Published: June 27, 2019

Many psychological theories attempt to explain the mechanisms that govern cognition in adults, and fewer theories attempt to explain also how cognitive mechanisms change across development. Even fewer theories provide a brain representation of mechanisms related to cognitive development. One such theory is the Theory of Constructive Operators. In this review, we present key components of this general theory and provide quantitative predictions for the development of core cognitive abilities such a mental-attentional capacity. Specifically, the model of endogenous mental attention presents a domain-free resource that increases in power during childhood and adolescence. Mental-attentional capacity grows concurrently with prefrontal brain …

---

Published: Aug. 23, 2019

If a well-known word is a part of an anagram stimulus, it may complicate the process of solving the anagram. This may happen because a word inside the anagram may serve as a semantic prime, or because such a word is a chunk that is difficult to decompose. We manipulated the structural features of word and nonword chunks in anagram stimuli to find out which features of a chunk, semantic or structural, are more influential in anagram solving. The results showed that the semantic but not the structural features of a chunk are more important for five-letter anagrams, while none …

---

Published: Dec. 8, 2019

Individual variability in imagery experiences has long attracted the interest of philosophers, educators, and psychologists. Since Aristotle’s time, it was assumed that imagery is a universal ability, so everyone possesses it. Galton first measured the vividness of subjective imagery experiences, and discovered that some individuals reported zero imagination. Recent research has coined the term “aphantasia” — an inability to form mental imagery, or having a “blind mind’s eye” (Zeman, Dewar, & Della Sala, 2015). We argue that there maybe more than one type of aphantasia. Substantial behavioral and neuropsychological evidence has demonstrated a distinction between visual-object imagery (mental visualization of …

---

Published: June 24, 2018

In emotional facial expressions, sequential effects can result in perceptual changes of a briefly presented test expression due to a preceding prolonged exposure to an adaptor expression. Most studies have shown contrastive (adaptation) aftereffects using static adaptors: a test is perceived as less similar to the adaptor. However, the existence and sign of sequential effects caused by dynamic information in the adaptors are controversial. In a behavioral experiment we tested the influence of realistic (recorded from an actors face) and artificial (linearly morphed) dynamic transitions between happy and disgusted facial expressions, and of static images of these expressions at their …

---