Electrodermal activity was examined as a measure of physiological arousal within a naturalistic play context in 2-year-old toddlers (N = 27) with and without autism spectrum disorder. Toddlers with autism spectrum disorder were found to have greater increases in skin conductance level than their typical peers in response to administered play…

During the first 5 years of life, the versatility, breadth, and fidelity with which children imitate change dramatically. Currently, there is no model to explain what underlies such significant changes. To that end, the present study examined whether task-independent but domain-specific--elemental--imitation mechanism explains performance across…

To measure what determines people's attitudes, definitions, or decisions, surveys increasingly ask respondents to judge vignettes. A vignette typically describes a hypothetical situation or object as having various attributes (dimensions). In factorial surveys, the values (levels) of dimensions are experimentally varied, so that their impact on…

Changes in the demands posed by increasingly complex workplaces in the 21st century have raised the importance of nonroutine skills such as complex problem solving (CPS). However, little is known about the antecedents and outcomes of CPS, especially with regard to malleable external factors such as classroom climate. To investigate the relations…

Using multitrait, multimethod data, and confirmatory factor analysis, the current study examined the effects of arithmetic item formatting and the possibility that across formats, abilities other than arithmetic may contribute to children's answers. Measurement hypotheses were guided by several leading theories of arithmetic cognition. With a…

A frequent reason for teachers not making special provisions for a gifted child is that the child is "not fitting in socially." The conjecture that a psychological source of such negative affect has evolved along with human language was tested with a large sample (N = 377) of teachers in England, Scotland, and Australia who were…

Results support Sherman's hypothesis that sex differences in tests of field independence, such as Witkin's Rod-and-Frame Test and Embedded Figures Tests, are artifacts of the well-known sex differences in space perception and are therefore not evidence that females are less analytical than males. (Author/BJG)

The major objectives of this study were: to determine whether information feedback provided during a difficult task would reduce State-Anxiety (A-State) and whether learner control of feedback would lead to further reductions in A-State. Another objective was to attempt to bridge cognitive and affective domains by examining relationships of the…

The study of ability factors in young children has passed the stage of demonstrating that separate factors exist, the effort now being devoted to systematic identification of measurable abilities. This study was designed to confirm some of the tentative abilities demonstrated in other studies and to extend the exploration into memory processes and…

The author refutes Humphrey's test of the Spearman hypothesis. A fair test requires that Black and White samples not be selected on any g-correlated variable, including socioeconomic status. Humphrey's factor analysis on test-score means of demographic groups, rather than on individuals, inflates g loadings and biases results. (LMO)

This author reviews published data and presents new data relevant to the Spearman hypothesis concerning racial differences on cognitive tests. He concludes that across-the-board difference between SES groups occurs primarily on the general factor, and that there are major determinants of race differences independent of the general factor.…

The author responds to criticisms made by Jensen pertaining to tests of the Spearman hypothesis. The near-zero correlation between Blacks and low socio-economic status Whites is neither an artifact of methodology nor a sampling fluke. Low and high SES White differences are highly correlated with general factor loadings. (LMO)