Halpern (1998) proposed a four-component model for promoting the transfer of critical thinking. One of them, the “structural component,” focuses on how to organize teaching so that critical thinking skills can be generalized. Here, we assess the efficiency of that type of organization. Thus, one group of university students received instruction following the suggestions specified in that component and their performance was compared with that of other university students who received instruction in the same skills but using a different procedure, and with that of a control group. In comparison with the control group, the performance of both instructed groups was better after training. However, no significant differences were observed between either instruction group; both forms of instruction afforded very similar results.

There is some evidence about the low relationship between physical prowess and cognitive function (Posthuma, Mulder, Boomsma & de Geus, 2002). The aim of this paper is to investigate the relationship between cognitive variables (spatial ability, reasoning, numerical ability, inductive reasoning, and reasoning and verbal comprehension) and physical prowess in sport performance (agility circuit, coordination circuit, horizontal jump, swimming and sprint racing). Two studies were performance. In the first one we applied a battery of standardized cognitive tests and a battery of physical grading tests to 400 subjects. When we applied factor analysis to the physical prowess and the cognitive variables, we found one general factor in cognitive variables and one general factor in physical prowess. We found a low relationship between both factors (.21). In the second study we compare the cognitive abilities in elite and amateur sport people. Results show that elite gymnastics people present higher cognitive abilities than amateur sportspeople. It should be relevant in order to clarify the total set of variables involved in sport performance.

We report the results of an experiment investigating conditional inferences from conditional assertions such as ‘Juan won't go to León unless Nuria goes to Madrid’ and ‘Either Nuria goes to Madrid or Juan won't go to León’. This experiment addresses Dancygier's claims about the semantics of ‘unless’ by examining inferential endorsements of ‘not-A unless B’ and ‘Either B or not-A’ in the canonical order, presenting the categorical premise after the conditional assertions, and in the inverse order, presenting the categorical premise before the conditional assertions. The results of the experiment confirm that the representation of ‘unless’ includes two possibilities, although as Dancygier holds one of the possibilities may not be complete. The implications of the results are discussed in the context of the strategic nature of conditional reasoning and recent convergent theories of linguistic processing.

The aim of this study was to present a new working memory test following the line of work started by García-Madruga et al. (2007) and to examine its relation to reading comprehension and propositional reasoning measures. In that study we designed a new working memory span test –based on Daneman & Carpenter's (1980) Reading Span Test (RST)– in which the processing task called for an inferential decision –to resolve a pronominal anaphora based on Morpho-Syntactic cues– and had people recall the result of this inference. In the current study, besides the RST and the Morpho-Syntactic Anaphora test, we presented a new Semantic Anaphora measure. In order to check the validity of this new Working Memory (WM) task, we used the same reasoning task used in the previous study as well as a new reading comprehension test. The results show the tight relationship amongst working memory, reading comprehension and reasoning, and confirm the validity of the new WM measure.

Varias hipótesis actuales consideran el proceso de atribución de importancia a los estímulos y la integración de la realidad percibida de hecho con la experiencia como base cognitiva para la génesis de las ideas delirantes. Examinamos esos modelos comparando a esquizofrénicos delirantes, controles sanos y pacientes ansiosos al razonar en situación de incertidumbre. El examen se llevó a cabo en esquizofrénicos con ideas delirantes actuales (n = 29), en 16 de ellos también cuando estaban en remisión, en grupos de control normales (n = 35) y en pacientes ansiosos (n = 31) utilizando una tarea de inferencia probabilística. Confrontados con datos potencialmente refutatorios en situaciones probabilísticas, los esquizofrénicos con psicosis aguda estaban menos dispuestos que los sujetos normales, los pacientes ansiosos y los esquizofrénicos en remisión a modificar su razonamiento. También estaban menos inclinados que los pacientes ansiosos y los esquizofrénicos en remisión a corregir su estimación confrontados con datos confirmatorios. Los datos apoyan la hipótesis de una influencia más débil de los estímulos de entrada sobre el razonamiento en situación de incertidumbre como base cognitiva del mantenimiento de las ideas delirantes.