Cognitive load studies are mostly centered on information on perceived cognitive load. Single-item subjective rating scales are the dominant measurement practice to investigate overall cognitive load. Usually, either invested mental effort or perceived task difficulty is used as an overall cognitive load measure. However, the extent to which the…

The COVID-19 pandemic caused significant health distress among autistic adults in the United States. While there is considerable evidence that autistic adults' COVID-19 health distress was related to increases in mental health concerns (e.g. depression, anxiety, and stress), there is a less clear understanding of the possible mechanisms by which…

Virtual reality (VR) has emerged as a transformative educational tool, enabling immersive learning environments that promote student engagement and understanding of complex concepts. However, despite the growing adoption of VR in education, there remains a significant gap in research exploring how generative artificial intelligence (AI), such as…

Rational numbers, such as fractions and decimals, are harder to understand than natural numbers. Moreover, individuals struggle with fractions more than with decimals. The present study sought to disentangle the extent to which two potential sources of difficulty affect secondary-school students' numerical magnitude understanding: number type…

This study aimed to identify the perspectives of post-graduate students on online learning in the field of educational sciences utilizing Bloom's revised taxonomy specified for the cognitive domain to qualitatively explore the factors affecting lower-order thinking skills (LOTS) including remembering, understanding, and applying as well as…

This study aimed to examine an assumption regarding whether generative artificial intelligence (GAI) tools can overcome the cognitive intensity that humans suffer when solving problems. We examine the performance of ChatGPT and GPT-4 on NAEP science assessments and compare their performance to students by cognitive demands of the items. Fifty-four…

Enhancing executive function in children and adolescents can have significant positive impact on their current and future daily lives. Upregulation of executive function associated with motor skill acquisition suggests that motor learning scenarios provide valuable developmental opportunities to optimize executive function. The present systematic…

Contemporary technological advancements offer new possibilities for enhancing user creativity. We aimed to explore how technology can boost student creativity to meet the twenty-first century's demand for innovative talent. Based on the 4P model of creativity (person, process, product, and press) and constructivist theory, a virtual reality (VR)…

Chase Mielke, author of "The Burnout Cure: Learning to Love Teaching Again," describes how we can reframe unhealthy thinking--identifying and fixing cognitive distortions like "mind reading" and "permanence" that lead us to assume the worst.

Awake quiescence immediately after encoding is conducive to episodic memory consolidation. Retrieval can render episodic memories labile again, but reconsolidation can modify and restrengthen them. It remained unknown whether awake quiescence after retrieval supports episodic memory reconsolidation. We sought to examine this question via an…

According to the active system consolidation theory, memory consolidation during sleep relies on the reactivation of newly encoded memory representations. This reactivation is orchestrated by the interplay of sleep slow oscillations, spindles, and theta, which are in turn modulated by certain neurotransmitters like GABA to enable long-lasting…

People often need to update representations of information upon discovering them to be incorrect, a process that can be interrupted by competing cognitive demands. Because anxiety and stress can impair cognitive performance, we tested whether looming threat can similarly interfere with the process of updating representations of a statement's…

Accurate event sequencing can add critical detail to a child's account. However, our knowledge of sequencing in childhood to date primarily centers on distinct events separated by time. Sequencing a single event's components is also important, perhaps particularly in a forensic context. In two experiments, we explored children's ability to recall…

Cognitive scientists have long used distributional semantic representations of categories. The predominant approach uses distributional representations of category-denoting nouns, such as "city" for the category city. We propose a novel scheme that represents categories as prototypes over representations of names of its members, such as…

Humans routinely make inferences about both the contents and the workings of other minds based on observed actions. People consider what others want or know, but also how intelligent, rational, or attentive they might be. Here, we introduce a new methodology for quantitatively studying the mechanisms people use to attribute intelligence to others…