Knowing When to Look It Up: A New Conception of Self-Assessment Ability

Knowing how to look predicts the ability to draw realistically.

Some young children are able to create stunningly realistic drawings resembling those of adult artists. What perceptual abilities underlie this talent? This study examined two candidate skills on which adult artists excel: the ability to segment a complex form mentally (measured by the Block Design Task) and the ability to see hidden forms (measured by the Group Embedded Figures Test). Sixty-se...

Behavior: Knowing When to Walk Away, Knowing When to Run

A new model has been proposed indicating that humans and other animals weigh the metabolic cost of pursuit in deciding how fast to move toward a given reward, providing a powerful framework for understanding behavior.

static versus dynamic assessment of l2 learners’ reading ability

dynamic assessment according to vygotskys sociocultural theory, states that instruction and assessment are interrelated. using static forms of assessment with second and foreign language students could do more harm than good. many teachers neglect to take account of the complexity involved in learning a second or foreign language and often wonder why learning of a language take so long. thi...

Knowing a Nascent Synapse When You See It

To understand brain development, we must learn how synapse formation shapes functional neural circuits. At the heart of this process lies the nascent synapse--an enigmatic structure spanning the developmental gap between initial cell-cell contact and the mature synapse. New experimental techniques are beginning to illuminate the processes involved in synaptogenesis, but much remains to be learn...

Knowing When to Stop