The Remote Associates Test (RAT; Mednick, 1962; Mednick & Mednick, 1967) is a commonly employed test of creative convergent thinking. The RAT is scored with a dichotomous scoring, scoring correct answers as 1 and all other answers as 0. Based on recent research into the information processing underlying RAT performance, we argued that the…

This study explored whether the color of letters could influence letter discrimination task performances and whether this effect of color could be modulated by processing level (global vs. local) and attention level of color (color-attended vs. color-unattended). We used the Navon letters in red, green, or white as stimuli at a relatively small…

"Complex systems" is a general-purpose reasoning scheme, used in a wide range of disciplines to make sense of systems with many similar entities. In this paper, we examine the generality of this approach in learning chemistry. Students' reasoning in chemistry in terms of emergent complex systems is explored for two curricula: a normative…

Cognitive conflict arises when students' expectation about a physical situation, such as the relative temperatures of metal and cloth, are not experimentally verified. The paper reviews this approach as a tool for promoting conceptual learning in undergraduate engineering courses, through three case studies. These cases demonstrate that cognitive…

Studies have identified deficits in attention in individuals with aphasia in language and nonlanguage tasks. Attention may play a role in the construction and use of language, as well as in learning and the process of rehabilitation, yet the role of attention on rehabilitation is not fully understood. To improve the understanding of attention and…

Is it important to hear positions opposing one's own from others who genuinely believe them? We examine whether the thinking of those who engage in discourse with peers who hold an opposing view benefit by hearing arguments favoring the opposing position expressed by individuals known to hold this position. We report on 131 young adolescents who…

We propose the first steps towards a rigorous analysis of the effectiveness of an emerging pedagogy, Computational Thinking. We found that two aspects of the pedagogy have a positive effect with regard to enhancing two cognitive processes, namely sequential thinking and in abstract thinking. Our data was gathered experimentally with a cohort of…

Instructional design deals with the optimization of learning processes. To achieve this, three aspects need to be considered: (1) the learning task itself, (2) the design of the learning material, and (3) the activation of the learner's cognitive processes during learning. Based on Cognitive Load Theory, learners also need to deal with the task…

Background: Children with dyslexia and/or developmental language disorder (hereafter children with DDLD) have been reported to retrieve fewer words than their typically developing (TD) peers in semantic fluency tasks. It is not known whether this retrieval difficulty can be attributed to the semantic structure of their lexicon being poor or,…

The spatial ability is defined as the combination of some abilities such as imagining the movements of objects, mental rotation, and spatial transformations. Students' spatial abilities can be enhanced through specific education programs. This study investigated the effects of engineering design-based instruction on spatial abilities of 8th grade…

This study examined the relationship between mental state term use in children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) and typically developing (TD) children engaged in play. Expression of mental state terms was used as an indicator of theory of mind (ToM) skills. Archived data were used to compare mental state term use for five ASD-TD dyads engaged…

Using student mathematical thinking during instruction is valued by the mathematics education community, yet practices surrounding such use remain difficult for teachers to enact well, particularly in the moment during whole-class instruction. Teachers' orientations--their beliefs, values, and preferences--influence their actions, so one important…

What cognitive goods do children plausibly have a right to in an education? In attempting to answer this question, I begin with a puzzle centred around Joel Feinberg's observation that a denial of certain cognitive goods can violate a child's right to an open future. I show that propositionalist, dispositionalist and objectualist characterisations…

In psychological assessment, there is a tension between oral and written language. This tension is rarely troubled or even noted in clinical practice. For report writing purposes, psychologists routinely transform oral, socially embedded material into written texts. In this paper, I highlight three points in the psychological assessment process…

Computational activity is increasingly relevant in education and society, and researchers have investigated its role in students' mathematical thinking and activity. More work is needed within mathematics education to explore ways in which computational activity might afford development of mathematical practices. In this paper, we specifically…