This article presents a theoretical review of and methodological guidelines for the study of two key notions in second language acquisition research, complexity and difficulty. The term "complexity" has gained considerable currency over the past decades and has taken on a wide range of meanings. We argue for a more restricted…

Feedback significantly impacts learning outcomes, yet interindividual differences in feedback preferences remain understudied. We postulate and test a fitting feedback framework assuming that feedback framings matching personal preferences produce positive effects. We conducted two learning experiments including feedback representing different…

The paradox of education as both a space of cognitive freedom and a conditioning mechanism raises fundamental questions about intellectual autonomy. By examining the tension between neurological determinism and cognitive agency, this paper asks whether education encourages independent thought or directs individuals towards predefined ideological…

Outdoor Adventure Education (OAE) may reduce levels of intolerance to certainty (IT) and increase levels of cognitive flexibility (CF) by introducing the individual to situations that create uncertainty and reward cognitive flexibility. This study used a two-group design, where one group featured a 3-day backpacking trip, and one was devoid of any…

Adjusting practice to different goals and characteristics is key to learning, but its development remains unclear. Across 2 preregistered experiments, 190 4-to-8-year-olds (106 female; mostly White; data collection: December 2021-September 2022) and 31 adults played an easy and a difficult game, then chose one to practice before a test on either…

Background/purpose: This study investigates the probabilistic thinking process in solving probability problems by prospective mathematics teachers with a field-independent cognitive style. The objective is to explore how individuals with this cognitive style approach problem-solving based on the three stages of Polya's framework: understanding the…

This case study used individual interviews to investigate graduate students' sensemaking in upper-level electrostatics in the context of problems that can be efficiently solved for the electric potential using Laplace's equation. Although there are many technical mathematical issues involved in solving Laplace's equation, the focus of this…

The fluency task, which involves lexical retrieval from a categorical or thematic prompt, has been a crucial paradigm in studies about lexicon in bilingualism and additional languages. Particularly, there has been a very productive cognitive turn towards analytical models based on the exploration of the cognitive processes underlying the mental…

Cognitive control shows two main developmental trends: greater self-directedness (i.e., children need less external scaffolding) and greater proactiveness (i.e., children increasingly anticipate and prepare for upcoming cognitive demands). The present study examined potential links between these major developmental transitions. Specifically, it…

Cognizance, or the self-awareness individuals have of their cognitive processes, is a critical factor in adult learning and literacy, which are fundamental for personal and social development. This study aims to explore the psychometric properties of the instrument used and investigate how cognizance affects the academic achievement of new…

Visual attention develops rapidly across the first postnatal year, from reflexive eye movements driven by low-level stimulus properties to increasingly voluntary eye movements influenced by higher-order factors. To test the hypothesis that development reflects guidance by increasingly abstract features, we used representational similarity analysis…

Professional vision (PV) enables teachers to act competently in classrooms through cognitive processes of noticing, reasoning, and generating alternatives of action. Expert features of applying concepts, focusing on students, drawing inferences, and taking multiple perspectives are also considered a part of PV. PV can be fostered with video-based…

Interpersonal synchronization between infants and parents emerges early in life and serves as a critical foundation for the development of cognitive, social, and communicative abilities. Traditionally, researchers have assessed this synchrony using composite scores that capture the overall degree of reciprocal, coordinated interaction within a…

Some philosophers argue that reflection is key to rational thinking. By tying reflective thinking to language, they struggle to account for minimally verbal infants and exclude nonhuman animals. This study assessed processing of undermining defeaters--a basic form of reflective thinking--in 36 two-year-old British children (13 female; M[subscript…

Prioritizing what information to learn based on value is a critical developmental skill. Across two studies, value-based memory was assessed predominately in White children aged 6- to 7-years-old and 9- to 10-years-old using a nationwide sample collected between 2020 and 2023. Children learned cue-target associations worth varying point values.…