Inhibition is often conceptualized as a unitary construct reflecting the ability to ignore and suppress irrelevant information. At the same time, it has been subdivided into inhibition of prepotent responses (i.e., the ability to stop dominant responses) and resistance to distracter interference (i.e., the ability to ignore distracting…

Most current efforts to enhance critical thinking focus on skills practice and training. The empirical research from the fields of cognition and affect sciences suggest that positive mood, even when transiently induced, can have beneficial effects on cognitive flexibility and problem solving. We undertook this study to test this hypothesis in a…

Unsworth and Engle (2007) recently proposed a model of working memory capacity characterized by, among other things, the ability to conduct a strategic, cue-dependent search of long-term memory. Although this ability has been found to mediate individual variation in a number of higher order cognitive tasks, the component processes involved remain…

Information Integration Theory (IIT) is concerned with how people combine information into an overall judgment. A method is hereby presented to perform Functional Measurement (FM) experiments, the methodological counterpart of IIT, on the Web. In a comparison of Web-based FM experiments, face-to-face experiments, and computer-based experiments in…

A gradient method is used to obtain least squares estimates of parameters in constrained multidimensional scaling in N spaces. Features and constraints of the method and two applications of the procedure are presented. (Author/JKS)

Two lines of psychometric interest are combined: a) multidimensional scaling and, b) factor analysis. This is achieved by employing three-mode factor analysis of scalar product matrices, one for each subject. Two of the modes are the group of objects scaled and the third is the sample of subjects. Resulting from this are, an object space, a person…

Results in this study suggest that it is possible to use performance on a moderator or predictability scale to select a subgroup for whom correspondence between two predictors and the criterion is much greater than that of a subgroup whose scores on the moderator indicate a lesser degree of correspondence. (Author/ES)

As part of a long term project relating individual differences in performance on paper and pencil tests of intellectual aptitude and achievement to differences observed in laboratory studies of cognition, data have been collected comparing test scores with simple choice reaction times. The three studies summarized here suggest that the…

Individual differences in academic success were investigated in a geographically defined whole-population sample of very preterm children with a gestational age of less than 32 weeks or a birth weight of less than 1500 gm. The sample consisted of 264 very preterm children (75.6% of German-speaking survivors) and 264 controls matched for gender,…