The authors explore the use of three basic tenets from Self-Determination Theory--competence, relatedness, and autonomy--for a definition of play that resists the current popular call for play to be freely chosen. They explore whether free play truly exists and whether complete choice constitutes an absolute requirement for children to consider…

Theories of eating regulation often attribute overweight to a malfunction of homeostatic regulation of body weight. With the goal conflict model of eating, we present a new perspective that attributes the difficulty of chronic dieters (i.e., restrained eaters) in regulating their food intake to a conflict between 2 incompatible goals--namely,…

In this article, I examine developments in research on achievement motivation and comment on how those developments are reflected in Wittrock's generative model of learning. Specifically, I focus on the roles of prior knowledge, the generation of knowledge, and beliefs about ability. Examples from Wittrock's theory and from current motivational…

The debate between Simulation-Theory (ST) and Theory-Theory (TT) provides the dominant theoretical framework for research on "theory of mind" (ToM). Behavioural research has failed to provide clear methods for discriminating between these theories, but a number of recent studies have claimed that neuroimaging methods do allow key predictions of ST…

How does the brain generate our experience of being in control over our actions and their effects? Here, we argue that the perception of events as self-caused emerges from a comparison between anticipated and actual action-effects: if the representation of an event that follows an action is activated before the action, the event is experienced as…

A biologically detailed computational model is described of how categorization judgments become automatic in tasks that depend on procedural learning. The model assumes 2 neural pathways from sensory association cortex to the premotor area that mediates response selection. A longer and slower path projects to the premotor area via the striatum,…

A theory of timing is proposed, based on the observation that signals of reinforcement elicit adjunctive behaviors. Transitions between these behaviors are described as a Poisson process. These behaviors may come to serve as the basis for conditional discriminations of the passage of time. (SLD)

Cognitive psychology lacks explicit theories that encompass more than a single experimental paradigm. This research presents a theory of memory retrieval that not only applies over a range of paradigms but also deals with experimental data in greater depth and more detail than competing models. The theory provides a rationale for relating…

Reviews research on relationship between cognitive schemas and vocational behavior following from Kelly's (1955) personal construct psychology. Focuses particular attention on traditional study of vocational differentiation and integration as well as more recent efforts to combine these two variables into a structural model of vocational…

A model of need gratification inspired by the work of K.E. Rosengren suggests a theoretical framework making it possible to identify, measure, and assess the components of the need gratification process with respect to the mass media. Methods having cognitive and behavioral components are designed by individuals to achieve need gratification. Deep…

Results from the measurement of latencies of prespecified subject-verb-object utterances indicate the Semi-predicate model is consistent with hesitation studies in demonstrating that speech is initiated before all information about at utterance has been processed or linguistically coded. (Author/BJG)

This article critically examines the evidence for interpersonal complementarity according to four recent theories. The only prediction found to be regularly supported is that friendly-dominant and friendly-submissive behaviors are complementary. A repeated finding is that hostile-dominant acts are frequently responded to with further…

Artificial Intelligence researchers and cognitive scientists commonly believe that thinking involves manipulating representations. Thinking involves search, inference, and making choices. This is how we model reasoning and what goes on in the brain is similar. Winograd and Flores present a radically different view, claiming that our knowledge is…

Today, the term 'behavior therapy' has no clear denotation. Those who adhere to the more delimited meanings of behavior therapy tend to disregard significant nonbehavioral therapeutic development. They also overlook convincing data demonstrating that in adult humans, conditioning is produced through cognitive mediation. Adoption of a more…

This research presents an integrative theoretical framework to explain and to predict psychological changes achieved by different modes of treatment. This theory states that psychological procedures, whatever their form, alter the level and strength of "self-efficacy". (Editor/RK)