JOURNAL OF COGNITIVE PSYCHOLOGY
Year:2020 | Volume:8 | Issue:1|Papers Count:7

Researchers in the field of science education believe that people's attitudes about learning will have a significant impact on their future learning and what they learn from science will not be irrelevant to their views and attitudes. Accordingly, most questionnaires have been developed to measure attitudes towards science. One of the newest questionnaires is the Colorado Learning Attitudes about science, known as CLASS. This questionnaire has not been standardised in Iran for the use of researchers in the field of education and psychology. The current descriptive research has been based on instrument designs and examined their psychometric properties. In this study, 476 high school students in science and mathematics courses were recruited to evaluate the psychometric properties of the questionnaire. Confirmatory factor analysis was used to investigate the questionnaire structures and a graded response model in Polytomous Item Response Theory (IRT) was used to analyse items. The Cronbach’ s alpha for all eight factors of the questionnaire ranged from 0. 701 to 0. 891. All the eight factors perfectly fitted into the Polytomous IRT models, in addition to having diagnosis and threshold parameters. In terms of classical measurement, indicators such as reliability and validity of the structure as well as the estimated parameters in the Polytomous IRT model, the items and structure of this questionnaire could be considered as desirable. Therefore, the authours would recommend using the Persian version of this questionnaire to examine attitudes about science, especially physics, appropriately.

Since industrial units are in line with various accidents and demand that the workers have high awareness and cognitive processing, then this paper aimed to find out whether the use of nature can be effective in regaining workers' attention in industrial environments. Therefore, in the form of a survey research, it has measured the four components of attention restoration theory (including being away, fascination, extent, and compatibility) as well as the general restoration of outdoor and indoor environments in industrial units. The subjects of this study were the workers of Ilam industrial zone and they were asked to measure the restorative rate of different industrial spaces (with and without nature) on the Likert scale. The Analysis of collected data showed that the lowest rate of attention restoration is related to the interior space without a view of nature (with a value of 2. 56). The next ranks were related to the following spaces, respectively: outdoor area without nature (with a value of 3. 77); Interior space with a view of nature through the window (with a value of 4. 95); outdoor area with nature (with a value of 5. 12); Interior space with a view of the sea poster (with a value of 5. 31) and interior space with a view of the plain and forest poster (with a value of 5. 63). The results confirm that the use of nature, whether in industrial outdoors or indoors, can be considered a restorative factor.

Mathematical reasoning is the ability of inductive and inferential reasoning with mathematical concepts that underlying cognitive variables play an important role in explaining it. The purpose of this study is to model the role of divided attention and working memory in mathematical reasoning with the mediation of mathematical knowledge and fluid intelligence in fourth grade elementary students. This study is non-experimental (descriptive) and a type of correlational study in which data were analyzed by Path Analysis. The statistical population of the research included all male fourth-graders of the primary schools in District 4 of Qom from which 213 students were randomly selected by two-stage cluster sampling. The study used different measures and instruments including the Integrated Visual and Auditory Continuous Performance Test-Second Edition (IVA-2 CPT) for measuring different types of attention, the Working Memory Index of the Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children-Fourth Edition (WISC-IV), the Culture Fair Intelligence Test (CFIT), the knowing questions test and the mathematical reasoning questions test of TIMSS 2015. The findings of the study showed that all path coefficients are significant and appropriate model fit indices were obtained. The results indicate that working memory influenced by divided attention predicts mathematical reasoning with the mediation of mathematical knowledge and fluid intelligence. The research helps to develop in mathematics learning and cognitive rehabilitation of mathematical disorders by identifying the role of important cognitive variables in mathematical reasoning.

This study explores the necessity of conceptual change in teachers' professional development through creating knowledge building environment. In cognitive approaches to education the quality of education is considered to be a result of teachers' pedagogy and teachers' pedagogy is considered as a result of their cognition. Thereby the goal of many professional development programs is to educate teachers whose cognition is consistent with the latest research findings from cognitive and learning sciences. In this study the research synthesis was used to develop basic statements for salient characteristics of conceptual change framework. The analysis of the results showed that pedagogical belief system, teachers' preconceptions and how they align with scientific concepts, implicit theories, coherency of cognition, epistemological beliefs, metaconceptual awareness and experience-based belief system need to be considered in teachers' professional development. Finally, the possibility of creating knowledge building environment has been discussed.

One of the well-known conceptual metaphors is the metaphor of "time as space". Time as an abstract concept is conceptualized by a concrete concept like space. This conceptualization of time is also reflected in co-speech gestures. In this research, we try to find out what dimension and direction the mental timeline takes in co-speech gestures and under which metaphorical sources of space it takes place. For this purpose, six possible metaphorical sources adopted from space on three axes of sagittal, lateral, and vertical in six spatial directions were examined on the words tomorrow and yesterday. Participants were 137 students ranging in age from 18 to 30. The frequency of occurrence and the average percentage in co-speech gestures showed that the horizontal-sagittal axis back to front adopted from metaphorical-spatial source of linguistic metaphors with 55. 75%; and right to left horizontal-lateral axis adopted from metaphorical-spatial source of Persian writing direction with 30. 1% were the two influential factors in activating these dimensions and directions. The results of this study showed that language can play an important role in the representation of the mental timeline in co-speech gestures through the embodied sensory-motor experiences that we have from language as a conventional-cultural artifact in writing or linguistic metaphors.

Given the wide prevalence of procrastination and delaying tasks and the need to identify factors affecting this problem, the present study aimed to investigate the mediating role of anticipated regret and consideration of future consequences in the relationship between impulsive choice and emotional distress with procrastination. In an analytical cross-sectional study, 400 students were selected through available sampling from Kermanshah universities and they were assessed employing impulsivity, depression, anxiety and stress, monetary choice, regret-based decision making, consideration of future consequences, and pure procrastination questionnaires. Data were analyzed by Pearson correlation test and path analysis. The findings showed that the present model has an excellent fit with data. Urgency, lack of perseverance, anxiety, and delay discounting had significant effect on procrastination through anticipated regret and lack of premeditation had significant effect on procrastination through both anticipated regret and consideration of future consequences. It could be said that anticipated regret and consideration of future consequences play a mediating role in the relationship between impulsive choice and emotional distress with procrastination and we can help to reduce procrastination in distressed and impulsive individuals by formulating interventions that target these variables.

Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASDs) are developmental neurological disorders characterized by defects in social interactions, communication, and repetitive behaviors. This study attempted to examine the efficacy of anodal transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) over the left dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC) on social skills in children with ASD. Thirty-two children with confirmed ASD diagnoses were randomly allocated into a tDCS treatment group or a control group. The tDCS treatment group underwent 10 sessions of anodal tDCS stimulation applied simultaneously over the left DLPFC (F3) area, whereas the control group underwent the same procedures but with the use of sham tDCS stimulation. Gilliam Autism Rating Scale (GARS) and Social Skills Rating System was used to measure the Social Skills in two pretest and post-test stages. Finally, the data were analyzed by the SPSS software using repeated measures analysis. Results showed that anodal tDCS significantly increased social skills in the experimental group after treatment compared to the control group.