The response of military psychology in times of war or other great public crises may presage the success of the profession in less perilous times. The ability of public-sector psychologists to provide assistance and improve the common welfare during conflict or turmoil is generally followed by an increased demand for psychological services. This…

To explore how online speech processing efficiency relates to vocabulary growth in the 2nd year, the authors longitudinally observed 59 English-learning children at 15, 18, 21, and 25 months as they looked at pictures while listening to speech naming one of the pictures. The time course of eye movements in response to speech revealed significant…

The purpose of this study was to assess the influence of phonological priming on the speech reaction time (SRT) of children who do (CWS) and who do not (CWNS) stutter during a picture-naming task. Participants were eighteen 3-5-year-old CWS (M = 50.67 months, SD= 11.83 months), matched in age and gender with 18 CWNS (M = 49.44 months, SD = 10.22…

What brain mechanisms underlie autism, and how do they give rise to autistic behavioral symptoms? This article describes a neural model, called the Imbalanced Spectrally Timed Adaptive Resonance Theory (iSTART) model, that proposes how cognitive, emotional, timing, and motor processes that involve brain regions such as the prefrontal and temporal…

It has been observed that students react in similar ways to mathematics and science tasks that differ with regard either to their content area and/or to the type of reasoning required, but share some common, external features. Based on these observations, the Intuitive Rules Theory was proposed. In this present study the framework of this theory…

Several research laboratories have found that instructed behavior can be less sensitive to changes in contingencies than shaped behavior. The current experiment examined whether these differences in sensitivity could be related to resistance to change. Two groups of subjects, who were matched on the basis of an initial disruption assessment, were…

Examinee response times from a computerized adaptive test taken by 204 examinees taking a certification examination were analyzed using a hierarchical linear model. Two equations were posed: a within-person model and a between-person model. Variance within persons was eight times greater than variance between persons. Several variables…

As part of a study to determine whether visual and manual response systems are correlated, 26 children between 40 and 51 months of age took part in visual and manual reaction time (RT) tasks. Subjects, whose RTs had previously been tested at 3 months of age, were tested in 1 of 2 conditions. In the first condition, subjects viewed pictures only…

This paper considers the feasibility of incorporating research results from cognitive science into the modeling of performance on psychometric tests and the construction of test items. The paper focuses on the feasibility of modeling performance on a three-dimensional rotation task within the context of Item Response Theory (IRT). To test the…

The question of whether performance measures may be more accurate than examination methods to assess an individual's abilities and knowledge is examined, based on a literature review. An information processing view that focuses on the internal activities of thinking and the relationship to external stimuli is considered. Information processing…

Age-related and test-retest changes in reflection and impulsivity were investigated among preschool and school age subjects and senior adults. A study of each age group was conducted using either the Matching Familiar Figures test (MFF) or the Kansas Reflection-Impulsivity Scale for Preschoolers (KRISP). In all three studies the procedure was to…

A six-process theory of analogical reasoning was tested by administering verbal analogy items to students in grades 3 through college. The items were classified according to five verbal relations: synonyms, antonyms, functional, linear ordering, and class membership. A new method of componential analysis that does not require precueing was used to…

Fifty-five recent studies of individual differences (IDs) in elementary cognitive tasks (ECTs) are reviewed. Twenty-five data sets are examined, analyzed, or reanalyzed by factor analysis. The following promising dimensions are identified: basic perceptual processes, reaction and movement times, mental comparison and recognition tasks, retrieval…

The reliability of multiple choice tests--containing different numbers of response options--was investigated for 260 students enrolled in technical college economics courses. Four test forms, constructed from previously used four-option items, were administered, consisting of (1) 60 two-option items--two distractors randomly discarded; (2) 40…

Detailed item analysis results for a form of the Scholastic Aptitude Test were examined for evidence of sex differences in test speededness. The conclusions were: (1) there was no evidence of appreciable differences in rate-of-work on any section of the Scholastic Aptitude Test; (2) there was some evidence that low-scoring females on the…