Listening to speech in a noisy background is difficult for everyone. While such listening has historically been considered mainly in the context of auditory processing, the role of cognition has attracted considerable interest in recent years. This has been particularly true in the context of life-span research and the comparison of younger and…

Why do people change their strategies for solving problems? In this research, we tested whether negative feedback and the context in which learners encounter a strategy influence their likelihood of adopting that strategy. In particular, we examined whether strategy adoption varied when learners were exposed to a target strategy in isolation, in…

Individual differences in working memory capacity (WMC) increase the ability and tendency to devote greater attentional control to a task--improving performance on a wide range of skills. In addition, recent research on enclothed cognition demonstrates that the situational influence of wearing a white lab coat increases controlled attention, due…

Emotion effects in reading have typically been investigated by manipulating words' emotional valence and arousal in lexical decision. The standard finding is that valence and arousal can have both facilitatory and inhibitory effects, which is hard to reconcile with current theories of emotion processing in reading. Here, we contrasted these…

The most important information conveyed by language is often contained not in the utterance itself, but in the interaction between the utterance and the comprehender's knowledge of the world and the current situation. This dissertation uses psycholinguistic methods to explore the effects of a common type of inference--causal inference--on language…

How can illustrations motivate learners in multimedia learning? Which features make illustrations interesting? Beside the theoretical relevance of addressing these questions, these issues are practically relevant when instructional designers are to decide which features of illustrations can trigger situational interest irrespective of individual…

In accord with increasing recognition of the situation specificity of childhood social behaviors, individual and contextual differences in children's responses to potential peer conflict were examined (hostile attribution, behavioral strategies, and affective reactions; N = 367, 9-2 years, 197 girls). Situational cues from 2 sources, the…

This fascinating and inventive book surveys the UDL research field in comprehensive detail while pointing in--imaginative and necessary ways--to crucial research undertakings yet to come. In recent years there has been heightened interest in Universal Design for Learning (UDL), particularly within the worlds of education policy and practice. As a…

The schizophrenia-crime relationship was studied in 151 research participants meeting DSM-IV criteria for schizophrenia or schizoaffective disorder and with histories positive or negative for criminal charges, convictions and offences involving violence. These crime-related variables were regressed on a block of nine predictors reflecting…

Discussion reflects on the notions of the constructionist viewpoint in development, of integration, and of individual uniqueness, by drawing on studies of mother-infant interaction, the development of 24-hour infant state organization and regulation, and life span development. The logic of construction by which an individual shapes his or her…

This book examines how nonnative speakers develop pragmatic ability in a nonprimary language, focusing on acquisitional processes, conditions, and sequential patterns. Nine chapters discuss the following: (1) "Introduction to Second Language Pragmatic Development"; (2) "Theories of Second Language Pragmatic Development" (e.g., the acculturation…

The course of study of time-of-day effects on human performance has not been an easy one to chart, with many findings that seem to be in opposition. This review examines the difference between group and individual differences with regard to time-of-day effects; time-of-day effects in individuals; morningness-eveningness as an individual…