The fields of cognitive science and education have worked hard to discover effective principles of learning with the goal of improving educational achievement. And although each has made significant advances, there has been, until today, a gap between the two disciplines. This special issue brings together researchers aiming to bridge laboratory data with real world learning practices, each providing recent and crucial information concerning the improvement of learning. The readings will allow both researchers and educators to understand strategies that would most benefit students by improving learning as well as the ability of learning to learn - or what has been defined as metacognition.

The Mental Models Theory of Reasoning presents theoretical and empirical research on an area of growing interest, the status of mental models in deductive reasoning. As research in the framework of the mental models theory flourishes, this book answers a need to assess the contribution of the notion of training and content. It covers the central issues of propositional, relational, causal and probabilistic reasoning, and argumentation and development. In addition, this work presents data regarding strategies, argumentation, and the development of reasoning. Special features of this text include: *sharp theoretical analyses as well as important new empirical data offered by theorists who work in the framework of the mental models theory; *a critical and empirically driven account of content effects in conditional and linear reasoning; and *an original account on the influence of pragmatics on reasoning. The Mental Models Theory of Reasoning will be of interest to researchers and advanced students of cognitive psychology, and will be valuable to individuals working in Artificial Intelligence, as it highlights theoretical and empirical data on how humans use mental models when tackling deductive puzzles.

The fields of cognitive science and education have worked hard to discover effective principles of learning with the goal of improving educational achievement. And although each has made significant advances, there has been, until today, a gap between the two disciplines. This special issue brings together researchers aiming to bridge laboratory data with real world learning practices, each providing recent and crucial information concerning the improvement of learning. The readings will allow both researchers and educators to understand strategies that would most benefit students by improving learning as well as the ability of learning to learn - or what has been defined as metacognition.

"The Mental Models Theory of Reasoning" presents theoretical and empirical research on an area of growing interest, the status of mental models in deductive reasoning. As research in the framework of the mental models theory flourishes, this book answers a need to assess the contribution of the notion of training and content. It covers the central issues of propositional, relational, causal and probabilistic reasoning, and argumentation and development. In addition, this work presents data regarding strategies, argumentation, and the development of reasoning.
 
Special features of this text include:
*sharp theoretical analyses as well as important new empirical data offered by theorists who work in the framework of the mental models theory;
*a critical and empirically driven account of content effects in conditional and linear reasoning; and
*an original account on the influence of pragmatics on reasoning.
 
"The Mental Models Theory of Reasoning "will be of interest to researchers and advanced students of cognitive psychology, and will be valuable to individuals working in Artificial Intelligence, as it highlights theoretical and empirical data on how humans use mental models when tackling deductive puzzles.