Some situations require one to quickly stop an initiated response. Recent evidence suggests that rapid stopping engages a mechanism that has diffuse effects on the motor system. For example, stopping the hand dampens the excitability of the task-irrelevant leg. However, it is unclear whether this "global suppression" could apply across wider motor…

This report makes recommendations for the development of middle-school assessment in mathematics, based on a synthesis of scientific findings in cognitive psychology and mathematics education. The focus is on background research, rather than test specifications or example tasks. Readers interested in early development and pilot efforts associated…

This article proposes and tests a formal cognitive model for the go/no-go discrimination task. In this task, the performer chooses whether to respond to stimuli and receives rewards for responding to certain stimuli and punishments for responding to others. Three cognitive models were evaluated on the basis of data from a longitudinal study…

Task analyses have traditionally been framed in terms of overt behaviors performed in accomplishing tasks and goals. Pioneering work at the Learning Research and Development Center looked at what contribution a cognitive analysis might make to current task analysis procedures, since traditional task analysis methods neither elicit nor capture…

Cognitive task analysis grew out of efforts by cognitive psychologists to understand problem-solving in a lab setting. It has proved a useful tool for describing expert performance in complex problem solving domains. This review considers two general models of cognitive task analysis and examines the procedures and results of analyses in three…