The development of the ability to anticipate--as manifested by preparatory actions and neural activation related to the expectation of an upcoming stimulus--may play a key role in the ontogeny of cognitive skills more broadly. This preregistered study examined anticipatory brain potentials and behavioral responses (reaction time; RT) to…

Skill acquisition theorists conceptualize second language (L2) learning as the acquisition of a set of perceptual, cognitive, and motor skills. The dominant view in skill acquisition theory is to regard L2 skill acquisition as a three-stage process "from initial representation of knowledge through initial changes in behavior to eventual…

Reading fluency is often predicted by rapid automatized naming (RAN) speed, which as the name implies, measures the automaticity with which familiar stimuli (e.g., letters) can be retrieved and named. Readers with dyslexia are considered to have less "automatized" access to lexical information, reflected in longer RAN times compared with…

Adolescent cannabis use is associated with working memory impairment. The present randomized controlled trial assigned adolescents ages 14 to 21 enrolled in cannabis use treatment to receive either working memory training (experimental group) or a control training (control group) as an adjunctive treatment. Cognitive function, drug use, and other…

Faces convey many signals (i.e., gaze or expressions) essential for interpersonal interaction. We have previously shown that facial expressions of emotion and gaze direction are processed and integrated in specific combinations early in life. These findings open a number of developmental questions and specifically in this paper we address whether…

The question of which cognitive impairments are primarily associated with dyslexia has been a source of continuous debate. This study examined the cognitive profile of Hebrew-speaking compensated adult dyslexics and investigated whether their cognitive abilities accounted for a unique variance in their reading performance. Sixty-nine young adults…

Objective: In this study, the authors investigated whether ADHD and oppositional defiant disorder (ODD) behaviors share associations with problems in cognitive functioning and/or family risk factors in adolescence. This was done by examining independent as well as specific associations of cognitive functioning and family risk factors with ADHD and…

We investigated linguistic and visuospatial processing during pictorial reasoning in high-functioning autism (HFA), Asperger's syndrome (ASP), and age and IQ-matched typically developing participants (CTRL), using three conditions designed to differentially engage linguistic mediation or visuospatial processing (visuospatial, V; semantic, S;…

This study investigated the effects of response rate and attention focusing on performance of ADHD, clinical-control (CRNA) and non-clinical control children in response inhibition tasks. All children completed the "Go-NoGo" task, a computer-based task of attention and impulsivity. Focused attention on this task was manipulated using a priming…

In an increasingly aging population, a number of adults are concerned about declines in their cognitive abilities. Online computer-based cognitive training programs have been proposed as an accessible means by which the elderly may improve their cognitive abilities; yet, more research is needed in order to assess the efficacy of these programs. In…

The aim of the present study was to assess the findings, reported in earlier studies, that individuals with autism spectrum disorders process visuo-spatial tasks faster than typically developing control persons. The participants in the present study were children and adolescents with Asperger syndrome (AS) or high-functioning autism (HFA) (N =…