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Many real-world decisions involve uncertainty, yet some are governed by logical constraints that make certain outcomes objectively more or less probable. Despite this, people often commit reasoning errors such as the conjunction fallacy, i.e. judging a conjunction of events as more likely than a single constituent event. This fallacy has proven robust across populations and contexts, and difficult to fully mitigate. While previous research has shown that reformulating problems or providing explicit instruction can reduce such errors, these approaches often yield limited success and may not generalize to everyday decision-making, where task structures are ambiguous and feedback is sparse. We investigated whether individuals could reduce conjunction fallacies through repeated exposure to decision tasks paired with minimal outcome feedback. Participants (N = 56) were randomly assigned to a training group, which completed a series of conjunction judgment tasks with feedback, or a control group. Results showed that the training group improved on both trained and untrained conjunction tasks, including those based on real-world and clinical scenarios, while the control group showed no such improvement. No transfer effects were observed for unrelated base-rate tasks. Performance gains were gradual, suggesting that participants developed judgment strategies over time rather than immediately adopting normative rules. These findings demonstrate that conjunction fallacies can be mitigated through self-guided learning with minimal instruction, offering a promising approach to improving probabilistic reasoning.

There is a growing interest in cognitive science and its implications for learning at the policy level, a trend evident in recent Swedish government inquiries into school and teacher education (e.g., SOU 2024:81,  SOU 2025:19). These reports underscore the importance of evidence-based pedagogical approaches, advocating for teaching and teacher training to be guided by principles and insights from cognitive science. This policy shift gives greater prominence to research-driven perspectives on cognition and learning within the education system and in teacher professional development. Despite this development, the practical implications for specific curriculum subjects—such as Art—remain underexplored, motivating further study in this area, particularly in understanding how cognitive science can contribute to knowledge about how students' practical image-making aligns with knowledge requirements and goals in Art education. This research addresses this gap by examining the extent to which cognitive processes and mechanisms are manifest in the structure and content of the Swedish Art curriculum, with an emphasis on students' image-making activities. The following questions guide the study:

What knowledge domains in the Art subject are most closely associated with image creation in the Swedish curriculum?Which cognitive processes and mechanisms are identified as central to students' image-making?How does the interaction between these domains and processes support the development of image-based knowledge and skills in art education? 

A qualitative document analysis was conducted, focusing on the formulation of learning goals, subject content, and competence descriptions in the national curriculum for Art for compulsory school. Particular attention was paid to how knowledge of cognitive processes such as visual perception, memory, and higher cognitive functions including sequential planning and realization of artistic intent had been discussed and considered in pedagogical activities in arts education. The findings reveal that image creation invoke a broad spectrum of cognitive abilities, suggesting a rich interplay between creative practice and cognitive development.

By mapping these domains and linking them to current perspectives from cognitive science, the study advances understanding of how Art education based on cognitive science can foster subject-specific competencies. The results highlight the significance of an integrated approach to curriculum design, where cognitive science and the arts mutually inform pedagogical practice, thereby enriching students' image-based knowledge development and overall learning experience.

Introduction: Motor difficulties are frequent in autistic children and associated with diverse social behavior, possibly due to atypical neural processing subserving internal action models. This systematic review synthesizes results from current functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) research of brain activation during execution, imitation and observation of naturalistic actions in autistic children and adolescents (<18 years).

Methods: Peer-reviewed articles in English published between 2000 and 2025 reporting task-related fMRI in diagnosed autistic vs. typically developing youth (<18 years) were evaluated. Eight studies (with a total of 129 autistic and 128 typically developing participants) were identified, divided into action execution (n = 1), observation (n = 4), and imitation (n = 3).

Results: Between-group differences included reduced cerebellar activations for execution in autistic children; higher activity in left-lateralized motor processing regions for imitation; and lower activity in temporoparietal, posterior cingulate and anterior prefrontal cortex for observation.

Discussion: Findings suggest that atypical brain activation during action execution, observation and imitation in autistic youth is frequent and largely support the notion of aberrant formation and use of motor representations in autism development. Although, due to the limited number of studies, small samples, variability in fMRI pipelines, and task specific nature of the results, interpretations require caution and further investigations are warranted.

Sequential manual actions involving object manipulation, whether performed ourselves or observed in others, are a fundamental part of our daily lives. Motor representations within internal action models have been linked to both action execution and observation, but it is less clear how brain activity associated with planning, execution and observation of complex sequential actions differs and overlap. Here, using event-related fMRI, we examined brain activity during sequential manual action in planning, execution and observation in a sample of healthy adults (N = 28). Comparing actions under different task complexity (complex, rotation > baseline, no rotation), we found increased activation in parietal, precentral and sensory-motor regions during action execution planning. Execution of complex actions engaged ipsilateral parieto-frontal regions, while observation activated parietal regions. Planning to observe complex actions engaged occipito-parietal, precentral and cerebellar regions. Importantly, across all four conditions, we found a significant overlap in brain activity in the bilateral intraparietal sulcus. This suggests that the inferior parietal lobe is an important node for complex sequential manual actions.

Motor impairments are common in individuals with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) although less is known about the neural mechanisms related to such difficulties. This review provides an outline of functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) findings associated with execution and observation of naturalistic actions in autistic adults. Summarized outcomes revealed that adults with ASD recruit similar brain regions as neurotypical adults during action execution and during action observation, although with a difference in direction and/or magnitude. For action execution, this included higher and lower activity bilaterally in the precentral cortex, the parietal cortex, the inferior frontal gyrus (IFG), the middle temporal gyrus (MTG), the occipital cortex, and the cerebellum. For action observation, differences mainly concerned both higher and lower activity in bilateral IFG and right precentral gyrus, and lower activity in MTG. Activity overlaps between action execution and observation highlight atypical recruitment of IFG, MTG, precentral, and parieto-occipital regions in ASD. The results show atypical recruitment of brain regions subserving motor planning and/or predictive control in ASD. Atypical brain activations during action observation, and the pattern of activity overlaps, indicate an association with difficulties in understanding others' actions and intentions.

Motor issues are frequently observed accompanying core deficits in autism spectrum disorder (ASD). Impaired motor behavior has also been linked to cognitive and social abnormalities, and problems with predictive ability have been suggested to play an important, possibly shared, part across all these domains. Brain imaging of sensory-motor behavior is a promising method for characterizing the neurobiological foundation for this proposed key trait. The present functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) developmental study, involving children/youth with ASD, typically developing (TD) children/youth, and neurotypical adults, will investigate brain activations during execution and observation of a visually guided, goal-directed sequential (two-step) manual task. Neural processing related to both execution and observation of the task, as well as activation patterns during the preparation stage before execution/observation will be investigated. Main regions of interest include frontoparietal and occipitotemporal cortical areas, the human mirror neuron system (MNS), and the cerebellum.

We are often faced with judgment tasks that require the consideration of several sources of information. For example, a teacher that grades a student ́s exam question often integrates multiple sources of information (cues: details provided in the answer) into a single criterion dimension (the grade). Ample scientific work has focused on analytical processes and associative memory as two qualitatively distinct ways of addressing such a multiple-cue judgment task, and the inferior parietalcortex (IPC) has been suggested as a key brain region. Here, we combined information from individual differences in fluid intelligence, cognitive modeling and functional magnetic brain imaging to further evaluate the cognitive components of analytical and associative judgments. Participants spontaneously adopted cue-abstraction or exemplar-based memory during training with outcome feedback. Cognitive modeling of test-phase data revealed that model fit of both strategies was associated with fluid intelligence. A whole-brain correlation analysis of brain activation data during test-phase judgments revealed that fluid intelligence correlated with brain activity in IPC both during cue-abstraction and exemplar-based judgments. These findings provide novel evidence for a role of the IPC in multiple-cue judgment, and suggest that judgments with cue-abstraction and exemplarbased memory both draw on fluid intelligence and partly overlapping neural correlates. 

Background: Many learning methods of mathematical reasoning encourage imitative procedures (algorithmic reasoning, AR) instead of more constructive reasoning processes (creative mathematical reasoning, CMR). Recent research suggest that learning with CMR compared to AR leads to better performance and differential brain activity during a subsequent test. Here, we considered the role of individual differences in cognitive ability in relation to effects of CMR.

Methods: We employed a within-subject intervention (N=72, MAge=18.0) followed by a brain-imaging session (fMRI) one week later. A battery of cognitive tests preceded the intervention. Participants were divided into three cognitive ability groups based on their cognitive score (low, intermediate and high).

Results: On mathematical tasks previously practiced with CMR compared to AR we observed better performance, and higher brain activity in key regions for mathematical cognition such as left angular gyrus and left inferior/middle frontal gyrus. The CMR-effects did not interact with cognitive ability, albeit the effects on performance were driven by the intermediate and high cognitive ability groups.

Conclusions: Encouraging pupils to engage in constructive processes when learning mathematical reasoning confers lasting learning effects on brain activation, independent of cognitive ability. However, the lack of a CMR-effect on performance for the low cognitive ability group suggest future studies should focus on individualized learning interventions, allowing more opportunities for effortful struggle with CMR.

There is an emerging consensus that retrieval practice is a powerful way to enhance long-term retention and to reduce achievement gaps in school settings. Less is known whether retrieval practice benefits performance in individuals with low intrinsic motivation to spend time and effort on a given task, as measured by self-reported need for cognition (NFC). Here, we examined retrieval practice in relation to individual differences in NFC by combining behavioral and functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) data. Using a within-subject design, upper-secondary school students (N = 274) learned a language-based material (Swahili-Swedish word-pairs), with half of the items by means of retrieval practice with feedback and half by study only. One week later, the students were tested on the word-pairs either in the classroom (n = 204), or in a fMRI scanner (n = 70). In both settings, a retrieval practice effect was observed across different levels of NFC (high or low). Relatedly, comparable fMRI effects were seen in both NFC subgroups. Taken together, our findings provide behavioral and brain-imaging evidence that retrieval practice is effective also for individuals with lower levels of NFC, which is of direct relevance for educational practice.

We here demonstrate common neurocognitive long-term memory effects of active learning that generalize over course subjects (mathematics and vocabulary) by the use of fMRI. One week after active learning, relative to more passive learning, performance and fronto-parietal brain activity was significantly higher during retesting, possibly related to the formation and reactivation of semantic representations. These observations indicate that active learning conditions stimulate common processes that become part of the representations and can be reactivated during retrieval to support performance. Our findings are of broad interest and educational significance related to the emerging consensus of active learning as critical in promoting good long-term retention.