Critical thinking when engaged in science problem solving around even simple tasks such as the Piagetian volume conservation task is a complex endeavor. Tasks such as the conservation task often require the interaction of multiple cognitive systems. Parity judgment, retrieval, and lateral thinking are three examples of such systems interacting…

The purpose of this study was to explore the relationship between curiosity and well-being in 18- to 29-year-old individuals. In a group of 378 working emerging adults, a survey battery was administered to measure cognitive and sensory curiosity, achieved emerging adulthood, and-being, as well as select theoretically relevant demographic variables…

Working memory (WM) impairments might amplify behavioural difference in genetic syndromes. Murine models of Rubinstein-Taybi syndrome (RTS) evidence memory impairments but there is limited research on memory in RTS. Individuals with RTS and typically developing children completed WM tasks, with participants with RTS completing an IQ assessment and…

The present study illustrates the usefulness of finite mixture of generalized linear models (GLMs) to examine variability in cognitive strategies during childhood. More precisely, it addresses this variability in set-shifting situations where task-goal updating is endogenously driven. In a task-switching paradigm 5-6-year-olds had to switch…

Planning for the future and developing a personalized identity are conceived of as important developmental tasks that adolescents and emerging adults are confronted with on the pathway to adulthood. The present study set out to examine whether both tasks develop in tandem by using a short-term longitudinal dataset consisting of 371 college…

Children with autism exhibit a host of motor disorders including poor coordination, poor tool use and delayed learning of complex motor skills like riding a tricycle. Theory suggests that one of the crucial steps in motor learning is the ability to form internal models: to predict the sensory consequences of motor commands and learn from errors to…

Piagetian tasks have more to do with the child's ability to inhibit interference than they do with the ability to grasp their underlying logic. Here we used a chronometric paradigm with 11-year-olds, who succeed in Piaget's conservation-of-weight task, to test the role of cognitive inhibition in a priming version of this classical task. The…

Four experiments examined the development of negative priming (NP) in 3-5-year-old children using as a measure of children's executive function (EF) the dimensional change card sort (DCCS) task. In the NP version of the DCCS, the values of the sorting dimension that is relevant during the preswitch phase are removed during the postswitch phase.…

This longitudinal study of Latino/a college students considers the influence of Latino/a college student experiences and ethnic identity on holistic development. Findings indicate that although similar characteristics are seen among Latino/a students, the role of recognizing and making meaning of racism is a significant developmental task. This is…

Educational and occupational choices may be considered, from a developmental point of view, as long-term problems whose solutions imply a number of tasks. These tasks sequentially might be called exploration, crystallization, specification, and implementation. What are the processes involved in these tasks? What are the abilities which make…

In an investigation of the relationship of the logical operations to other developmental sequences, 30 college students were assessed as to logical operational ability and poetic interpretation. The strong relation found between these two abilities supports the theoretically predicted applicability of central, formal reasoning structures to…

Generic teleological mechanisms (GTMs) are a class of strategic concepts especially useful in adaptive design. GTMs are abstract functional and causal patterns that lead to adaptation strategies for innovative design. Adopts a task-directed approach to learning, and describes a model-based method for learning GTMs from design methods. (Author/DKM)

Examines the role of basic cognitive-processing efficiency as the source of developmental variance in cognitive performance. Two experimental tasks, memory and visual scanning, were used to investigate age effects on the search-processing parameter. Subjects were 9-, 11-, 13-, and 15-year-old children. (CM)

An investigation of adult reasoning processes revealed that the more relevant the cognitive task was to the developmental task of the learner, the better the performance was likely to be. (JD)

The purpose of this study is to see if older adults who experience problems with thought suppression tend to encounter greater difficulty deriving a sense of meaning in life. Data from a longitudinal nationwide survey of older people (N = 988) indicate that greater difficulty with thought suppression is associated with a decline in meaning over…