science

Nora Newcombe

Nora Newcombe is a science topic covered in the lgStudy science library. This page brings together a partial reference excerpt, illustrations, worked examples, real-world applications and a short study plan, so you can understand Nora Newcombe rather than just read about it. In short: Nora S. Newcombe (born 1951 in Toronto) is the Laura H.

Key takeaways

Nora Newcombe belongs to science; place it in that map before memorising details.
Learn the definition first, then one example that makes the definition concrete.
Connect Nora Newcombe to a quantity you can measure, compute or draw — that is where exam questions come from.
Reproduce the core statement of Nora Newcombe from memory before moving on to harder problems.

Reference excerpt

Nora S. Newcombe (born 1951 in Toronto) is the Laura H. Carnell Professor of Psychology and the James H. Glackin Distinguished Faculty Fellow at Temple University. She is a Canadian-American researcher in cognitive development, cognitive psychology and cognitive science, and expert on the development of spatial thinking and reasoning and episodic memory. She was the principal investigator of the Spatial Intelligence and Learning Center (2006-2018), one of six Science of Learning Centers funded by the National Science Foundation.

Background Newcombe attended Antioch College and completed an undergraduate degree in psychology in 1972. She continued her education at Harvard University, receiving a Ph.D. in psychology in 1976 under the supervision of Jerome Kagan. At Harvard, Newcombe collaborated with Barbara Rogoff and Kagan on studies of the development of recognition memory. Newcombe taught at Pennsylvania State University prior to joining the faculty of Temple University. She is currently a professor of psychology at Temple University. Newcombe served terms as President of the American Psychological Association Division 7 (Developmental Psychology) (2001-2002), the Eastern Psychological Association (2008-2009), the Cognitive Development Society (2009-2011), the Federation of Associations in Behavioral & Brain Sciences (2018-2019), and the International Mind, Brain and Education Society. She previously served as the Chair of the Board of the Cognitive Science Society and Chair of the Board of Scientific Affairs of the American Psychological Association. Newcombe is an elected Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the Society of Experimental Psychologists, the Association for Psychological Science, four divisions of the American Psychological Association, the American Association for the Advancement of Science, and the Cognitive Science Society. She is also a member of the National Academy of Sciences. Newcombe was a James McKeen Cattell Fellow for a sabbatical year at Princeton in 1999-2000. In 2020 she presented the Paul B. Baltes Lecture at the Berlin-Brandenburg Academy of Sciences and Humanities. She is Editor-in-chief of Psychological Science in the Public Interest. She previously served as Editor-in-chief of Journal of Experimental Psychology: General.

Research Newcombe 's contributions to spatial cognition and its development are extensive. Her 2003 book Making Space, co-authored with Janellen Huttenlocher, synthesized decades of research and provided a new direction for the field, and provided a new conceptualization of cognitive development different from either traditional nativist or from traditional empiricist approaches. In addition, she has worked on sex differences in cognition, beginning in the late 1970s with a critical look at a then-popular explanation of sex differences in spatial functioning in terms the onset of puberty. Since then, she has recognized the evolutionary and neural factors involved in sex differences while also emphasizing the malleability of cognitive ability as noted in the literature. (recently reprinted in a special issue celebrating 25 years of Applied Cognitive Psychology). Newcombe has been the keynote speaker discussing relevant developments in spatial cognition at several meetings such as the Psychonomic Society, the American Psychological Society, the International Mind Brain Education Society and the German Psychological Society.

Spatial Intelligence and Learning Center Newcombe led the Spatial Intelligence and Learning Center (SILC), one of 6 NSF-funded Science of Learning Centers that explore learning in an interdisciplinary framework, during its grant period from 2006-2018. She has thus brought spatial cognition to the forefront of our conceptualization of the human intellect and its potential for learning. In her work on memory and memory development, Newcombe has integrated research from adult cognitive psychology and neuroscience to the study of development, both in terms of distinctions between implicit and explicit memory and distinctions between semantic and episodic memory.

Awards Elected to the National Academy of Sciences (2024) APA Ernest R. Hilgard Lifetime Achievement Award (2020) Psychonomic Society Clifford T. Morgan Distinguished Leadership Award (2020) Society of Experimental Psychologists Howard Crosby Warren Medal (2019) Distinguished Scientific Contributions Award from the Society for Research in Child Development (2015) APA William James Fellow Award (2014) APA G. Stanley Hall Award (2007) APA Award for Distinguished Service to Psychological Science (2006) Women in Cognitive Science Mentorship Award (2006) APA George A. Miller Award for an Outstanding Recent Article on General Psychology (2003) Nora Newcombe, "The nativist-empiricist controversy in the context of recent research on spatial and quantitative development." Psychological Science, 2002, 13, 395-401. (2014) David H. Uttal, Nathaniel G. Meadow, Elizabeth Tipton, Linda L. Hand, Alison R. Alden, Christopher Warren, & Nora S. Newcombe. "The malleability of spatial skills: A meta-analysis of training studies.” Psychological Bulletin, 2013, 139(2), 352-402.

Selected works

Theory Newcombe, N. S. (2011). What is neoconstructivism? Child Development Perspectives, 5, 157-160. DOI: 10.1111/j.1750-8606.2011.00180.x Newcombe, N. S. (2002). The nativist-empiricist controversy in the context of recent research on spatial and quantitative development. Psychological Science, 13, 395-401. DOI:10.1111/1467-9280.00471

Spatial Development Learmonth, A. E., Nadel, L. & Newcombe, N. S. (2002). Children's use of landmarks: Implications for modularity theory. Psychological Science, 13, 337-341. PMID URL Newcombe, N. S. (2010). Picture this: Increasing math and science learning by improving spatial thinking. American Educator, 34(2), 29-35. Newcombe, N. S., Ratliff, K. R., Shallcross, W. L. & Twyman, A. D. (2010). Young children's use of features to reorient is more than just associative: Further evidence against a modular view of spatial processing. Developmental Science, 13, 213-220.DOI: 10.1111/j.1467-7687.2009.00877.x Newcombe, N. S. & Huttenlocher, J. (2000). Making space: The development of spatial representation and reasoning. MIT Press. Twyman, A. D. & Newcombe, N. S. (2010). Five reasons to doubt the existence of a geometric module. Cognitive Science, 34, 1315-1356.DOI: 10.1111/j.1551-6709.2009.01081.x

… excerpt ends here. Continue reading the full article.

Illustrations

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with Nora Newcombe

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what Nora Newcombe claims or describes in one sentence, then invent the smallest concrete situation in which that sentence is true. In science, the smallest case is usually a single object, a single equation or a single measurement. Check that every symbol or term in your sentence has a meaning in that case.

Example 2 — changing one variable

Take the situation from Example 1 and change exactly one quantity: double it, halve it, or set it to zero. Predict what should happen to Nora Newcombe before you calculate. Comparing your prediction with the result is the fastest way to find out whether you understand the idea or only the words.

Example 3 — an exam-style question

Typical questions about Nora Newcombe ask you to (a) state it precisely, (b) apply it to given data, and (c) explain a limitation. Practise writing all three answers in under five minutes; the third part is what separates a full-mark answer from an average one.

Applications of Nora Newcombe

In research: Nora Newcombe appears in science research whenever the underlying quantities have to be modelled precisely. Papers usually cite it as a starting assumption and then explore where it breaks down.
In technology and industry: Engineering practice reuses Nora Newcombe in design rules, simulations and safety margins. Knowing the idea lets you read a specification sheet and understand why the numbers look the way they do.
In the classroom: Nora Newcombe is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics 1951 births, 20th-century American psychologists, 20th-century Canadian psychologists, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for Nora Newcombe outside the textbook — in sport, cooking, traffic, electronics or the sky above you. An example you found yourself is remembered far longer than one you were given.

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How to study Nora Newcombe in 20 minutes

Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
Close the page and write down what Nora Newcombe means in your own words.
Compare your version with the excerpt and mark what you missed.
Work through the three examples above with pen and paper.
Explain Nora Newcombe out loud to somebody else — or to Teacher Smith in the lgStudy chat.

Frequently asked questions

What is Nora Newcombe in simple terms?

Nora S. Newcombe (born 1951 in Toronto) is the Laura H.

Why does Nora Newcombe matter?

Because it connects several science ideas at once: it gives you a definition you can apply, a quantity you can calculate, and a way to check whether a result is plausible.

How should I study Nora Newcombe?

Read the excerpt, restate it from memory, then work through the examples and applications listed on this page. The five-step study plan above takes about twenty minutes.

What does this page cover?

It gives you a compact reference excerpt plus original lgStudy explanations, examples, applications and study material on Nora Newcombe.