Subitizing is the immediate apprehension of the exact number of items in small sets. Despite more than a 100 years of research around this phenomenon, its nature and origin are still unknown. One view posits that it reflects a number estimation process common for small and large sets, which precision decreases as the number of items increases,…

What is the task of educational theory or philosophy if it is not merely conceived as specification of philosophical doctrines in the realm of education? In my view it is the particular task of educational-philosophical theory to "work critically" on the historically developed cultural constructs that shape our (educational) experience. Thus, the…

Lavie and Tsal (1994) proposed that spare attentional capacity is allocated involuntarily to the processing of irrelevant stimuli, thereby enabling interference. Under this view, when task demands increase, spare capacity should decrease and distractor interference should decrease. In support, Lavie and Cox (1997) found that increasing perceptual…

This study examines the effects of feedback specificity on transfer of training and the mechanisms through which feedback can enhance or inhibit transfer. We used concurrent verbal protocol methodology to elicit and operationalize the explicit information processing activities used by 48 trainees performing the Furniture Factory computer…

The Thatcher illusion (Thompson, 1980) is considered to be a prototypical illustration of the notion that face perception is dependent on configural processes and representations. We explored this idea by examining the relative contributions of perceptual and decisional processes to the ability of observers to identify the orientation of two…

The nature of obsessions has led researchers to try to determine if the main problem in obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) is impaired inhibitory control. Previous studies report that the effort to suppress is one of the factors that increase the frequency of obsessive thoughts. Based on these results and those of the present study that suggest…

This study examined neural activity associated with establishing causal relationships across sentences during on-line comprehension. ERPs were measured while participants read and judged the relatedness of three-sentence scenarios in which the final sentence was highly causally related, intermediately related, and causally unrelated to its…

Both clinical investigations and studies with animals reveal nuclei within the diencephalon that are vital for recognition memory (the judgment of prior occurrence). This review seeks to identify these nuclei and to consider why they might be important for recognition memory. Despite the lack of clinical cases with circumscribed pathology within…

Aim: To examine the cognitive functioning of young people with pantothenate-kinase-associated neurodegeneration (PKAN) after pallidal deep brain stimulation (DBS). PKAN is characterized by progressive generalized dystonia and has historically been associated with cognitive decline. With growing evidence that DBS can improve motor function in…

Language has been linked to spatial representation and behavior in humans, but the nature of this effect is debated. Here, we test whether simple verbal expressions improve 4-year-old children's performance in a disoriented search task in a small rectangular room with a single red landmark wall. Disoriented children's landmark-guided search for a…

Using a multicomponent, process-oriented approach, the links between social information processing during the preschool years and (a) sociodemographic risk and (b) behavior problems in preschool were examined in a community sample of 196 children. Findings provided support for our initial hypotheses that aspects of social information processing in…

This paper is a conceptual essay that views the unfolding or individuation from the ovum to mind/brain form and process as the outcome of a unitary highly conserved pattern of epigenetic growth. The principle question concerns the extent to which the cognitive process can be understood as an extension or replication of primordial trends in the…

Following brain injury or disease there are widespread biochemical, anatomical and physiological changes that result in what might be considered a new, very different brain. This adapted brain is forced to reacquire behaviors lost as a result of the injury or disease and relies on neural plasticity within the residual neural circuits. The same…

Many current psychological models of reasoning minimize the role of deductive processes in human thought. In the present paper, we argue that deduction is an important part of ordinary cognition and we propose that a dual systems Competence [image omitted] Procedural processing model conceptualized within relational developmental systems theory…

We explore conditions for productive synthesis between formal reasoning and intuitive representations through analysis of college students' understanding of the limit concept in the definition of the derivative. In particular, we compare and contrast cognitive processes that accompany different manifestations of persistence of intuitions and tacit…