This study investigated how 15 preadolescents and adolescents with autistic spectrum disorder (ASD) performed on false belief tasks that included social inferencing of psychological states as well a logical inferencing of physical states. Unlike the control groups, the ASD group performed better on the social inferencing tasks and use of a prompt…

Used computer-administered tests to measure the reaction time to nonverbal stimuli of 4- through 6-year-olds and adults. Found age-related increases in processing speed that could not be attributed to increased accuracy and error rate monitoring. Used these results to evaluate R. Kail's (1991) model of processing speed, which adequately accounted…

Employed a modified dual task approach with 7- to 9-year olds to determine whether one of the classic M-power measures, the digit placement task, is indeed capacity-limited. Found that several critical assumptions concerning the use of the dual-task procedure were met; further testing revealed that the digit placement task is indeed…

Examined precursors of knowledge change in college students' developing understanding of gear movement. Found that only some participants changed their problem-solving approach after instruction. Results suggest that having multiple approaches available and using instructional information to build on not-well-developed conceptions may contribute…

Acquisition of linguistic and perceptual abilities takes place at a very early age, and later learning involves knowledge and information processing strategies. Aging has greater impact on retention of the latter. Lifelong learning must accommodate the constraints of aging on cognitive abilities. (SK)

A germ cell model of development based on a cognitive view of learning is used to propose that the cognitive skills needed in today's workplace necessitate reconceptualizing skill acquisition, learning, and training. The model is contrasted with the limitations of competency-based, behaviorist approaches. (SK)

This study examined whether 9.5-month-olds could use featural information to individuate objects. Results suggest that infants categorize events involving opaque and transparent occluders as the same kind of situation and that infants are more likely to give evidence of individuation when they need to reason about one kind of event than when they…

Reviews recent research on retention that is demonstrated without conscious recollection, such as the ability to tie shoelaces or drive a car. Suggests that future research in this field may have implications for such educational issues as the transfer of training and the carryover of abstract classroom learning to problems in other contexts. (EVL)

Cognitive triage is the nonmonotonic relationship between the order in which children read words out of long-term memory and the strength of the memory of the words read. Two experiments with 7 and 12 year olds compared the fuzzy-trace theory with an effortful processing explanation. Findings consistently favored the fuzzy-trace theory's…

Performance on oddity transfer tasks was used to classify 40 mildly retarded, 6- through 9-year-old and 40 normally achieving children of the same age into their 2 respective groups. High levels of classification accuracy were observed with all 8 oddity types being sensitive to differences between the normally achieving and mildly retarded…

Reviews research on relationship between cognitive schemas and vocational behavior following from Kelly's (1955) personal construct psychology. Focuses particular attention on traditional study of vocational differentiation and integration as well as more recent efforts to combine these two variables into a structural model of vocational…

Suggests ways to integrate current theories of cognition and cognitive learning in order to arrive at a more comprehensive understanding of language acquisition. (CFM)

Comments on van Geert's mathematical model of Vygotsky's zone of proximal development, in this issue. Supports van Geert's use of a nonlinear model, noting that linear statistical models overlook variability in psychological phenomena. Discusses the time asymmetry in van Geert's model, which does not account for a subject's "developmental…

Outlines themes from L.S. Vygotsky's writings. His claims about the social origins of individual mental functioning have implications for the definitions of cognition and memory and for the pursuit of research on mental processes. His understanding of culture is derivative of his account of the mediation of mental functioning. (BC)

Three theories of deafness and cognition are summarized, and the problem of deaf children's lagging cognitive development in concrete nonverbal logical problems is considered. It is suggested that this delay may be caused by the difficulty hearing people have communicating to the deaf, and educational implications of this speculation are noted.…