introduced to classify and diagnose erroneous rules of operation resulting from a variety of misconceptions ("bugs") in a procedural domain of arithmetic. The model is contrasted with the deterministic approach which has commonly been used in the field of artificial intelligence, and the advantage of treating the…

Two studies compared the effects of spontaneous and controlled imagery on reality monitoring decisions. Reality monitoring refers to the decision processes involved in discriminating perceptual memories from imaginal ones. In Experiment 1, 6-year-olds and adults were shown pictures and words and they responded to one of two questions: (1)…

Two types of operating principles thought to play an important role in early lexical development are discussed. The principles are those concerned with: (1) assignment of reference or meaning to words; and (2) formation and evolution of categories. Discussion also addresses related issues, such as the developmentally important relationship between…

To gain a greater understanding about how people comprehend a set of directions, a macro-level research approach is needed. Researchers must first decide on the domain of activity that is to be investigated. In our society instructions are used for building things from parts, disassembling things, determining the functional characteristics of…