Two experiments tested the hypothesis that scripts (event schemas) provide a basis for categorical structures in semantic memory. Significantly better memory and organization were achieved on slot-filler lists than on either taxonomic or complementary lists, suggesting that slot-filler categories are more available in preschoolers' semantic…

Focuses on understanding mental models people develop for judging veracity. Hypothesizes that individual differences in models predict participants' attributions and confidence in making attributions. Indicates that participants' mental models for detecting deception are detailed, changing, and idiosyncratic, varying in structure and degree of…

Answers Burn's question related to a previous study on the nature of knowledge about abstract algebra. Claims that a previous paper presents research that attempts to contribute to knowledge of how students' understanding of certain group concepts may develop instead of teaching abstract algebra with the computer software ISETL. (ASK)

A high school sophomore and a graduate student completed the Occu-U-Sort. Cognitive mapping with concurrent verbalizations showed how the task elicits different cognitive structures in novices and experts. Uses of the card sort for diagnosing career problems and prescribing interventions were identified. (SK)

Claims that people determine whether something is a member of a given artifact kind by inferring that it was successfully created with the intention that it belong to that kind. Discusses function-based and intentional-historical accounts of artifact concepts. Concludes that a rich set of inferential capacities is needed to constitute a theory of…

Reports on connectionist models that simulated the formation of global-level and basic-level representations in young infants; revealed a global-to-basic order of category emergence; uncovered formation of two global-level representations--initial "self-organizing" perceptual level and subsequent "trained," non-perceptual…

Competency-based education (CBE) has moved from observing task performance to the cognitive structures underlying performance. This appropriation of cognitive psychology has not reconciled differences in definitions of competence. Instead, it is used to explain the purposes of CBE in meeting the needs of industry, supplanting any other values that…

Cognitive research findings depict learning as an active, constructivist, cumulative, and self-regulated process leading to the development of understanding and complex, skilled performance. Nurse educators can use these findings to design courses reflecting complex performance, providing for collaborative learning, encouraging student reflection…

Compares science and technology in terms of approach to the natural world; aims, goals, and purposes; and knowledge structures and content. Concludes that the goal of technology is better viewed as production of things, products, processes, or systems to alter the natural world. (SK)

Discusses racism from disease perspective. Posits underlying schema of irrelevance as cognitive structure acquired in childhood to cope with inconsistent data of racial oppression in ideologically egalitarian society. Sees schema coming into conflict with diversity in U.S. life and individual manifesting disease symptoms. Utility of group…

Refines the basic entity model of information theory and extends it to analyze mathematically the physical symbol transformation characteristics, as well as energy-matter and cognition phenomena occurring in the human mind. Reviews existing theories; examines physical symbol subsystem, cognitive perspective, energy-matter subsystem; and discusses…

Culture as a group phenomenon versus the need of counselors to work with the individual is addressed. The VISION model of culture, which accounts for within-group and between-group differences, the disappearance of groups, and the emergence of new ones, is presented. Two examples of multicultural interventions are reported. (Author/EMK)

Reviews Thelen and Smith's book and its account of "how knowing develops from doing." Concentrates on the nature of dynamic systems. (DR)

Maintains that there are core-specific and non-core-specific domains of knowledge, but that only the core-specific domains benefit from innate skeletal structures. Asserts that core skeletal domains are universally shared, even though their particular foci may vary. Emphasizes that individuals vary in terms of the noncore domains they acquire.…

Examines an argument about density among a middle school class of 10 students focussing on the argument as an example of a chaotic and complex system, the emerging development of understandings, and the underlying cognitive structures affecting students' understandings. (MM)