This paper examines the mental processes involved in inferring perspective changes resulting from the rotation of a spatial array or from the rotation of the viewer of that array. Under certain conditions, viewer-rotation problems become easy and array-rotation problems become difficult. Apparently, an array is fixed vis-a-vis the spatial context.…

How do infants individuate and track objects, and among them objects belonging to their species, when they can only rely on information about the properties of those objects? We propose the Human First Hypothesis (HFH), which posits that infants possess information about their conspecifics and use it to identify and count objects. F. Xu and S.…

Two experiments tested predictions from a theory in which processing load depends on relational complexity (RC), the number of variables related in a single decision. Tasks from six domains (transitivity, hierarchical classification, class inclusion, cardinality, relative-clause sentence comprehension, and hypothesis testing) were administered to…

All languages rely to some extent on word order to signal relational information. Why? We address this question by exploring communicative and cognitive factors that could lead to a reliance on word order. In Study 1, adults were asked to describe scenes to another using their hands and not their mouths. The question was whether this home-made…

Two experiments employed story telling to investigate whether production is adapted to comprehension. Subjects were more likely to specify instruments from stories if the instruments were atypical or important to the story. A mathematical model proposed that instrument concepts may be selected at three stages in the production process. (Author/LMO)

Piaget's characterization of formal operational thought and human judgment psychologists' model of bounded rationality are two conflicting models dealing with the nature and limits of mature thought. However, a look at the respective databases demonstrates their complementarity and their contribution to understanding mature cognition. (Author/RD)