Despite substantial evidence for the link between an individual's intelligence and successful life outcomes, questions about what defines intelligence have remained the focus of heated dispute. The most common approach to understanding intelligence has been to investigate what performance on tests of intellect is and is not associated with. This…

Research on language processing has shown that the disruption of conceptual integration gives rise to specific patterns of event-related brain potentials (ERPs)--N400 and P600 effects. Here, we report similar ERP effects when adults performed cross-domain conceptual integration of analogous semantic and mathematical relations. In a problem-solving…

This study evaluated a new measure for analyzing the process of children's problem solving in a series completion task. This measure focused on a process that we entitled the "Grouping of Answer Pieces" (GAP) that was employed to provide information on problem representation and restructuring. The task was conducted using an electronic…

This study investigated whether a latent class of children with math difficulties (MD) or math learning disabilities (MLD) emerged within a heterogeneous sample of learners. A latent class analysis was computed on children (N = 447) in Grade 3 who were administered a battery of math, reading, and cognitive measures. The analysis yielded four…

This event-related fMRI study investigated the differences between learning from examples and learning from verbal directions in mathematical problem solving and how these instruction types affect the activity of relevant brain regions during instruction and solution periods within problem-solving trials. We identified distinct neural signatures…

We used event-related potentials (ERPs) to determine the time course of mechanisms underlying strategy selection. Participants had to select the better strategy on multiplication problems (i.e., 51 × 27) to find approximate products. They could choose between rounding up and rounding down both operands to their nearest decades. Two types of…

The study challenged the current practices in cognitive load measurement involving complex problem solving by manipulating the presence of pictures in multiple rule-based problem-solving situations and examining the cognitive load resulting from both off-line and online measures associated with complex problem solving. Forty-eight participants…

A problem-solving inventory was administered with other measures of cognitive abilities and school achievement in order to determine interrelationships between these measures. A distinct problem-solving factor, separate from measures of school achievement and language abilities but related to logical thinking and conceptual ability was…

Examines a study that suggests that quantification, defined as numerical data, increases textual difficulty and thereby discourages resolving scientific problems through public action. (MH)

Reported is a study related to a Project on an Information Memory Model in which the performance of children living in two different cultures (Libyan and American) was compared on two problem solving tasks to investigate cultural differences in memory information processing. One task was the chemical bodies experiment studied by Piaget and…

The study was conducted to gain some insight regarding whether the nature of critical thinking skills in biology appears to be different than the nature of more general critical thinking skills. The study falls within the context of previous studies (e.g., research by J. P. Guilford, 1967; and M. Rokeach, 1973) that used empirical methods to…

The results indicate that although relational concepts influence the cognitive aptitudes which are reflected in analogy item performance, success in solving analogies does not depend on individual differences in some major aspects of processing relationships. (Author/DEP)

Using Raven Progressive Matrices Test items, this study developed an empirical measure of subjects' ability to create new problems. The relationship between this ability and problem solving skills was examined. A very low correlation was found between inventing and solving problems. Problem creation was more difficult than problem solving. (BS)

Many science curriculum development projects have the goal of increasing students' ability to employ scientific or formal reasoning strategies. Argues that longitudinal data of students who acquired formal reasoning strategies as a consequence of specific instruction are needed to provide evidence that these skills will help in other academic…