Perception of the human body appears to involve predictive simulations that project forward to track unfolding body-motion events. Here we use representational momentum (RM) to investigate whether implicit knowledge of a learned arbitrary system of body movement such as sign language influences this prediction process, and how this compares to…

The authors discuss the growing evidence that strenuous physical activity is not only healthy for students but improves their academic performance. Based on such research, they argue that schools in the United States need to stop eliminating physical-education programs under the current political pressures to emphasize academics and instead to…

Is "development" a concept that properly belongs to mind and morality and, if it does, what account can we give of moral development now that Piagetian and Kohlbergian models are increasingly being abandoned in developmental psychology? In addressing this central issue, it is hoped that the paper will contribute to the quest for a new integrated…

The demise of recess in many elementary schools--and of outdoor play in general--is an issue of great concern to many members of the Play, Policy, and Practice Interest Forum. Most people remember recess as an important part of the school day. It was a time to be outdoors; to organize games; to play on the swings, slides, and other playground…

The authors respond to both the general and specific concerns raised in Fischer, Stein, and Heikkinen's commentary on their article (Steinberg, Cauffman, Woolard, Graham, & Banich), in which they drew on studies of adolescent development to justify the American Psychological Association's positions in two Supreme Court cases involving the…

The other-race effect in face processing develops within the first year of life in Caucasian infants. It is currently unknown whether the developmental trajectory observed in Caucasian infants can be extended to other cultures. This is an important issue to investigate because recent findings from cross-cultural psychology have suggested that…

Background: The quality of very preterm infants' spontaneous movements at 11 to 16 weeks post-term age is a powerful predictor of their later neurological status. This study investigated whether early spontaneous movements also have predictive value for the intellectual and behavioural problems that children born very preterm often experience.…

Research about the benefits of interactional diversity in college has been conducted at various U.S. institutions, but little research has focused on border colleges. This study explores the extent to which students at U.S.-Mexico border institutions reported having cross-racial and cross-ethnic interactions that researchers suggest promote…

This study examined the relationship among parenting, empathy, and antisocial behavior. Two hundred forty-four undergraduate students attending an urban university completed self-report questionnaires assessing their antisocial behavior, empathy, and mothers' and fathers' parenting styles. Support was found for a model in which maternal permissive…

Purpose: This study examined language productivity and syntactic complexity in school-age children in relation to their knowledge of the topic of discussion--the game of chess. Method: Children (N = 32; mean age = 10;11 [years;months]) who played chess volunteered to be interviewed by an adult examiner who had little or no experience playing…

What kind of featural information do infants rely on when they are trying to recognize a previously seen object? The question of whether infants use certain features (e.g., shape or color) more than others (e.g., luminance) can only be studied legitimately if visual salience is controlled, as the magnitude of feature values--how noticeable and…

This study sought to determine the beliefs that tenured, in-service high school science teachers hold about how their participation in a large mid-Atlantic university's 6-week summer research experiences for teachers (RET) program might influence their pedagogical practices. The findings show a number of factors that teachers believed helped them…

The arts have long been valued for their aesthetic contributions to education, and studies have been conducted to demonstrate their contribution to academic performance in an attempt to justify their inclusion in the curriculum. Art integration involves learning core content subjects (math, reading, language, science, social studies) through the…

Purpose: The purpose of the present study was to evaluate the new Cognitive Spare Capacity Test (CSCT), which measures aspects of working memory capacity for heard speech in the audiovisual and auditory-only modalities of presentation. Method: In Experiment 1, 20 young adults with normal hearing performed the CSCT and an independent battery of…

This dissertation examines the determinants of student outcomes--achievement, attainment, occupational choices and earnings--in three different contexts. The first two chapters focus on Ghana while the final chapter focuses on the US state of Massachusetts. In the first chapter, I exploit the incidence of famine and malnutrition that resulted to…