The traditional approach to teach problem solving usually consists in showing students the solutions of some example-problems and then in asking students to practice individually on solving a certain number of related problems. This approach does not ensure that students learn to solve problems and above all to think about the solution process in…

Recent neurological breakthroughs in our understanding of the Critical Period Hypothesis and prosody may suggest strategies on how phonics instruction could improve L2 language learning and in particular phoneme/grapheme decoding. We therefore conducted a randomised controlled-trial on the application of prosody and phonics techniques, to improve…

This study investigated metaphor comprehension in a group of 24 Italian high-functioning ASD children (mean age: 8.5 y.). Children were administered a test that was composed of "sensorial metaphors", which are understood by normally developing preschoolers, that the children had to verbally explain. Two normally developing control…

Narrative competence can be considered an indicator of children's knowledge about other people's minds. The present study investigates the relations between, on the one hand, children's narrative competence and their second order language of mind (comprehension of deception) and, on the other, their developmental trends from kindergarten to…

The effects of warning on false recognition and associated subjective experience of false recollection and familiarity were investigated in 7-to 13-year-old children and young adults (N = 259) using the Deese-Roediger-McDermott (DRM) paradigm. Two warning conditions (warning with an example of a critical lure and warning without an example of a…

This study aimed at testing a model in which cognitive, dispositional, and social factors were integrated into a single perspective as predictors of gambling behavior. We also aimed at providing further evidence of gender differences related to adolescent gambling. Participants were 994 Italian adolescents (64% Males; Mean age = 16.57).…

This paper describes a method aimed at pointing out the quality of the mental models undergraduate engineering students deploy when asked to create explanations for phenomena or processes and/or use a given model in the same context. Student responses to a specially designed written questionnaire are quantitatively analyzed using…

Verbal overshadowing reflects the impairment in memory performance following verbalization of nonverbal stimuli. However, it is not clear whether the same mechanisms are responsible for verbal overshadowing effects observed with different stimuli and task demands. In the present article, we propose a multiprocess view that reconciles the main…

This study investigated the effects of reading a science text illustrated by either a labeled or unlabeled picture. Both the online process of reading the text and the offline conceptual learning from the text were examined. Eye-tracking methodology was used to trace text and picture processing through indexes of first- and second-pass reading or…

This paper reports on the compositional processes of an Italian rock band whilst composing a new piece over seven group composing sessions. The band members were videotaped during the group composing sessions in their rehearsal room. A qualitative analysis of the video recordings was performed using the Constant Comparative Method. In the…

This study gives insights into how Logo-like microworlds can affect cognitive development related to mathematics education of students with math learning difficulties. In particular, we analyse the case of a 15-year-old student with dyslexia and severe dyscalculia. Among the various cognitive aspects involved, here we delve into the development of…

This paper presents a comprehensive analysis of the link between age and proficiency in information-processing skills, based on information drawn from the Survey of Adult Skills (PIAAC). The data reveal significant age-related differences in proficiencies, strongly suggesting that proficiency tends to "naturally" decline with age. Age…

Distraction during encoding has long been known to disrupt later memory performance. Contrary to this long-standing result, we show that detecting an infrequent target in a dual-task paradigm actually improves memory encoding for a concurrently presented word, above and beyond the performance reached in the full-attention condition. This absolute…

This study aims to investigate the association between the mental state talk of mothers and their preadolescent children, with the hypothesis that an intergenerational transmission of mentalizing abilities may extend beyond early childhood. The participants were 41 mother-preadolescent child nonclinical dyads. The Adult Attachment Interview (AAI)…

The purpose of the present study was to test the efficacy of a visuospatial working memory (WM) training in terms of its transfer effects and maintenance effects, in the young-old and old-old. Forty young-old and 40 old-old adults took part in the study. Twenty participants in each age group received training with a visuospatial WM task, whereas…