Still in NY at NASP - bloggin' lite on the road

Here is my lovely lady Di at center court two rows from the scoring table at the NIT championship game at Madison Square Garden. Thanks to Jack McArdle for the tickets.

Still in NY at NASP - here with my lovely fiance Diane

NY Times covers multitasking research

Multitasking research covered by NY Times.

Technorati Tags: psychology, educational psychology, neuroscience, neuropsychology, multitasking, working memory, executive function, attention, intelligence, cognition, NY Times
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On the road again

I'm on the road attending the NASP convention in NY starting tomorrow (3-26-07) and will return late Sunday (4-1-07). Blog posts will be minimal to possibly zero.

I shall return.

IQ Brain Clock EWOK (Evolving Web of Knowledge)

Sorry for the dearth of posts. I've been busy getting ready to attend NASP in NY (tomorrow thru Sunday) and working feverishly to develop and upload the first IQ Brain Clock EWOK (Evolving Web of Knowledge). Check it out....it should give readers who are interested in temporal processing and mental time-keeping busy while I'm away at NASP :)

Technorati Tags: psychology, educational psychology, school psychology, neuropsychology, neuroscience, mental time keeping, interval timing, IQ clock, brain clock, intelligence, cognition, EWOK, knowledge, temporal processing, time perception, rhythm

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Random tidbits from the mind blogsphere 3-25-07

• As per usual, Developing Intelligence has a couple of interesting posts regarding developmental trends in cognitive proactive interference and directed forgetting.
• The Eide Neurolearning blog has some interesting thoughts on the diagnosis (misdiagnosis) of severe reading disabilities (dyslexia)
• Thanks to Sharp Brains for the FYI regarding the Brain Fitness # 3 Blog Carnival. I wish I could find time to contribute to this nice blog carnival.

Technorati Tags: psychology, educational psychology, school psychology, neuropsychology, neuroscience, mind blogsphere, mind, cognition, intelligence, memory, dyslexia, brain fitness

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Recent literature of interest 3-18-07

This weeks recent literature of interest can be found by clicking here.

Technorati tags: teaching tool. psychology. educational psychology. school psychology.

National intelligence (IQ) and outcomes - more info

As promised, here is more information regarding national IQ and various outcome measures. I found some of the articles and have posted links to them. In addition, I found I had omitted an important 2007 article by Lynn and Mikk....it is now included in the list below.

Be aware....the research in this area is not without controversy. Check out the post regarding Lynn's book (IQ and the Wealth of Nations) on this topic at Wikipedia.

• Barber, N. (2005). Educational and ecological correlates of IQ: A cross-national investigation. Intelligence, 33(3), 273-284. (click here)
  
• Lynn, R. & Mikk, J. (2007). National differences in intelligence and educational attainment. Intelligence, 35, 115-121 (click here)
  
• Lynn, R., & Vanhanen, T. (2001). National IQ and economic development: A study of eighty-one nations. Mankind Quarterly, 41(4), 415-435.
  
• Voracek, M. (2004). National intelligence and suicide rate: an ecological study of 85 countries. Personality and Individual Differences, 37(3), 543-553. (click here)
  
• Voracek, M. (2005). National intelligence, suicide rate in the elderly, and a threshold intelligence for suicidality: An ecological study of 48 Eurasian countries. Journal of Biosocial Science, 37(6), 721-740.
• Whetzel, D. L., & McDaniel, M. A. (2006). Prediction of national wealth. Intelligence, 34(5), 449-458. (click here)
  

Technorati Tags: psychology, educational psychology, neuropsychology, Canada, intelligence, IQ, IQ test, IQ score, national intelligence, nation IQ, national IQ, Test the Nation, CBC

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National intelligence (IQ) and outcomes

Tonight the CBC "Test the Nation" show aired. I just checked my hit counter and see a significant increase in hits from Canada. Welcome to my neighbors to the north.

In case folks are interested in recent scholarly research on studies of national IQ and different outcome variables, I've done a quick literature search of my professional reference database. Below are the articles I found. Warning -- I've not read any of these articles in depth nor do I have much interest in this specific topic in the field of intelligence (see my vita and web page for my interests). This is primarily an FYI post for those who may want to read some of this literature. Readers will need to evaluate the journal articles on their own.

If I can do it....I might provide links to copies of some of the pdf articles yet this evening (if I have them on my hard drive) Stay tunned.

• Barber, N. (2005). Educational and ecological correlates of IQ: A cross-national investigation. Intelligence, 33(3), 273-284.
• Lynn, R., & Vanhanen, T. (2001). National IQ and economic development: A study of eighty-one nations. Mankind Quarterly, 41(4), 415-435.
• Voracek, M. (2004). National intelligence and suicide rate: an ecological study of 85 countries. Personality and Individual Differences, 37(3), 543-553.
• Voracek, M. (2005). National intelligence, suicide rate in the elderly, and a threshold intelligence for suicidality: An ecological study of 48 Eurasian countries. Journal of Biosocial Science, 37(6), 721-740.
• Whetzel, D. L., & McDaniel, M. A. (2006). Prediction of national wealth. Intelligence, 34(5), 449-458.

Technorati Tags: psychology, educational psychology, neuropsychology, Canada, intelligence, IQ, IQ test, IQ score, national intelligence, nation IQ, national IQ, Test the Nation, CBC

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Cognitive construct of attention - a review

The most recent Annual Review of Psychology had a nice overview article (by Posner and Rothbart..click here to view) dealing with research on the cognitive construct of attention. I found Figure 2 and Table 1 (above) particularly informative. Below are some key quotes from the article. Given my prior reading and posts regarding the importance of executive attention, I was particularly interested in Posner and Rothbart's suggestion that executive attention may be a domain general learning mechanism that may be trainable. The italics and/or underlining below were added by this blogmaster.

• In recent years, attention has been one of the fastest growing of all fields within cognitive psychology and cognitive neuroscience.
• Certainly many, perhaps even most, imaging studies have been concerned with anatomical issues. As Figure 2 illustrates, several functions of attention have been shown to involve specific anatomical areas that carry out important functions.
• Imaging data have supported the presence of three networks related to different aspects of attention (Fan et al. 2005). These networks carry out the functions of alerting, orienting, and executive attention (Posner & Fan 2007). A summary of the anatomy and chemical modulators involved in the three networks is shown in Table 1. Alerting is defined as achieving and maintaining a state of high sensitivity to incoming stimuli; orienting is the selection of information from sensory input; and executive attention involves mechanisms for monitoring and resolving conflict among thoughts, feelings, and responses.
• ..we have argued that the executive attention network is involved in self-regulation of positive and negative affect as well as a wide variety of cognitive tasks underlying intelligence (Duncan et al. 2000). This idea suggests an important role for attention in moderating the activity of sensory, cognitive, and emotional systems.
• There is considerable evidence that the executive attention network is of great importance in the acquisition of school subjects such as literacy (McCandliss et al. 2003) and in a wide variety of other subjects that draw upon general intelligence (Duncan et al.2000).
• It has been widely believed by psychologists that training involves only specific domains, and that more general training of the mind, for example, by formal disciplines like mathematics or Latin, does not generalize beyond the specific domain trained (Thorndike 1903, Simon 1969). However, attention may be an exception to this idea. Attention involves specific brain mechanisms, as we have seen, but its function is to influence the operation of other brain networks (Posner & Rothbart 2007). Anatomically, the network involving resolution of conflict overlaps with brain areas related to general intelligence (Duncan et al. 2000). Training of attention either explicitly or implicitly is sometimes a part of the school curriculum (Posner&Rothbart 2007), but additional studies are needed to determine exactly how and when attention training can best be accomplished and its long-lasting importance.
• Executive attention represents a neurodevelopmental process in children and adolescents, the alteration which could affect the propensity for the development of a number of disorders.

Technorati Tags: psychology, educational psychology, neuropsychology, neuroscience, intelligence, IQ, cognition, executive attention, attention, domain general, learning, education, ADHD

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LD, Testing and RTI

Jeff Evans, at AGS/Pearson, has posted "Learning Disabilities (LD), Testing and RTI" at the Clinical Cafe, a part of the AGS/Pearson Speech and Language Forum. The summary is based on the work of Dawn Flanagan and colleagues.





Technorati Tags: psychology, educational psychology, school psychology, special education, LD, RTI, testing, IQ, IQ tests, intelligence, cognition

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More NCLB backlash

More NCLB backlash...this time from the GOP. Click here for prior posts (at this blog) re: NCLB.

Technorati Tags: psychology, education, educational psychology, school psychology, neuropsychology, NCLB

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Music training and sensitivity to speech sounds (Ga)

A forthcoming brief article in the April issue of Nature Neuroscience continues to support the connection between learning music and sensitivity to speech sounds (Ga), a skill important for early reading. Check out the press release as well as a copy of the article.

Technorati Tags: psychology, education, educational psychology, neuropsychology, neuroscience, music, Ga, auditory processing, speech sounds, reading, music training

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Beyond NCLB

The high standards set by the No Child Left Behind legislation is in the news again...this time a Washingtonpost.com article posted at MSNBC.

For more detailed information regarding the "pulse" of NCLB, as reflected by the report (Beyond NCLB) of the non-partisan Commission on No Child Left Behind, check out the official report of the commission. The National Center on Learning Disabilities (NCLD) also has a nice summary posted.


Technorati Tags: psychology, education, educational psychology, school psychology, education policy, NCLB, No Child Left Behind, Commisson onf No Child Left Behind


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Williams Syndrome language review

Quick FYI. I ran across an interesting literature review on children with Williams Syndrome and language abilities (click here to view article). Individuals with WS display a unique configuration of cognitive strengths (e.g., musical ability; language; Ga, Gc) and weaknesses (visual-spatial; quantitative; fluid reasoning; Gv, Gq, Gf).

Upon finding this article I decided to run a keyword search for all articles flagged with WS in the IAP Reference Database. I found many. To not let this search go to waste, I've posted it here for those who want to read more. Enjoy.

Technorati Tags: psychology, educational psychology, school psychology, special education, mental retardation, intellectual disability, AAIDD, AAMR, Williams Syndrom, Gc, Gv, Gq, Gf, Ga, musical abilities, language, fluid intelligence, visual-spatial, intelligence, IQ, IQ tests, cognition

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Recent literature of interest 3-13-07

This weeks recent literature of interest can be found by clicking here.

Technorati tags: teaching tool. psychology. educational psychology. school psychology.

Psychology podcast list

Thanks to the BPS Research Digest for a compilation of on-line psychological related podcast links.



Technorati Tags: psychology, educational psychology, neuropsychology, podcasts

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Rapid auditory speech "gap" detection and dyslexia and aphasia

Although not dealing with severe reading disabilities (dyslexia), an article (in Neuropsychologia) I just skimmed that dealt with rapid auditory speech "gap detection" in adult aphasics seems to be consistent with the "auditory temporal processing" research and theory of dyslexia. On March 1 I made a post re: an article that provided, IMHO, a very nice overview of the phonological processing and auditory temporal processing (ATP) research on dyslexia. This new article seems to be consistent with the ATP research.

For the loyal CHC theory readers of this blog, this research suggests that we are still learning of additional narrow Ga (auditory processing) abilities that may deserve a place in the CHC taxonomy.

Technorati Tags: psychology, educational psychology, school psychology, education, neuropsychology, dyslexia, reading, reading disabilities, LD, learning disabilities, speech, speech percption, aphasia, intelligence, Ga, auditory processing, auditory temporal processing, temporal processing

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Test (IQ) the Nation - Canadian version March 18

Test the Nation, a national live IQ test that has previously aired in the U.S. on Fox and in the UK on BBC, will air Sunday, March 18 on the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation. Although the broadcast will only be available to Canadians, the IQ test (which has been normalized for an English-Canadian audience) will be available internationally (click here) on March 18 at 3 PM.

Technorati Tags: psychology, educational psychology, neuropsychology, intelligence, IQ, IQ test, IQ scores, cogntion, Test the Nation, CBC, Canada

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NCME March 2007 newsletter available

The March 2007 NCME (National Council on Measurement in Education) newsletter is now available on-line.

Technorati Tags: psychology, measurement, educational psychology, education, neuropsychology, psychometrics, NCME

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