Improvements in cognitive flexibility during the preschool years have been linked to developments in both working memory and inhibitory control, though the precise contribution of each remains unclear. In the current study, one hundred and twenty 2-, 3-, and 4-year-olds completed two rule-switching tasks. In one version, children switched rules in…

Mutual exclusivity (ME) refers to the assumption that there are one-to-one relations between linguistic forms and their meanings. It is used as a word-learning strategy whereby children tend to map novel labels to unfamiliar rather than familiar referents. Previous research has indicated a relation between ME and vocabulary development, which…

Performance on verbal and mathematical tasks is enhanced when participants shift from using algorithms to retrieving information directly from memory (Siegler, 1988a). However, it is unknown whether a shift to retrieval is involved in dynamic spatial skill acquisition. For example, do athletes mentally extrapolate the trajectory of the ball, or do…

Decomposition theories of morphological processing in visual word recognition posit an early morpho-orthographic parser that is blind to semantic information, whereas parallel distributed processing (PDP) theories assume that the transparency of orthographic-semantic relationships influences processing from the beginning. To test these…

The challenge of low performing schools continues to rear its ugly head in many countries, including South Africa. The responses to low performance differ from country to country, but none of these have included the enhancement of collective teacher efficacy in their repertoire. Research shows that collective teacher efficacy is positively related…

This study investigated the effect of formulaic language on L2 learners' ability to decode words in listening texts. One possibility was that formulas would facilitate listening by reducing the need to process every word of the sequences. However, a contrasting possibility was that the commonly reduced nature of formulaic words would hinder…

Certain psychopathologies are often linked to dysregulation of specific emotions (e.g., anxiety is associated with dysregulation of fear), but few studies have examined how regulatory repertoires for specific emotions (e.g., the strategies a person uses to regulate fear) relate to psychopathology, and fewer still have examined this in childhood. A…

The present study explores the independent and interactive effects of task complexity and task modality on linguistic dimensions of second language (L2) performance and investigates how these effects are modulated by individual differences in working memory capacity. Thirty-two intermediate learners of L2 Spanish completed less and more complex…

In studies of visual object recognition, strong inversion effects accompany the acquisition of expertise and imply the involvement of configural processing. Chinese literacy results in sensitivity to the orthography of Chinese characters. While there is some evidence that this orthographic sensitivity results in an inversion effect, and thus…

The present study is a follow-up study of Çakir (2016b) which focused on the wh-adverbial & which NP constructions asymmetry within island structures in Turkish. The characteristics of wh-adverbial nasil "how" is compared with the which-NP constructions "hangisekilde" "in what way" and "hangihalde"…

The present study investigates the processes by which essentialist beliefs about religious categories develop. Children (ages 5 and 10) and adults (n = 350) from 2 religious groups (Jewish and Christian), with a range of levels of religiosity, completed switched-at-birth tasks in which they were told that a baby had been born to parents of 1…

Calls for undergraduate biology reform share similar goals: to produce people who can organize, use, connect, and communicate about biological knowledge. Achieving these goals requires students to gain disciplinary expertise. Experts organize, access, and apply disciplinary knowledge differently than novices, and expertise is measurable. By asking…

In the present cross-linguistic study two experiments were conducted to investigate the effects of age and linguistic background on response tendencies of preschoolers toward forced-choice questions. A total of 163 2- to 5-year-old children, including 63 Persian speakers, 57 Kurdish speakers and 43 English speakers, were asked a set of…

While researchers have often sought to understand the learning curve in terms of multiple component processes, few studies have measured and mathematically modeled these processes on a complex task. In particular, there remains a need to reconcile how abrupt changes in strategy use can co-occur with gradual changes in task completion time. Thus,…

The present study investigated infants' knowledge about familiar nouns. Infants (n = 46, 12-20-month-olds) saw two-image displays of familiar objects, or one familiar and one novel object. Infants heard either a matching word (e.g. "foot' when seeing foot and juice), a related word (e.g. "sock" when seeing foot and juice) or a nonce…