Used Visual Expectation Paradigm to describe information processing changes and individual differences during first year of life. Found regular age changes in mean reaction time and variability but not in minimum reaction time, suggesting that growth rate of sensory-detection information is constant during first year but age changes occur in level…

Speculates on underlying processes for the reaction time variance and age differences in anticipation latency using the Visual Expectation Paradigm. Discusses the dichotomization of reactive and anticipatory behavior, limitations of longitudinal designs, drawbacks in using standard procedures and materials, and inferences that can be made…

Examined an instructional program emphasizing African American history and culture to determine classroom experiences and the program's impact on academic motivation for the 18 African American male middle school students. Data provide mixed support for the relationships among autonomy, control, perceived competence, and intrinsic motivation…

Discusses the feasibility of Basic Variety (BV) principles proposed by Klein and Perdue, arguing that some of them need clarification with learner varieties and that they are not part of Universal Grammar (UG) as they exclude phenomena (e.g., psych verbs) that cannot be excluded from the core of natural language. (15 references) (Author/CK)

A multitrait-multimethod study collected measures of social-cognitive flexibility, crystallized social knowledge, and academic problem solving from 169 high school seniors. Results support a division of social-cognitive intelligence into declarative and procedural social knowledge (crystallized) and flexible knowledge application as distinct from…

This investigation with 122 college students, including 45 deaf students, found that neither deaf nor hearing students demonstrated a statistically significant advantage in accuracy or recall of nonverbal information about people in photographs. Deaf subjects, however, were more than twice as likely as hearing subjects to base their judgments upon…

Discusses research on the role of audience awareness in writing and human cognition, arguing that developmental writers exhibit egocentric tendencies and assume that the readers do not need elaboration or transitions. Describes four subskills of audience awareness: clear execution, adequate content, perspective differentiation, and role taking.…

Examined eighth graders' approaches to contextual word problems. Subjects were observed in two situations: open-inquiry field studies that included production of convincing representations (inscriptions) to support students' findings and; word problems with stories and student-produced data based on field studies. Analysis of mathematical…

This study administered a cognitive battery of 9 tasks to 400 regular kindergarten children and 31 children identified as gifted. The upper 2% of the regular sample outperformed 81% of the gifted sample, with minority group students achieving most of the top scores. Results support the use of such batteries in identifying previously unidentified…

Reviews research on metacomprehension, indicating that awareness and control of cognitive activity are key characteristics of successful independent readers. Presents findings from a study of 25 university students taught to use a text-marking system. Reports that the system led to more sophisticated levels of metacognitive awareness. Sample text…

Examines the constructivist educational philosophy. Highlights include the significance of written materials, the aims of education, the subjective base of constructivism, the need for more understanding of social and cognitive processes, the limitation of consciousness to the present, the need for constructs and constructs of objects,…

Charts the process by which, over some 10 years, one reader came to read a particular text "with full understanding." Indicates how crucial in that process were the complex, interacting influences of other, simpler literary texts, of the reader's own life experience, and (paradoxically) of "family" experience not consciously…

This article discusses principles of cognitive elaboration which can help students retain and recall information. Eleven elaborative methods are described, including transformational and situational methods at the microlevel and generality and general-to-detailed methods at the macrolevel. Implications for teachers working with students with…

Examines word awareness in 4-year-old children, comparing bilinguals and second language learners with monolingual children. The study controlled for many methodological problems, including the possibility of enhanced word awareness due to early reading. Results indicate that experience with a second language does not promote word awareness at…

Examined children's ability to settle causal relations and their capacity to make conclusions based on certain experiences and representations. Found that preschool children have a solid explanatory basis for their everyday life, within which facts are not generally accepted but are interpreted through a certain "logic," and the motives…