Dual-process theories have been proposed to explain normative and heuristic responses to reasoning and decision-making problems. Standard unitary and dual-process theories predict that normative responses should increase with age. However, research has focused recently on exceptions to this standard pattern, including developmental increases in…

These experiments allow a comparison between visual and auditory presentation per se: Will it be easier to identify "red" as relevant given a geometric design or its verbal description? Suggests that visual presentation confers one advantage: allows the formation of a nonverbal code in addition to a verbal description. (Author/RK)

Assesses both individual-to-group and group-to-individual transfer on a concept-attainment task in a between-subjects design with both of the appropriate individual-to-individual and group-to-group controls. (Author/RK)

Ten- and 11-year-old boys and girls were taught to solve Inhelder and Piaget's pendulum problem and the results of the experiment replicated their expectation that unaided 10- and 11-year-olds do not often solve the pendulum problem. (Editor/RK)

According to the learned helplessness hypothesis, the learning impairment typically displayed by subjects previously given insoluble problems results from the real learning of response-outcome independence. This learning is represented as a belief in helplessness that interferes with the subsequent acquisition of adaptive responses. Two…

Two experiments were carried out in order to test the effects of task sequence on the speed of rule learning and problem solving. Experiment I involved numerical rule-learning tasks and Experiment II tested the effect of task difficulty and task precedence using problem-solving tasks. (Editor/RK)