C. J. Brainerd, V. F. Reyna, and S. J. Ceci (2008) reviewed compelling evidence of developmental reversals in false-memory formation (i.e., younger children exhibit lower false-memory rates than do older children and adults) and proposed that this phenomenon depends on the development of gist processing (i.e., the ability to identify and process…

A sequential risk-taking paradigm used to identify real-world risk takers invokes both learning and decision processes. This article expands the paradigm to a larger class of tasks with different stochastic environments and different learning requirements. Generalizing a Bayesian sequential risk-taking model to the larger set of tasks clarifies…

Comments on the article by E. Brandstatter, G. Gigerenzer, and R. Hertwig (2006). Resolution of debates in cognition usually comes from the introduction of constraints in the form of new data about either the process or representation. Decision research, in contrast, has relied predominantly on testing models by examining their fit to choices. The…

This study explored whether adding a haptic interface (that provides users with somatosensory information about virtual objects by force and tactile feedback) to a three-dimensional (3D) chemical model enhanced students' understanding of complex molecular interactions. Two modes of the model were compared in a between-groups pre- and posttest…

In this study, we examined attention processes in complex, sport-specific decision-making tasks without interdependencies from anticipation. Psychophysiological and performance data recorded from advanced and intermediate level basketball referees were compared. Event-related potentials obtained while judging game situations in foul recognition…

Laws and guidelines regulating legal decision making are often imposed without taking the cognitive processes of the legal decision maker into account. In the case of sentencing, this raises the question of whether the sentencing decisions of prosecutors and judges are consistent with legal policy. Especially in handling low-level crimes, legal…

Prior work on organization in free recall has focused on the ways in which semantic and temporal information determine the order in which material is retrieved from memory. Tulving's theory of ecphory suggests that these organizational effects arise from the interaction of a retrieval cue with the contents of memory. Using the…

Psychophysical studies are reported examining how the context of recent auditory stimulation may modulate the processing of new sounds. The question posed is how recent tone stimulation may affect ongoing performance in a discrimination task. In the task, two complex sounds occurred in successive intervals. A single target component of one complex…

The brain exhibits remarkable facility in exerting attentional control in most circumstances, but it also suffers apparent limitations in others. The authors' goal is to construct a rational account for why attentional control appears suboptimal under conditions of conflict and what this implies about the underlying computational principles. The…

In the stop-signal paradigm, fast responses are harder to inhibit than slow responses, so subjects must balance speed is the go task with successful stopping in the stop task. In theory, subjects achieve this balance by adjusting response thresholds for the go task, making proactive adjustments in response to instructions that indicate that…

We frequently encounter groups of similar objects in our visual environment: a bed of flowers, a basket of oranges, a crowd of people. How does the visual system process such redundancy? Research shows that rather than code every element in a texture, the visual system favors a summary statistical representation of all the elements. The authors…

Trial-to-trial variation in word-pronunciation times exhibits 1/f scaling. One explanation is that human performances are consequent on multiplicative interactions among interdependent processes-interaction dominant dynamics. This article describes simulated distributions of pronunciation times in a further test for multiplicative interactions and…

The authors build on literature related to the development of epistemic cognition, research on historical thinking, and studies of individuals' epistemic beliefs. They designed this study to explore, develop, and test a measure of epistemic cognition in history. They administered the Beliefs about Learning and Teaching History Questionnaire to…

This article provides a terminological framework to show the relationships among different types of visual deficits. It distinguishes between visual functions, which describe how the eye and the lower visual system function, and functional vision, which describes how a person functions. When visual functions are disturbed, the term "visual…

Animated models explicating how a problem is solved and why a particular method is chosen are expected to be effective learning tools for novices, especially when abstract cognitive processes or concepts are involved. Cognitive load theory was used to investigate how learners could be stimulated to engage in genuine learning activities. It was…