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…

Flotation as a method of separation is widely researched and is applied in many industries. It has been used to address a wide range of environmental issues including treatment of wastewater, recovery of heavy metals for recycling, extraction of minerals in mining, and so forth. This laboratory attempts to show how such a simple method can be used…

Several theorists believe that different types of visual cues influence cognition and behavior through learned associations; however, research provides inconsistent results. Considering this, a quasi-experimental study was done to determine if there are significant positive effects of visual cues (color blue) and to identify if a positive increase…

In argument diagrams, perceptual cues are important to aid understanding. However, we do not know what perceptual cues are used and produced to aid understanding. We present two studies in which we investigate (1) which spatial, graphical and textual elements people spontaneously use in creating for-against argument diagrams, and (2) how people…

The genetic diversity contained in a population can be used to engage the audience in an understanding of human genotypes and phenotypes. With a series of simple examples of well-documented sensory phenotypes related to the perception of colour, aromas or food preference, the diversity of the audience can be easily explored. The collecting of…

Despite widespread use in general chemistry laboratories, the crystal violet chemical kinetics experiment frequently suffers from erroneous student results. Student calculations for the reaction order in hydroxide often contain large asymmetric errors, pointing to the presence of systematic error. Through a combination of "in silico"…

A laboratory experiment is described that extracts the tetrapyrrolic teal-colored biliverdin IXa, as its dimethyl ester, from commercially available emu eggshells. The extraction of ~10 mg samples of biliverdin is simple and requires two 3 h lab periods: A two-step acid digestion and liquid-liquid extraction, followed by short silica gel flash…

Two experimental paradigms, a picture-naming task and a Stroop interference task, were employed to address the structure of the multilingual mental lexicon; more specifically, the process of multilingual non-selective lexical access. German-English-French speakers named objects in their native and most dominant language in a task that included a…

The combined lab and lecture course is designed around the themes of colorants (dyestuffs and pigments) and fibers (natural and human-made) for nonscience majors. Students dye natural and synthetic fibers with natural dyes such as turmeric, raspberries, tea, and cochineal insects as well as synthetic dyes. The students observe the colorfast…

Children in developing countries often lack sufficient support for early learning skills prior to beginning school. This research evaluates an educational media intervention using an animated cartoon program, "Akili and Me." The program was originally created in Tanzania to teach early learning skills. This program was adapted in content…

Background: Assessment of intelligence and executive function (EF) is common in complex neuropsychiatric practice. Although previous studies have shown that EF and intelligence are related, it is unknown whether these constructs relate to one another in a similar manner across different ability groups (mild intellectual disability, borderline…

According to some accounts, the bilingual advantage is most pronounced in the domain of executive attention rather than inhibition and should therefore be more easily detected in conflict adaptation paradigms than in simple interference paradigms. We tested this idea using two conflict adaptation paradigms, one that elicits a list-wide…

Perhaps rarely is there any piece of Pre-Islamic Arabic literature where color features more strongly and less naturally than in Antara's poetry. Therefore, the intended message of color in Antara's poetry is adequately understood inasmuch as the pragmatic implicatures of color are worked out. Evidence in literature explicitly attributes Antara's…

First-order and advanced theory of mind (ToM and AToM), and their structures and relations were investigated in 229 children aged 5-8 years. ToM was assessed using 6 tasks from the first-order ToM scale, while AToM was measured using an 18-item battery (higher-order false-belief understanding; strange stories; faux pas test; eyes test;…

The present study assessed concordance between child reported and adult observed strategies to depict single and mixed emotion in the same human figure drawings. 205 children (104 boys, 101 girls) aged 6 years 2 months to 8 years 3 months formed two age groups (6 years 2 months-7 years 2 months and 7 years 3 months-8 years 3 months) across two…