Cognitive mapping is assumed to be through hippocampus-dependent place learning rather than striatum-dependent response learning. However, we proposed that either type of spatial learning, as long as it involves encoding metric relations between locations and reference points, could lead to a cognitive map. Furthermore, the fewer reference points…

An important aspect of perspective-taking ability is the appreciation that mental states such as beliefs, desires, and knowledge change over time. The current study focused specifically on 3-, 4-, and 5-year-olds' understanding that they will have knowledge in the future that they do not currently possess--for example, that when they are…

Reconstructing memory for sequences is a complex process, likely involving multiple sources of information. In 3 experiments, we examined the source(s) of information that might underlie the ability to accurately place an event within a temporal context. The task was to estimate, after studying each list, the temporal position of a single test…

These studies tested two questions about the developmental origins of children's sensitivity to iconicity with regard to number gestures: (1) whether children initially learn number gestures with sensitivity to the one-to-one correspondence between fingers and quantities or whether they learn them as unanalyzed symbols; and (2) whether sensitivity…

Terminal changes in fundamental frequency provide the most salient acoustic cues to declarative questions, but adults sometimes identify such questions from pre-terminal cues. In the present study, adults and 7- to 10-year-old children judged a single speaker's adult- and child-directed utterances as questions or statements in a gating task with…

The psychometric measures of accuracy, reliability and validity of peer assessment are critical qualities for its use as a supplement to instructor grading. In this study, we seek to determine which factors related to peer review are the most influential on these psychometric measures, with a primary focus on the accuracy of peer assessment or how…

This study examines how adult second language learners acquire the different meanings of the Spanish preposition "a". Cognitive linguistic models predict that spatial meanings are acquired first, as they are conceptually basic and are the source from which other meanings derive via natural cognitive mechanisms such as metaphor and…

Clinical reasoning is a central skill in diagnosing cases. However, diagnosing a clinical case poses several challenges that are inherent to solving multifaceted ill-structured problems. In particular, when solving such problems, the complexity stems from the existence of multiple paths to arriving at the correct solution (Lajoie, 2003). Moreover,…

The present investigation examined whether school-aged children and adolescents' own deceptive behavior of cheating and lying influenced their honesty judgments of their same-aged peers. Eighty 8- to 17-year-olds who had previously participated in a study examining cheating and lie-telling behaviors were invited to make honesty judgments of their…

Situations in which the name of a person is perceived as familiar but does not trigger recall of pertinent semantic knowledge are common in daily life. In current connectionist models of person recognition, such "familiar-only" experiences reflect supra-threshold activation at person-identity nodes but subthreshold activation at nodes…

We examined the developmental relationships between home literacy environment (parent teaching, shared book reading) and emergent literacy skills (phonological awareness, letter knowledge, vocabulary, rapid naming speed) in kindergarten, reading accuracy and fluency in Grade 1, and reading comprehension in Grades 2 and 3 in a sample of Canadian…

Few studies have compared the written competency of French immersion students and their core French peers, and research on these learners at a postsecondary level is even scarcer. My corpus consists of writing samples from 255 students from both backgrounds beginning a university course in French language. The writing proficiency of core French…

The general objective of this study was to assess parents' perceptions of their preschooler's body weight, and the association between children's current weight status and parental feeding strategies. A sample of 150 parents of three- to five-year-old children (72 girls and 78 boys) completed questionnaires on sociodemographic information,…

The majority of research investigating children's lie-telling behavior has focused on lay people and legal professionals' abilities to detect deception. Fewer researchers have assessed educators' abilities to evaluate the veracity of children's reports of bullying. In this study, educators' abilities to detect true and false accounts of bullying…

We examined the structural and predictive properties of the Psychopathy Checklist-Revised (PCL-R) in large samples of Canadian male Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal offenders. The PCL-R ratings were part of a risk assessment for criminal recidivism, with a mean follow-up of 26 months postrelease. Using multigroup confirmatory factor analysis, we were…