The capacity to tell the difference between two faces within an infrequently experienced face group (e.g. other species, other race) declines from 6 to 9 months of age unless infants learn to match these faces with individual-level names. Similarly, the use of individual-level labels can also facilitate differentiation of a group of non-face…

Although researchers agree that the first 5 years of life are critical for children's developing executive functions (EFs), further advances are hindered by a lack of consensus on the design and selection of developmentally appropriate EF tasks for young children. Given this debate, well-established adult measures of EF routinely have been adapted…

The assumption of conditional independence between the responses and the response times (RTs) for a given person is common in RT modeling. However, when the speed of a test taker is not constant, this assumption will be violated. In this article we propose a conditional joint model for item responses and RTs, which incorporates a covariance…

The embedded figures test has often been used to reveal weak central coherence in individuals with autism spectrum disorder (ASD). Here, we administered a more standardized automated version of the embedded figures test in combination with the configural superiority task, to investigate the effect of contextual modulation on local feature…

Structured abstract: Introduction: Difficulties in science and mathematics may stem from intuitive interference of irrelevant salient variables in a task. It has been suggested that such intuitive interference is based on immediate perceptual differences that are often visual. Studies performed with sighted participants have indicated that in the…

This article analyzes the instructed learning of the English article system by second language (L2) learners. The Competition Model (MacWhinney, 1987, 2012) was adopted as the theoretical framework for analyzing the cues to article usage and for designing effective computer-based article instruction. Study 1 found that article cues followed a…

Inhibition is often conceptualized as a unitary construct reflecting the ability to ignore and suppress irrelevant information. At the same time, it has been subdivided into inhibition of prepotent responses (i.e., the ability to stop dominant responses) and resistance to distracter interference (i.e., the ability to ignore distracting…

This study investigated whether brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF) genotype moderated inhibitory control during an emotionally valenced task in a sample of internationally adopted adolescents (N = 109, ages 12-13 years) who spent their early years in institutional care. Participants were genotyped for the Val66Met polymorphism of the BDNF…

Arabic stress is predictable, varies across words, and does not have a contrastive role, whereas, Hebrew stress although nonpredictable, carries contrastive value. Stress processing was assessed in speakers of the two languages at three processing levels: discrimination, short-term memory, and metalinguistic awareness. In Experiment 1, Arabic…

Classic theories of cognitive control conceptualized controlled processes as slow, strategic, and willful, with automatic processes being fast and effortless. The context-specific proportion compatibility (CSPC) effect, the reduction in the compatibility effect in a context (e.g., location) associated with a high relative to low likelihood of…

Recent years have seen an increasing interest in the cognitive approach to eating disorders, which postulates that patients selectively attend to information associated with eating, body shape, and body weight. The unreliability of self-report measures in eating disorders due to strong denial of illness gave rise to experimental studies inspired…

Recent research indicates that risk competence and perception can be improved through the learning environment. The project "Riscki" examined how risk perception and risk competence in young children between three and eight years of age can be observed and measured within the classroom and school context. An intensive package of…

Introduction: One of the lines of research that has aroused great interest in recent years has been to determine the role played by certain cognitive abilities in academic performance. This article describes the relationship between executive functions (interference, flexibility and planning) and empathy and their influence on the academic…

The purpose of this study was to examine the relationship between metacognition as measured in real-life situations and IQ scores as reflected by performance on the Raven Standard Progressive Matrices Scale. It is also intended in this study to report on whether or not there were significant differences in performance on the metacognitive…

Creativity is the ability to come up with new and original solutions to problems. It is characterized along a dipole spectrum, with the opposing ends defined as convergent and divergent thinking. Previous studies have provided evidence that various cognitive functions and insight into non-verbal problems can be enhanced using non-invasive brain…