When we read narrative texts such as novels and newspaper articles, we segment information presented in such texts into discrete events, with distinct boundaries between those events. But do our eyes reflect this event structure while reading? This study examines whether eye movements during the reading of discourse reveal how readers respond…

Designers often collaborate to explore creative ideas, especially during the early stages of conceptual design, and their mental models, as the framework of design tasks, greatly influence the collaborative sketching process. Such models have multiple kinds of differences and each kind might have unique effects, yet previous studies analyzed these…

The sequence in which problems of different concepts are studied during instruction impacts concept learning. For example, several problems of a given concept can be studied together (blocking) or several problems of different concepts can be studied together (interleaving). In the current study, we demonstrate that the 2 sequences impact concept…

Recently, a great deal of research has demonstrated that although everyday experience is continuous in nature, it is parsed into separate events. The aim of the present study was to examine whether event structure can influence the effectiveness of cognitive control. Across 5 experiments we varied the structure of events within the AX-CPT by…

Knowledge restructuring refers to changes in the strategy with which people solve a given problem. Two types of knowledge restructuring are supported by existing category learning models. The first is a relearning process, which involves incremental updating of knowledge as learning progresses. The second is a recoordination process, which…

In recent years, many computerized test systems have been developed for diagnosing students' learning profiles. Nevertheless, it remains a challenging issue to find an adaptive testing algorithm to both shorten testing time and precisely diagnose the knowledge status of students. In order to find a suitable algorithm, four adaptive testing…

Two of the major claims of the cognitivist approach to metaphor, the paradigm which has emerged as dominant over the last three decades, are (1) that metaphor is a conceptual, rather than strictly linguistic, phenomenon, and (2) that metaphor exemplifies processes which are at work in cognition more generally. This view of metaphor is here placed…

This study explores a de-bias function for a decision support systems (DSS) that is designed to help a user avoid confirmation bias by increasing the user's learning opportunities. Grounded upon the theory of mental models, the use of DSS is viewed as involving a learning process, whereby a user is directed to build mental models so as to reduce…

The present research examined whether 5- to 6.5-month-old infants would hold different expectations about various physical events involving a box after receiving evidence that it was either inert or self-propelled. Infants were surprised if the inert but not the self-propelled box: reversed direction spontaneously (Experiment 1); remained…

Negation, conjunction, and disjunction are major building blocks in the formation of concepts. This article presents a new model-based theory of these Boolean components. It predicts that individuals simplify the models of instances of concepts. Evidence corroborates the theory and challenges alternative accounts, such as those based on minimal…

Robert Hooke's "Micrographia" (1665) holds an important place in the history of scientific visual rhetoric. Hooke's accomplishment lies not only in a stunning array of engravings, but also in a "pedagogy of sight"--a rhetorical framework that instructs readers how to view images in accordance with an ideological or epistemic program. Hooke not…

How do people select among different strategies to accomplish a given task? Across disciplines, the strategy selection problem represents a major challenge. We propose a quantitative model that predicts how selection emerges through the interplay among strategies, cognitive capacities, and the environment. This interplay carves out for each…

A number of anthropologists have argued that religious concepts are minimally counterintuitive and that this gives them mnemic advantages. This paper addresses the question of why people have the memory architecture that results in such concepts being more memorable than other types of concepts by pointing out the benefits of a memory structure…

Knowledge of familiar people is essential to guide social interaction, yet there is uncertainty about whether semantic knowledge for people is stored in a categorical structure as for objects. Four priming experiments using hard-to-perceive primes investigated whether occupation forms a category connecting famous persons in semantic memory. Primes…

This chapter describes how globalization is changing the U.S. economy and the job market for community college students and discusses the skills students need to participate in a globalized world.