Sequence learning is fundamental to a wide range of cognitive functions. Explaining how sequences--and the relations between the elements they comprise--are learned is a fundamental challenge to cognitive science. However, although hundreds of articles addressing this question are published each year, the actual learning mechanisms involved in the…

Previous research has suggested that infants are able to distinguish between possible and impossible events and make basic probabilistic inferences. However, much of this research has focused on children's intuitions about past events for which the outcome is already determined but unknown. Here, we investigated children's ability to use…

According to the Diagnostic Feature-Detection (DFD) hypothesis, the presence of fillers that match the eyewitness's description of the perpetrator will boost discriminability beyond a showup, and very few fillers may suffice to produce the advantage. We tested this hypothesis by comparing showups with simultaneous lineups of size 3, 6, 9, and 12.…

Observers' memory for a person's appearance can be compromised by the presence of a weapon, a phenomenon known as the weapon-focus effect (WFE). According to the unusual-item hypothesis, attention shifts from the perpetrator to the weapon because a weapon is an unusual object in many contexts. To test this assumption, we monitored participants'…

This article presents and analyses a didactic proposal based on manipulative material (Knobless Cylinders) used in a Montessori classroom of 3-6-year-old pre-schoolers. Choosing this material is justified in relation to the competencies/strategies/skills used during the development of mathematical patterning. Numerous studies emphasise the…

This study purports to bridge the gap in research directed at people with Low Functioning Autism (LFA) by exploring if sensory discrimination ability can be used to assess cognitive functioning in children with LFA. The study was done in two phases: (i) a pilot phase (with 4 male participants; mean age = 3 years 6.5 months)--which tried to…

Using spatial mapping processes to discriminate between threat and safety is crucial for survival. Little is known why some fail to discriminate during contextual conditioning. We used a virtual reality (VR) contextual conditioning paradigm to elucidate the effects of state and trait anxiety on contextual threat learning. Participants (n = 70)…

Prosody is the fundamental organizing principle of spoken language, carrying lexical, morphosyntactic, and pragmatic information. It, therefore, provides highly relevant input for language development. Are infants sensitive to this important aspect of spoken language early on? In this study, we asked whether infants are able to discriminate…

We examined whether theory of mind difficulties often considered to characterise autistic individuals impair their ability to detect the presence of dodgy or suspicious behaviour in interactions, thereby rendering them especially vulnerable to becoming involved in criminal activity or being victimised. Using a signal detection theory approach, we…

One of the world's most famous pyramids is not located in Egypt but is on a music album cover by the band Pink Floyd. However, not a pyramid but a prism, the iconic image of a beam of light turning into a rainbow is a powerful symbol that captures the complexities of colour perception across cultures and individuals. This study examines how…

Much recent research and theorizing in the field of reasoning has been concerned with intuitive sensitivity to logical validity, such as the logic-brightness effect, in which logically valid arguments are judged to have a "brighter" typeface than invalid arguments. We propose and test a novel signal competition account of this…

A portion of children diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) have difficulty acquiring conditional discrimination. However, previous researchers suggested that the discrimination of nonverbal auditory stimuli may be acquired more efficiently (Eikeseth & Hayward, 2009; Uwer, et al., 2002). For example, a child may learn to touch a…

Often, the evidence we observe is consistent with more than one explanation. How do learners discriminate among candidate causes? The current studies examine whether counterfactuals help 5-year olds (N = 120) select between competing hypotheses and compares the effectiveness of these prompts to a related scaffold. In Experiment 1, counterfactuals…

Research has consistently demonstrated that learners are strikingly poor at metacognitively monitoring their learning and comprehension of texts. The aim of the present meta-analysis is to explore three important questions about metacomprehension: (a) To what extent can people accurately discriminate well-learned texts from less well learned ones?…

Eyewitness researchers recommend that "not present" and "don't know" response options should be presented with police lineups. Although it is important that witnesses--most of whom are unlikely to be familiar with the identification task--are fully cognizant of all response options available to them, an understanding of how…