Objective: ADHD is a neurodevelopmental disorder that impacts pragmatic communication abilities in children, including their understanding of verbal irony. This study aims to investigate whether adults with ADHD experience similar challenges in interpreting ironic statements, and to examine the role of executive attention abilities in accounting…

Working memory capacity (WMC) and fluid intelligence (Gf) are highly correlated, but what accounts for this relationship remains elusive. Process-overlap theory (POT) proposes that the positive manifold is mainly caused by the overlap of domain-general executive processes which are involved in a battery of mental tests. Thus, executive processes…

This study investigates how family cultural capital, particularly through museum and theatre attendance, is related to the cognitive and socio-emotional development of preschool children. The study included 1285 preschoolers (M = 70.6 months, SD = 4.43) and their parents. Assessments were conducted on children's executive functions, non-verbal…

Extensive research has established that successful learning from an example is conditional on an important learning activity: self-explanation. Moreover, a model for learning from examples suggests that self-explanation quality mediates effects of examples on learning outcomes (Atkinson et al. in Rev Educ Res 70:181-214, 2000). We investigated…

Two meta-analyses assessed whether the relations between reading and mathematics outcomes could be explained through overlapping skills (e.g., systems for word and fact retrieval) or domain-general influences (e.g., top-down attentional control). The first (378 studies, 1,282,796 participants) included weighted random-effects meta-regression…

Dysexecutive syndrome has been consistently reported in children and adolescents with autism spectrum disorders (ASD). Particularly, impairments have been documented in working memory, inhibition, and mental flexibility. However, the relationship between executive impairments and intellectual functioning is far from clear in this population. This…

There is evidence that physical activity positively influences cognition and academic outcomes in childhood. This systematic review used a three-level meta-analytic approach, which handles nested effect sizes, to assess the impact of physical activity interventions. Ninety-two randomised control trials in typically developing children (5-12 years…

This study examined auditive and visual working memory and metacognitive knowledge in 92 gifted children (aged between eight and twelve), utilising a pre-test-training-post-test design, known as the cognitive training design. This approach was used to examine the working memory and metacognitive knowledge of gifted children concerning the…

Introduction: As a result of similar behavioral manifestations across populations, the conspicuous diagnostic confusion of high intellectual ability (HIA) and Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) is often reported. Approaching Executive Functions as underlying processes can assist in distinguishing the two conditions. The principal aim…

Process-Overlap Theory (POT) suggests that measures of cognitive abilities sample from sets of independent cognitive processes. These cognitive processes can be separated into domain-general executive processes, sampled by the majority of cognitive ability measures, and domain-specific processes, sampled only by measures within a certain domain.…

Background: In this study we aimed to explore how intelligence and executive functioning are related to decision-making regarding social situations in persons with mild ID. Method: We studied 80 vocational school students with mild ID; the controls were 80 students of a similar age. We assessed decision-making ability with the Important Life…

A previous study found that task shifting and fluid intelligence, but not working memory capacity (WMC) and prior knowledge, influenced the worked example effect (Schwaighofer, Bühner, & Fischer, 2016). To increase confidence in these findings, we report a preregistered extended replication study of Schwaighofer et al.'s investigation.…

The relations between the developing mind and developing brain are explored. We outline a theory of intellectual development postulating that the mind comprises four systems of processes (domain-specific, attention and working memory, reasoning, and cognizance) developing in four cycles (episodic, realistic, rule-based, and principle-based…

There is a debate about the ability to improve cognitive abilities such as fluid intelligence through training on tasks of working memory capacity. The question addressed in the research presented here is who benefits the most from training: people with low cognitive ability or people with high cognitive ability? Subjects with high and low working…

Individual differences in executive functions (EF) are heritable and predictive of academic attainment (AA). However, little is known about genetic contributions to EFs or their genetic relationship with AA and intelligence. We conducted genome-wide association analyses for processing speed (PS) and the latent EF measures of working memory (WM)…