The perspective-adjustment model of language interpretation assumes an initial egocentric stage in comprehension that is only later adjusted to the interlocutor's perspective. Moreover, substantial processing resources are involved in perspective-taking. However, many experiments in the perspective-adjustment framework do not control for visual…

Individuals with greater cognitive abilities generally show reduced rates of mind-wandering when completing relatively demanding tasks (Randall, Oswald, & Beier, 2014). However, it is yet unclear whether elevated rates of mind-wandering among low-ability individuals are manifestations of deliberate, intentional episodes of mind-wandering…

Attentional control of referential information is an important contributor to the structure of discourse. We investigated how attention and memory interplay during visually situated sentence production. We manipulated speakers' attention to the agent or the patient of a described event by means of a referential or a dot visual cue. We also…

Listening comprehension, which is relatively straightforward for native language (L1) speakers, is often frustrating for second language (L2) learners. Listening comprehension is important to L2 acquisition, but little is known about the variables that influence the development of L2 listening skills. The goal of this study was to determine which…

Two experiments assessed how reading aloud versus reading silently would benefit recognition and recall performance of content-specific vocabulary (i.e., the production effect). Participants studied 30 terms from an American history curriculum by reading half of the vocabulary aloud, while the remaining words were read silently. After a brief…

The study of executive function (EF) has become increasingly popular in multiple areas of research. A wealth of evidence has supported the value of EF in shaping notable outcomes across typical and atypical development; however, little evidence has supported the cognitive contributors to early EF development. The current study used data from a…

Background: Sleep problems have an impact on executive functioning in the general population. While children with Down syndrome (DS) are at high risk for sleep problems, the impact of these sleep problems on executive functioning in school-age children with DS is less well documented. Our study examined the relationship between parent-reported and…

Autism spectrum disorder (ASD) and autism-like traits are associated with deficits in face memory ability, although it is not yet clear whether this deficit reflects a specific aspect of the ASD/autism-like phenotype. We addressed this issue using a neurotypical sample of adolescent twins (N[subscript complete pairs] = 782) drawn from the Twins…

Working memory, the system allowing for a simultaneous maintenance and processing of information, is typically conceived as a capacity limited system. A proposed method to transcend its standard maintenance capacity is to maintain multifeature objects, instead of isolated features. Several studies have shown that multifeature memory items are…

Through five waves of data collection, this longitudinal study investigated the development of spatial skills in 304 elementary school children (M[subscript age] = 7.64 years) as they progressed from the second to fourth grade. The study focused on whether multiple latent classes with different developmental profiles best explain development.…

We set out to (i) assess the handwriting skills of signing deaf students, and (ii) examine the extent to which their text composition and spelling performances are linked to their handwriting efficiency. We asked 15 prelingually and profoundly deaf middle-school students (M = 15.18 years), all sign-language users, and a group of hearing students…

This study investigated the impact of readers' prior beliefs and level of in-group identification on the comprehension of controversial texts. Psychology students from a university that is known for its specialisation on psychoanalysis in clinical psychology read two controversial texts on the issue of whether cognitive behavioural therapy or…

This review highlights some areas of current interest in teaching students to spell and how spelling skills develop. The topics covered in the paper include: theories of spelling acquisition, theories guiding effective teaching, the importance of word study approaches across the age range, the influence of technology on learning to spell, spelling…

Digit comparison is strongly related to individual differences in children's arithmetic ability. Why this is the case, however, remains unclear to date. Therefore, we investigated the relative contribution of three possible cognitive mechanisms in first and second graders' digit comparison performance: digit identification, digit--number word…

This study investigated the processes reflected in the widely observed N400 and P600 event-related potential (ERP) effects and tested the hypothesis that the N400 and P600 effects are functionally linked in a tradeoff relationship, constrained in part by individual differences in cognitive ability. Sixty participants read sentences, and ERP…