Two studies examined how preschoolers (N = 610; French) explain differences in achievement. Replicating and extending previous research, the results revealed that children invoke more inherent factors (e.g., intelligence) than extrinsic factors (e.g., access to educational resources) when explaining why some children do better in school than…

Metacognitive calibration--the capacity to accurately self-assess one's performance--forms the basis for error detection and self-monitoring and is a potential catalyst for conceptual change. Limited brain imaging research on authentic learning tasks implicates the lateral prefrontal and anterior cingulate brain regions in expert scientific…

This Perspective article expands on a working memory-dependent dual-process model, originally proposed by Zheng et al., to elucidate individual differences in the testing effect. This model posits that the testing effect comprises two processes: retrieval-attempt and post-retrieval re-encoding. We substantiate this model with empirical evidence…

Associative learning abilities vary considerably among individuals, with attentional processes suggested to play a role in these variations. However, the relationship between attentional processes and individual differences in associative learning remains unclear, and whether these variations reflect in event-related potentials (ERPs) is unknown.…

Observational learning is essential for the acquisition of new behavior in educational practices and daily life and serves as an important mechanism for human cognitive and social-emotional development. However, we know little about its underlying neurocomputational mechanisms from a developmental perspective. In this study we used model-based…

Math-anxious people consistently underperform in math. The most widely accepted explanation for "why" this underperformance occurs is that math-anxious people experience heightened anxiety when faced with math, and this in-the-moment anxiety interferes with performance. Surprisingly, this explanation has not been tested directly. Here,…

Neuroplasticity, defined as the brain's "potential" to change in response to its environment, has been extensively studied at the cellular and molecular levels. Work in animal models suggests that stimulation to the ventral tegmental area (VTA) enhances plasticity, and that myelination constrains plasticity. Little is known, however,…

Arithmetic ability is critical for daily life, academic achievement, career development, and future economic success. Individual differences in arithmetic skills among children and adolescents are related to variations in brain structures. Most existing studies have used hypothesis-driven region of interest analysis. To identify distributed brain…

The brain undergoes profound development across childhood and adolescence, including continuous changes in brain morphology, connectivity, and functioning that are, in part, dependent on one's experiences. These neurobiological changes are accompanied by significant changes in children's and adolescents' cognitive learning. By drawing from studies…

Current initiatives to personalize learning in schools, while seen as a contemporary reform, actually continue a 200+ year struggle to provide scalable, mass, public education that also addresses the variable needs of individual learners. Indeed, some of the rhetoric and approaches reformers are touting today sound very familiar in this historical…

Pavlovian aversive conditioning is a fundamental form of learning helping organisms survive in their environment. Previous research has suggested that organisms are prepared to preferentially learn to fear stimuli that have posed threats to survival across evolution. Here, we examined whether enhanced Pavlovian aversive conditioning can occur to…

We explore how advances in our understanding of the genetics of complex traits such as educational attainment could constructively be leveraged to advance research on education and learning. We discuss concepts and misconceptions about genetic findings with regard to causes, consequences, and policy. Our main thesis is that educational attainment…

To the best of our knowledge, the genetic foundations that guide human brain development have not changed fundamentally during the past 50,000 years. However, because of their cognitive potential, humans have changed the world tremendously in the past centuries. They have invented technical devices, institutions that regulate cooperation and…