The current study investigated the relationship between children’s spatial ability and their scientific knowledge, skills and understanding. Children aged 7-11 years (N=123) completed a battery of five spatial tasks, based on a model of spatial ability in which skills fall along two dimensions: intrinsic-extrinsic; staticdynamic. Participants also answered science questions from standardised as...

Cognitive and mobility functions are involved in health-related quality of life (HRQoL). The present cross-sectional study aimed at investigating what facets of efficient cognition and functional mobility interactively contribute to mental and physical HRQoL. Fifty-six healthy older individuals (aged 65-75 years) were evaluated for mental and physical HRQoL, core cognitive executive functions (...

When thinking about the future or the upcoming actions of another person, we mentally project ourselves into that alternative situation. Accumulating data suggest that envisioning the future (prospection), remembering the past, conceiving the viewpoint of others (theory of mind) and possibly some forms of navigation reflect the workings of the same core brain network. These abilities emerge at ...

BACKGROUND Pencil-and-paper examination formats, and specifically the standard, five-option multiple-choice question, have often been questioned as a means for assessing higher-order clinical reasoning or problem solving. This study firstly investigated whether two paper formats with differing number of alternatives (standard five-option and extended-matching questions) can test problem-solving...

Two recent developments in motor neuroscience are promising the extension of theoretical concepts from motor control towards cognitive processes, including human social interactions and understanding the intentions of others. The first of these is the discovery of what are now called mirror neurons, which code for both observed and executed actions. The second is the concept of internal models,...

Systematicity is a property of cognition where capacity for certain cognitive abilities implies capacity for certain other (structurally related) cognitive abilities. This property is thought to derive from a capacity to represent/process common structural relations between constituents of cognizable entities, however, systematicity may not always materialize in such admissible contexts. A theo...

Mathematics learning difficulties are a highly comorbid and heterogeneous set of disorders linked to several dissociable mechanisms and endophenotypes. Two of these endophenotypes consist of primary deficits in number sense and verbal numerical representations. However, currently acknowledged endophenotypes are underspecified regarding the role of automatic vs. controlled information processing...

The praxic semantic system comprises a conceptual knowledge system, which stores functional information about objects, and an action knowledge system, which stores information about the correct manipulation of objects. Moreover, mechanical problem solving abilities permit to take advantages from objects structure to use unfamiliar tools or discover alternative ways of using familiar tools. This...

BACKGROUND A core difficulty for individuals with autism is making friends and successfully engaging and interacting with peers. The majority of measures to assess peer interactions are observations in a school setting or self-report. The present study examined the convergent validity of using a teacher rating scale, the Penn Interactive Peer Play Scale (PIPPS), for collecting information about...

OBJECTIVE Practice settings for American psychiatrists were examined for recent trends. METHODS Surveys were conducted in 1996 (N=970) and 2002 (N=917) among members of the American Psychiatric Association. RESULTS Between 1996 and 2002 the percentage of direct patient care hours in publicly funded settings increased from 40 to 50 percent for early-career psychiatrists and from 29 to 44 per...