We explored the potential of a robotics application in education as a measurement tool of child executive functioning skills. Sixty-five kindergarteners received assignments to go through a maze with a programmable robot, the Bee-Bot. Via observation we quantified how they solved these tasks. Their performance was successfully aggregated into a…

Robust knowledge serves as a common instructional target in academic settings. Past research identifying characteristics of experts' knowledge across many domains can help clarify the features of robust knowledge as well as ways of assessing it. We review the expertise literature and identify three key features of robust knowledge (deep,…

Routine human behavior has often been attributed to plans--mental representations of sequences goals and actions--but can also be attributed to more opportunistic interactions of mind and a structured environment. This study asks whether performance on a task traditionally analyzed in terms of plans can be better understood from a "situated" (or…

Empirical data suggest that there is at most a very small sex difference in general mental ability, but men clearly perform better on visuospatial tasks while women clearly perform better on tests of verbal usage and perceptual speed. In this study, we integrated these overall findings with predictions based on the Verbal-Perceptual-Rotation (VPR)…

This study investigated the relationship between 3 ability-based cognitive styles (verbal deductive, spatial imagery, and object imagery) and performance on geometry problems that provided different types of clues. The purpose was to determine whether students with a specific cognitive style outperformed other students, when the geometry problems…

Contributions in the first section of this volume are: "Learning to Identify Toy Block Structures" by Patrick Winston; "Beyond the Yellow-Volkswagen Detector and the Grandmother Cell: A General Strategy for the Exploration of Operations in Human Pattern Recognition" by Naomi Weisstein; "Visual Recognition in a Theory of Information Processing" by…

This study investigates performance differences between reflective and impulsive subjects on a recognition memory task. Results indicate that verbal recognition memory is sensitive to both cognitive style and presentation mode. (JMF)

The most popular activities from APA's successful "Activities Handbooks for the Teaching of Psychology" are gathered together and updated in this book of teachers' favorites. The lesson plans, which encourage active learning and involve the whole class, have stood the test of time and proven themselves to be entertaining, effective, and easy to…

Five experiments involving a total of 44 college students addressed the effects of intercomponent consistency on skill acquisition in a class of cognitively demanding tasks requiring rapid integration of information and rapid application of rules. The role of consistency of external stimulus-to-rule linkage in facilitating learning and performing…

Perception, problem solving, and memory provide the focus of an applied learning techniques/study skills course offered at Marist College (Poughkeepsie, New York). The unit on perception provides a discussion of the dynamics of verbal and nonverbal communication and suggests specific strategies to improve these functions. The student learns when,…

This profile of significant research findings comprises a framework for analyzing and synthesizing information on the cognitive development of children. The variables used to systematize the literature search were: perception; motor development; language; conceptual activity; and learning, memory, and problem solving. The findings are arranged…

In the first experiment, 16 kindergarten children were tested on vertical/horizontal and oblique discriminations in symmetrical and asymmetrical alignments. When stimuli were asymmetrically aligned, the former discrimination was learned as rapidly as the latter. The second experiment demonstrated that the influence of configurational cues in…

Two experiments investigated children's strategies for solving geometric matrices that were correctly or incorrectly completed and that varied in number of elements and number of transformations. Examining the relationship between working memory and item complexity, the first experiment tested 90 boys and girls of 7, 10, and 13 years of age for…

The document reports the proceedings of a conference on "Theory and Methods of Research on Aging" held under the auspices of the Division of Maturity and Old Age of the American Psychological Association, the Department of Psychology and the Human Resources Research Institute of West Virginia University, May 17-19, 1967. The summaries of four…