Reports four experiments focusing on Piaget's claims that conservation and transitivity concepts are experienced as logically necessary truths. Two experiments examined feelings of certainty and necessity in college students presented with Piagetian tasks. Two other experiments extended these procedures to children and the issue of developmental…

Sifts through confusing intelligence theories, arguing that intelligence is a combination of influences involving power, tactics, and content. Good thinking is an unnatural act demanding evenhanded reasoning, problem finding (versus solving), and knowledge as invention. Discusses thinking frames guiding thought processes and the implications for…

Reviewed research with the Twenty Questions Task aimed at investigating problem solving across the life span. Research indicates use of an efficient problem-solving strategy increases during childhood and then decreases again during the later adult years. Elderly adults' performance was facilitated when the necessity of using an efficient strategy…

In answer to points raised by Dansky (1985) about specific inferences from Simon and Smith's study (1985) and broader issues about a single-session paradigm used in play and problem solving studies, Simon and Smith argue that their study adequately demonstrated how methodological factors in paradigm can swamp the effects of any treatment…

Ten hearing impaired adolescents receiving Instrumental Enrichment demonstrated improvements in: systematic approaches to problems; analysis of problem situations; vocabulary size; analysis of source-of-error in problem-solving situations; completeness, organization, and planning in problem-solving situations; peer cooperation in problem solving;…

Reviews the literature dealing with the loci and parameters of visual selective attention. It is maintained that input selection can be found at several points in the course of processing. Specifically, a case is made for very early perceptual selection, called perceptual tuning, which can be based on higher-order conceptual or structural stimulus…

Argues that critical thinking and problem-solving skills do exist in primary grade students, that they can be measured, and illustrates how. (RB)

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…

Reflective subjects generated characteristically different and more efficient hypothesis-testing strategies than impulsive subjects. (Author)

Article stresses the skills gained in problem-solving over mere information transmission in the classroom. (GB)

Results indicate that the ability to project movement in static inkblots is a distinctive quality of good problem solvers. (Author)