Previous research on scientific reasoning has shown that it involves a diverse set of skills. Yet, little is known about generality or domain specificity of those skills, an important issue in theories of expertise and in attempts to automate scientific reasoning skills. We present a study designed to test what kinds of skills psychologists actually use in designing and interpreting experiments...

Flow is a psychological state that is reported to improve people’s performance. Flow can emerge when the person’s skills and the challenges of their activity match. This paper applies this concept to artificial intelligence agents. We equip a decision-making agent with a metacontrol policy that guides the agent to activities where the agent’s skills match the activity difficulty. Consequently, ...

We describe a patient who developed topographical memory loss after a closed head injury. His symptoms and the psychological test results indicate a selective deficit of topographical memory, his perceptual and spatial skills being relatively unimpaired.

This article presents findings from the Children's Test of Nonword Repetition (CNRep). Normative data based on its administration to over 600 children aged between four and nine years are reported. Close developmental links are established between CNRep scores and vocabulary, reading, and comprehensive skills in children during the early school years. The links between nonword repetition and la...

AIMS Home detoxification is a recognized method of treating problem drinkers within their own home environment. The aim of this research is to determine whether a relatively brief psychological intervention adds to its effectiveness. METHODS A pragmatic trial with 91 participants randomly assigned to either the psychological intervention or treatment as usual. Community Psychiatric Nurses wer...

We used a set of action verbs based on Bloom’s taxonomy to assess learning outcomes in two college-level introductory psychology courses. The action verbs represented an acronym, IDEA, comprising skills relating to identifying, defining or describing, evaluating or explaining, and applying psychological knowledge. Exam performance demonstrated that higher level cognitive skills in Bloom’s taxon...

To investigate the effects of robots on human self-assessment under the more general contexts of learning, this research focused on the evaluative feedback by robots. A psychological experiment was conducted by using a human-sized humanoid robot. The results found that the evaluative context tended to increase the subjects’ negative responses regarding disclosure of their skills to the robot an...

Background and Objectives: Low quality of life in hemodialysis patients is a major factor leading to cardiovascular diseases and other important outcomes such as hospitalization and death. The present study attempted to examine the impacts of training intervention on perceived psychological health and quality of life among hemodialysis patients. Methods: In this cross-sectional intervention s...