We inquired whether introducing variability into a word-learning task would facilitate, inhibit, or have a neutral effect on adults' speech production and language learning. Twenty young adults from the U.S. Midwest with typical development participated. They repeated four novel words 10 times sequentially (blocked practice) and another four novel…

Elite motor skill performance is a highly-variable, complex phenomenon that is regularly observed and examined globally in various contexts such as sporting events like the Olympic games or professional contests, concert halls featuring accomplished musicians and singers, or sold-out venues that feature comedians or motivational speakers. Many…

Difficulties in monitoring reading comprehension result in poor comprehension. One key aspect of monitoring is metacomprehension, which refers to one's awareness of one's own reading comprehension. Previous studies have observed difficulties in metacomprehension among the deaf or hard-of-hearing (DHH) population. This study aims to determine…

The study identified the cognitive mechanisms that underly individual differences in mathematics and reading. There is little systematic evidence regarding the connections between cognitive capabilities, mathematics and reading among high-school students with typical development. Moreover, the study aimed to examine whether or not gender is…

The paper describes the results of a study whose main aim was to find the interrelationship between pupils' school grades in Czech language (native), mathematics, and physics and pupils' cognitive predispositions to problem-solving in science and mathematics diagnosed by the Lawson Classroom Test of Scientific Reasoning and the Culture of Problem…

Purpose: The aim of this study was to explore when and how Mandarin-speaking children use contextual cues to normalize speech variability in perceiving lexical tones. Two different cognitive mechanisms underlying speech normalization (lower level acoustic normalization and higher level acoustic-phonemic normalization) were investigated through the…

Spatial construction--the activity of creating novel spatial arrangements or copying existing ones--is a hallmark of human spatial cognition. Spatial construction abilities predict math and other academic outcomes and are regularly used in IQ testing, but we know little about the cognitive processes that underlie them. In part, this lack of…

During imaginative play, children may learn foundational skills important for academic success. Indeed, imaginative children, high in fantasy orientation (FO), may have advantages in skills that support positive classroom and social behavior. Yet findings are mixed regarding the classroom behavior of children high in fantasy orientation. The…

Purpose: Despite the fact that research on creativity and cognition have garnered the attention of researchers and practitioners for decades, there is a lack of valid, reliable, and accessible instruments for enhancing and measuring these critical skills. Leveraging research from The LEGO Foundation and in collaboration with BrainPOP and the…

External representations powerfully support and augment complex human behavior. When navigating, people often consult external representations to help them find the way to go, but do maps or verbal instructions improve spatial knowledge or support effective wayfinding? Here, we examine spatial knowledge with and without external representations in…

Traditionally, informative speeches are relegated to be passive. The classic scope of informative speeches does not consider "live" or "lived" rhetoric. After teaching public speaking for most of my career, there are times when one needs to reinvigorate assignments. This assignment challenges how we utilize memory and place to…

Design as a construct has multiple meanings depending on context, function, and agenda. This paper proposes to set out functions of design as it manifests in the context of technological activity for the purposes of technology education. The importance of context and by association intention in technological and designerly activity is presented…

A variety of studies have attempted to explain the dispositions of imagination; notably, imagination engages and develops an individual's creativity. In the present study, we propose that three types of imagination dispositions (i.e., epistemic, sensory, and future imagination) serve as cognitive mechanisms for the ability to efficiently generate…

Studies on the emergence of effects of socioeconomic inequality typically report that socioeconomic background is positively associated with early cognitive abilities. However, studies on looking behaviour in habituation tasks rarely investigate this association, although such tasks are standard in measuring cognitive abilities in infants. The…

Exams are designed to rank students objectively by their abilities, including elements such as time limits, the number and difficulty of questions, and negative marking policies. Using data from a lab-in-field experiment, we develop and estimate a model of student behavior in multiple-choice exams that incorporates the effects of time constraints…