Previous infant studies on the other-race effect have favored the perceptual narrowing view, or declined sensitivities to rarely exposed other-race faces. Here we wish to provide an alternative possibility, perceptual learning, manifested by improved sensitivity for frequently exposed own-race faces in the first year of life. Using the familiarization/visual-paired comparison paradigm, we presented 4-, 6- and 9-month-old Taiwanese infants with oval-cropped Taiwanese, Caucasian, Philippine faces, and each with three different manipulations of increasing task difficulty (i.e., change identity, change eyes, and widen eye spacing). An adult experiment was first conducted to verify the task difficulty. Our results showed that, with oval-cropped faces, the 4 month-old infants could only discriminate Taiwanese “change identity” condition and not any others, suggesting an early own-race advantage at 4 months. The 6 month-old infants demonstrated novelty preferences in both Taiwanese and Caucasian “change identity” conditions, and proceeded to the Taiwanese “change eyes” condition. The 9-month-old infants demonstrated novelty preferences in the “change identity” condition of all three ethnic faces. They also passed the Taiwanese “change eyes” condition but could not extend this refined ability of detecting a change in the eyes for the Caucasian or Philippine faces. Taken together, we interpret the pattern of results as evidence supporting perceptual learning during the first year: the ability to discriminate own-race faces emerges at 4 months and continues to refine, while the ability to discriminate other-race faces emerges between 6 to 9 months and retains at 9 months. Additionally, the discrepancies in the face stimuli and methods between studies advocating the narrowing view and those supporting the learning view were discussed.

Computer-based testing is an emerging method to evaluate students’ mathematics learning outcomes. However, algebra problems impose a high cognitive load due to requiring multiple calculation steps, which might reduce students’ performance in computer-based testing. In order to understand students’ cognitive load when answering algebra questions in a computer-based testing environment, three perspectives, element interactivity, practice effect, and individual differences, were investigated in this study. Seven levels of algebra exam questions were created using unary and simultaneous linear equations, and the inverse efficiency scores were employed as a measure of cognitive load in the study. Forty undergraduate and graduate students were tested. There were four findings: (1) As the element interactivity of test materials increased, the cognitive load increased rapidly. (2) The high-efficiency group had a lower cognitive load than the low-efficiency group, suggesting that the high-efficiency group had an advantage in a computer-based testing environment. (3) “Practice” has a considerable effect on reducing cognitive load, particularly in level 6 and 7 test items. (4) The low-efficiency group can reduce but not eliminate the gap with the high-efficiency group; they may require additional experience in a computer-based testing environment in order to improve reducing their cognitive load.

Information about the paper titled "MEASUREMENTS OF INTRINSIC COGNITIVE LOAD: TAKE MATHEMATICAL COMPUTATION AS AN EXAMPLE" at IATED Digital Library

Information about the paper titled "COMPARING THE COGNITIVE LOAD OF FIELD-DEPENDENCE AND FIELD-INDEPENDENCE STUDENTS IN ANSWERING MATHEMATICS QUESTIONS: FROM THE BEHAVIOR AND EEG EVIDENCE" at IATED Digital Library

Other-race-effect (ORE) refers to the observation that we can recognize own-race faces better than other-race faces (Meissner & Brigham, 2001). Yet, whether featural or configural face processing might contribute to other-race effect is still unclear. In the present study, we tested Taiwanese adults with faces of four ethnic groups (Taiwanese, Philippine, Caucasian, African) and each with four levels of discriminability: Easy (change configuration and component: change identity), Medium (change component: change eyes), Hard-I (change configuration: widen eye spacing), and Hard-II (change configuration: mouth moved up). We adopted the visual paired-comparison task with two-alternative-forced-choice (2AFC) procedure. The overall results showed that accuracy decreased and response time increased as the stimulus difficulty increased for each race. The accuracy was highest and the response time was lowest for the Taiwanese easy condition, which suggests an own-race advantage. In addition, the pattern of response time for Philippine faces was similar to that of Taiwanese faces and was shorter than Caucasian faces in the medium and Hard-I conditions. In conclusion, our study had two main findings. First, Philippine faces were seen as more like own-race faces rather than other-race faces. Second, both featural and configural face processing contribute to the other-race-effect.