How do human infants learn the causal dependencies between events? Evidence suggests that this remarkable feat can be achieved by observation of only a handful of examples. Many computational models have been produced to explain how infants perform causal inference without explicit teaching about statistics or the scientific method. Here, we…

Planning and executing volitional actions in the face of conflicting habitual responses is a critical aspect of human behavior. At the core of the interplay between these 2 control systems lies an override mechanism that can suppress the habitual action selection process and allow executive control to take over. Here, we construct a neural circuit…

Experimental evidence suggests that the content of a memory for even a simple display encoded in visual short-term memory (VSTM) can be very complex. VSTM uses organizational processes that make the representation of an item dependent on the feature values of all displayed items as well as on these items' representations. Here, we develop a…

Extensive evidence has shown that presentation of a word (target) following a related word (prime) results in faster reaction times compared to unrelated words. Two primes preceding a target have been used to examine the effects of multiple influences on a target. Several studies have observed greater, or additive, priming effects of multiple…

The use of educational games as a tool for providing learners with a playful and educational aspect is widespread. In this paper, we present an educational game that we developed to teach a chemistry lesson, namely drawing a Lewis diagram. Our game is a 3D environment known as LewiSpace and aims at balancing between playful and educational…

In this essay, I explore how cognitive science could illuminate the concept of beauty. Two results from the extensive literature on aesthetics guide my discussion. As the term "beauty" is overextended in general usage, I choose as my starting point the notion of "perfect form." Aesthetic theorists are in reasonable agreement about the criteria for…

Acquisition of relational knowledge is a core process in cognitive development. Relational knowledge is dynamic and flexible, entails structure-consistent mappings between representations, has properties of compositionality and systematicity, and depends on binding in working memory. We review three types of computational models relevant to…

Existing research has yielded evidence to indicate that the expectancy-value theoretical model predicts students' learning in various achievement contexts. Achievement values and self-efficacy expectations, for example, have been found to exert positive effects on cognitive process and academic achievement outcomes. We tested a conceptual model…

The purpose of this study was to evaluate the adequacy of three cognitive models, one developed by content experts and two generated from student verbal reports for explaining examinee performance on a grade 3 diagnostic mathematics test. For this study, the items were developed to directly measure the attributes in the cognitive model. The…

Background: Students' prior knowledge plays an important role in learning new knowledge. In physical education (PE) and physical activity settings, studies have confirmed the role of students' prior knowledge. According to Placek and Griffin, these studies demonstrate that: "our students are not empty balls waiting to be filled with knowledge…

Humans are characterized by an especially highly developed ability to use instructions to prepare toward upcoming events; yet, it is unclear just how powerful instructions can be. Although prior work provides evidence that instructions can be sufficiently powerful to proactively program working memory to execute stimulus-response (S-R)…

Understanding how geologists conduct fieldwork through analysis of problem solving has significant potential impact on field instruction methods within geology and other science fields. Recent work has highlighted many aspects of fieldwork, but the problem solving behaviors displayed by geologists during fieldwork and the associated cognitive…

We review and extend existing frameworks on modeling to develop a new framework that describes model-based reasoning in introductory and upper-division physics laboratories. Constructing and using models are core scientific practices that have gained significant attention within K-12 and higher education. Although modeling is a broadly applicable…

The Emotional Regulation Related to Testing Scale (ERT Scale) assesses strategies students use to regulate emotion related to academic testing. It has four dimensions: Cognitive Appraising Processes (CAP), Emotion-Focusing Processes (EFP), Task-Focusing Processes (TFP), and Regaining Task-Focusing Processes (RTFP). The study examined the factor…

By combining emerging technologies with cognitive and education theories, we are capitalizing on recent findings from adaptive exploration and embodied learning research to address significant gaps in the education of brain sciences for school children and college level students. Through the development of virtual learning tools in combination…