Cognitive Task Demands Research Articles

Extended cognitive load induces fast neural responses leading to commission errors.

Extended performance of cognitively demanding tasks induces cognitive fatigue manifested with an overall deterioration of behavioral performance. In particular, long practice with tasks requiring impulse control is typically followed by a decrease in self-control efficiency, leading to performance instability. Here, we show that this is due to changes in activation modalities of key task-related areas occurring if these areas previously underwent intensive use. We investigated in 25 healthy adults the effects of extended practice with high cognitive demand (HCD) tasks on a Go-No Go task and the underlying electroencephalographic (EEG) activity. We compared these effects with those induced by practice with similar, but low cognitive demand (LCD) tasks. HCD tasks were followed by an increase in response inhibition failures. These were correlated with the appearance of a distinct neural signature on fast response trials, characterized by lower levels of beta ([13-30] Hz) EEG activity in the pre-stimulus period, and by a lack of EEG markers of pre-response processing in frontal areas. Moreover, HCD tasks were followed by a decrease in N200 during correct withholds while LCD tasks were followed instead by a lesser fraction of hits and a decrease in P300, suggesting a decrease in engagement. Overall, these results show that exertion of cognitive control determines the appearance of two distinct modalities of response with different processing speeds, associated with distinct underlying neural activity.Significance statement Extended cognitive load leads to alterations in behavior, but the underlying alterations in cortical activity are far from being understood. When we compared the performance in a Go/NoGo test before and after a battery of tasks requiring high cognitive control, we found an increase in commission errors associated with an increase in fast automatic responses. EEG signals of these responses displayed a lack of cortical markers of pre-response processing. Tasks requiring only low cognitive control were followed instead by an increase in miss errors, likely related to a decrease in engagement. Extended cognitive load leads then to the appearance of two distinct response modalities, driven by distinct neural activities.

Vocal and Facial Behavior During Affect Production in Autism Spectrum Disorder.

We investigate the extent to which automated audiovisual metrics extracted during an affect production task show statistically significant differences between a cohort of children diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) and typically developing controls. Forty children with ASD and 21 neurotypical controls interacted with a multimodal conversational platform with a virtual agent, Tina, who guided them through tasks prompting facial and vocal communication of four emotions-happy, angry, sad, and afraid-under conditions of high and low verbal and social cognitive task demands. Individuals with ASD exhibited greater standard deviation of the fundamental frequency of the voice with the minima and maxima of the pitch contour occurring at an earlier time point as compared to controls. The intensity and voice quality of emotional speech were also different between the two cohorts in certain conditions. Additionally, facial metrics capturing the acceleration of the lower lip, lip width, eye opening, and vertical displacement of the eyebrows were also important markers to distinguish between children with ASD and neurotypical controls. Both facial and speech metrics performed well above chance in group classification accuracy. Speech acoustic and facial metrics associated with affect production were effective in distinguishing between children with ASD and neurotypical controls. https://doi.org/10.23641/asha.28027796.

Using Bloom’s Taxonomy to Evaluate HOTS in the Tasks of the Chinese Grade 7 English Textbook

This study evaluates the cognitive demands of tasks in the Chinese Layman’s Edition Grade 7 English textbook using Bloom’s Revised Taxonomy. The primary objective is to assess the distribution of lower-order thinking skills (LOTS) and higher-order thinking skills (HOTS) across the textbook’s tasks. Six cognitive categories were identified through a content analysis of 224 tasks: Remembering, Understanding, Applying, Analyzing, Evaluating, and Creating. The findings show that just 26.7% of activities concentrate on HOTS, such as Analyzing, Evaluating, and Creating, whereas 73.3% of tasks concentrate on LOTS, especially in Understanding and Applying. This disparity implies that fundamental cognitive abilities are being overemphasized, which is preventing children from engaging in critical analysis, evaluation, and innovation. The study emphasizes the need for textbook changes that support students' cognitive growth and are in line with contemporary educational objectives by better integrating HOTS-oriented tasks. Recommendations for curriculum enhancement and instructional strategies are provided to better prepare students for real-world challenges through more complex cognitive engagement.

Active motor-cognitive recovery supports reactive agility performance in trained athletes.

Active breaks are suggested to support recovery and performance in sports. Previous research in ball and team sports focused on motor performance such as repetitive sprinting or change of direction. This does not account for the interaction between motor and cognitive task demands in sports. Therefore, this study is the first to investigate the effectiveness of an active motor-cognitive break to support reactive agility performance. Twenty (7 female and 13 male) healthy trained young adults (mean age: 26years) performed an active or passive 5 min break following a fatiguing protocol of six 100m reactive agility runs with an intermittent break of 40s. Prior to the experiment (pre), after fatigue (post), and following the rest condition (retention), a reactive agility test was performed using the SKILLCOURT technology. In addition, lactate, heartrate, and physical exertion were recorded. Active rest contained two motor-cognitive training tasks on the SKILLCOURT combining low to moderate physical intensity with conflict inhibition and decision-making. During passive rest, participants remained seated. When comparing post and retention agility tests, results indicate significantly stronger performance gains following the active when compared to the passive break condition (p=0.02 and ηp 2=0.24). This was not associated with any differences in physiological parameters such as lactate, heart rate, or RPE (p≥0.25). The results suggest that active motor-cognitive breaks support recovery and improve sport-related reactive agility performance. Performance gains in the active break are likely attributable to cognitive performance effects rather than physiological recovery, which may benefit athletes especially in ball and team sports.

High frequency post-pause word choices and task-dependent speech behavior characterize connected speech in individuals with mild cognitive impairment.

Alzheimer's disease (AD) is characterized by progressive cognitive decline, including impairments in speech production and fluency. Mild cognitive impairment (MCI), a prodrome of AD, has also been linked with changes in speech behavior but to a more subtle degree. This study aimed to investigate whether speech behavior immediately following both filled and unfilled pauses (post-pause speech behavior) differs between individuals with MCI and healthy controls (HCs), and how these differences are influenced by the cognitive demands of various speech tasks. Transcribed speech samples were analyzed from both groups across different tasks, including immediate and delayed narrative recall, picture descriptions, and free responses. Key metrics including lexical and syntactic complexity, lexical frequency and diversity, and part of speech usage, both overall and post-pause, were examined. Significant differences in pause usage were observed between groups, with a higher incidence and longer latencies following these pauses in the MCI group. Lexical frequency following filled pauses was higher among MCI participants in the free response task but not in other tasks, potentially due to the relative cognitive load of the tasks. The immediate recall task was most useful at differentiating between groups. Predictive analyses utilizing random forest classifiers demonstrated high specificity in using speech behavior metrics to differentiate between MCI and HCs. Speech behavior following pauses differs between MCI participants and healthy controls, with these differences being influenced by the cognitive demands of the speech tasks. These post-pause speech metrics can be easily integrated into existing speech analysis paradigms.

Peripheral Blood Leukocyte Subpopulation Changes in Reaction to an Acute Psychosocial Stressor as Compared to an Active Placebo-Stressor in Healthy Young Males: Mediating Effects of Major Stress-Reactive Endocrine Parameters.

Psychosocial stress has been proposed to induce a redistribution of immune cells, but a comparison with an active placebo-psychosocial stress control condition is lacking so far. We investigated immune cell redistribution due to psychosocial stress compared to that resulting from an active placebo-psychosocial stress but otherwise identical control condition. Moreover, we tested for mediating effects of endocrine parameters and blood volume changes. The final study sample comprised 64 healthy young men who underwent either a psychosocial stress condition (Trier Social Stress Test; TSST; n = 38) or an active placebo-psychosocial stress control condition (PlacTSST; n = 26). Immune cell counts and hemoglobin, epinephrine, norepinephrine, ACTH, renin, and aldosterone levels, as well as those of saliva cortisol, were determined before and up to 30 min after the TSST/PlacTSST. The TSST induced greater increases in total leukocyte, monocyte, and lymphocyte levels as compared to the PlacTSST (p's ≤ 0.001), but in not granulocyte counts. Neutrophil granulocyte counts increased in reaction to both the TSST and PlacTSST (p's ≤ 0.001), while eosinophil and basophil granulocyte counts did not. The psychosocial stress-induced increases in immune cell counts from baseline to peak (i.e., +1 min after TSST cessation) were independently mediated by parallel increases in epinephrine (ab's ≤ -0.43; 95% CIs [LLs ≤ -0.66; ULs ≤ -0.09]). Subsequent decreases in immune cell counts from +1 min to +10 min after psychosocial stress cessation were mediated by parallel epinephrine, renin, and blood volume decreases (ab's ≥ 0.17; 95% CIs [LLs ≥ 0.02; ULs ≥ 0.35]). Our findings indicate that psychosocial stress specifically induces immune cell count increases in most leukocyte subpopulations that are not secondary to the physical or cognitive demands of the stress task. Increases in the number of circulating neutrophil granulocytes, however, are not psychosocial stress-specific and even occur in situations with a low probability of threat or harm. Our findings point to a major role of epinephrine in mediating stress-induced immune cell count increases and of epinephrine, renin, and blood volume changes in mediating subsequent immune cell count decreases from +1 min to +10 min after psychosocial stress cessation.

Learning Opportunities for Solving Context-Based Calculus Tasks in Nepal’s High School Mathematics Textbooks

ABSTRACT A vital skill for students to acquire in school mathematics involves solving problems embedded within real-world contexts. The extent to which students achieve intended learning outcomes largely depends on whether textbooks offer opportunity-to-learn (OTL) the assessed concepts and skills. The National Assessment of Students’ Achievements (NASA) reveals a significant deficiency in the performance of Nepali students in solving context-related problems. We conducted a content analysis of the most commonly adopted Nepali mathematics textbooks for grades XI and XII to assess the OTL they afford for tackling context-related problems in calculus. Results show that almost all mathematical concepts were introduced without providing related contexts, and around 95% of worked examples and exercise problems did not have any context and offered little or no opportunities for modeling and mathematization. Although most of the contexts presented in the problems were categorized as real and essential, the cognitive demands of many tasks were lower. The investigated textbooks were not necessarily aligned with Nepal’s updated National Mathematics Curriculum (2018), which underscores the integration of mathematics with real-world applications. Results of this study indicate that the limited access to quality mathematics textbooks might be a significant barrier hindering students’ ability to solve context-related problems.

A task design based review on eye-tracking studies within mathematics education

This paper presents a based review on Eye-Tracking (ET) studies in mathematical problem-solving. ET method provides a promising channel for educational researchers to connect learning outcomes to cognitive processes. Due to the advent of digital technologies, eye tracking studies are increasingly growing in different fields and in mathematics education. The main principle of eye tracking is that our gaze and our focus of attention are connected. If the task provided by the teacher is one of the ways to analyze cognitive processes, we wonder how ET studies are dealing with load cognitive on task design. We captured 39 papers, 23 of which were more specifically analyzed, based on mathematical proposed tasks in three intertwined strands: mathematical problem-solving, affective aspects and reasoning and proofs. We observed an expressive amount of low demand tasks on ET papers, the studies are still mainly based on numerical issues and focused less on geometry topics, and few of them are integrating digital technology on the provided tasks. Our didactical contribution is to claim for more high cognitive demand tasks regarding mathematical processes of thinking and geometrical learning.

Effects of Motor and Cognitive Dual-Task Demands on Ankle Dorsiflexor and Plantarflexor Force Control in Older Adults

ABSTRACT Background Force steadiness can be impaired under dual-task conditions in older adults. Since this impairment is attributed to their limited attentional resources, we hypothesized that the degree of cortical activity involved in muscle contraction would affect force steadiness under dual-task conditions. To test this hypothesis, based on the premise that dorsiflexion requires more cortical resources than plantarflexion, we compared the effects of additional motor and cognitive task demands on force steadiness between dorsiflexion and plantarflexion contractions in young and older adults. Method Eighteen young and eighteen older adults performed a force tracking task by applying either isometric dorsiflexion or plantarflexion force concurrently with and without (control) secondary upper-limb motor or cognitive task. Results Force steadiness was impaired by both secondary upper-limb motor and cognitive tasks for the dorsiflexors and plantarflexors in older adults. While force steadiness was impaired similarly by additional task demands regardless of the secondary task type for the dorsiflexors, the impairment effect was larger in the secondary cognitive than motor task for the plantarflexors. Conclusion The effects of dual-task demand on force steadiness could depend on the degree of cortical activity involved in muscle contraction in older adults.

중등수학교사의 수학적 신념에 따른 수업목표 이해 및 과제 선별

The purpose of this study is to determine how secondary school mathematics teachers interpret the geometry unit lesson objectives in relation to the characteristics of teachers' mathematical beliefs and what main tasks they present during specific classes with the interpreted lesson objectives. For this purpose, a survey was conducted targeting secondary mathematics teachers regarding mathematical beliefs, teaching goals, and task selection. As a result of the study, no evidence was obtained that there was a difference in mathematical beliefs depending on the teaching goals understood by teachers. In general, teachers were found to select class goals that correspond to knowledge and understanding, and only in some units did specific mathematical beliefs appear to influence teachers' interpretation of class goals. Second, there was no significant difference in the level of cognitive demand of tasks teachers wanted to present in class depending on the class goals. However, in certain units, it was found that there was a difference in the ratio of cognitive demand levels. The findings provide important implications for better understanding of teachers' behaviors focusing on cognitive demands of tasks and mathematical beliefs.

Design, Development, and Validation of a Military Orientated Re-configurable Cognitive Task Battery

The United Kingdom’s Defence Science and Technology Laboratory (Dstl) has developed an innovative military cognitive task battery tool titled: Interactive Measures of Performance and Assessment of Cognitive Tasks (IMPACT). The purpose of the tool is to support the objective assessment of cognitive task performance and task demand across a range of military system types, use cases and experimental settings. IMPACT consists of six, reconfigurable, generic military tasks, and an intuitive user interface for the experimenter to configure the tool and collect data. Initial validation of the IMPACT tool has been undertaken and a number of early adopters have used the tool to support trials, system development and experimentation. The validation results show that the six individual IMPACT tasks broadly stimulate the associated cognitive attributes; as mapped and originally conceived during the design and development of the tool; as measured by subjective assessment techniques, psychophysiological monitoring, and performance measures. IMPACT continues to be refined in response to feedback from the validation exercise and early adopters of the tool.

Disability Moderates Dual Task Walking Performance and Neural Efficiency in Older Adults With Multiple Sclerosis.

Mobility and cognitive impairment are prevalent and co-occurring in older adults with multiple sclerosis (OAMS), yet there is limited research concerning the role of disability status in the cognitive control of gait among OAMS. We investigated the levels of prefrontal cortex (PFC) activation, using oxygenated hemoglobin (HbO2), during cognitively-demanding tasks in OAMS with lower and higher disability using functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS) to: (1) identify PFC activation differences in single task walk and cognitively-demanding tasks in OAMS with different levels of disability; and (2) evaluate if disability may moderate practice-related changes in neural efficiency in OAMS. We gathered data from OAMS with lower (n = 51, age = 65 ± 4 years) or higher disability (n = 48, age = 65 ± 5 years), using a cutoff of 3 or more, in the Patient Determined Disease Steps, for higher disability, under 3 different conditions (single-task walk, Single-Task-Alpha, and Dual-Task-Walk [DTW]) administered over 3 counterbalanced, repeated trials. OAMS who had a lower disability level exhibited decreased PFC activation levels during Single-Task-Walk (STW) and larger increases in PFC activation levels, when going from STW to a cognitively-demanding task, such as a DTW, than those with higher disability. OAMS with a lower disability level exhibited greater declines in PFC activation levels with additional within session practice than those with a higher disability level. These findings suggest that disability moderates brain adaptability to cognitively-demanding tasks and demonstrate the potential for fNIRS-derived outcome measures to complement neurorehabilitation outcomes.

High frequency post-pause word choices and task-dependent speech behavior characterize connected speech in individuals with mild cognitive impairment.

Alzheimer's disease (AD) is characterized by progressive cognitive decline, including impairments in speech production and fluency. Mild cognitive impairment (MCI), a prodrome of AD, has also been linked with changes in speech behavior but to a more subtle degree. This study aimed to investigate whether speech behavior immediately following both filled and unfilled pauses (post-pause speech behavior) differs between individuals with MCI and healthy controls (HCs), and how these differences are influenced by the cognitive demands of various speech tasks. Transcribed speech samples were analyzed from both groups across different tasks, including immediate and delayed narrative recall, picture descriptions, and free responses. Key metrics including lexical and syntactic complexity, lexical frequency and diversity, and part of speech usage, both overall and post-pause, were examined. Significant differences in pause usage were observed between groups, with a higher incidence and longer latencies following these pauses in the MCI group. Lexical frequency following filled pauses was higher among MCI participants in the free response task but not in other tasks, potentially due to the relative cognitive load of the tasks. The immediate recall task was most useful at differentiating between groups. Predictive analyses utilizing random forest classifiers demonstrated high specificity in using speech behavior metrics to differentiate between MCI and HCs. Speech behavior following pauses differs between MCI participants and healthy controls, with these differences being influenced by the cognitive demands of the speech tasks. These post-pause speech metrics can be easily integrated into existing speech analysis paradigms.

Towards neuroadaptive navigation assistance to reduce spatial de-skilling

Maps have been invaluable navigation aids for millennia and thus have been critical for human survival. The increasing popularity of and high dependence on digital, location-aware assistive navigation technology, however, has been shown to divert our attention from the environment and to negatively influence innate spatial abilities. To mitigate this, neuroadaptive mobile geographic information displays (namGIDs) are proposed that respond in real-time to navigators’ cognitive task demands and wayfinder’s situated visuo-spatial attention needs. In doing so, namGIDs may not only help navigators maintain navigation efficiency but more importantly, also continuously scaffold spatial learning. To do this, the proposed navigation assistance must strike the appropriate balance between welcomed mobility efficiency gains while limiting human spatial deskilling. Leveraging neuroadaptive cartography, we can ensure to remain effective navigators, empowered to explore the world with confidence.

Interneuron-selective HCN channel knockdown in prelimbic cortex of female rats mimics effects of chronic ethanol exposure

Our laboratory has previously shown that chronic ethanol exposure elicits enhanced working memory performance in female, but not male, adult Sprague–Dawley rats, indicative of a fundamental sex difference in cortical plasticity. Recent studies have furthermore revealed that females display markedly reduced HCN-mediated channel activity in inhibitory Martinotti interneurons after chronic ethanol exposure that is similarly not observed in males. From these observations we hypothesized that alcohol induces facilitated working memory performance via down-regulation of these channels’ activity specifically within interneurons. To test this hypothesis, we employed a Pol-II compatible shRNA expression system to elicit targeted knockdown of HCN channel activity in these cells, and measured performance on a delayed Non-Match-to-Sample (NMS) T-maze test to gauge effects on working memory performance. A significant baseline enhancement of working memory performance with HCN channel knockdown was observed, indicative of a critical role for interneuron-expressed HCNs in maintaining optimal cortical network activity during cognitively-demanding tasks. Consistent with previous observations, ethanol exposure resulted in enhanced NMS T-maze performance, however elevated working memory performance was observed in both scram- and hcn-shRNA infected groups after alcohol administration. We therefore conclude that interneuron-expressed HCN channels, despite representing a minor population of total cortical HCN expression, contribute substantially to maintaining working memory processes. Downregulated HCN channel activity, though, does not alone appear sufficient to manifest alcohol-induced enhancement of working memory performance observed in female rats during acute withdrawal.

Investigating cognitive-motor effects during slacklining using mobile EEG.

Balancing is a very important skill, supporting many daily life activities. Cognitive-motor interference (CMI) dual-tasking paradigms have been established to identify the cognitive load of complex natural motor tasks, such as running and cycling. Here we used wireless, smartphone-recorded electroencephalography (EEG) and motion sensors while participants were either standing on firm ground or on a slackline, either performing an auditory oddball task (dual-task condition) or no task simultaneously (single-task condition). We expected a reduced amplitude and increased latency of the P3 event-related potential (ERP) component to target sounds for the complex balancing compared to the standing on ground condition, and a further decrease in the dual-task compared to the single-task balancing condition. Further, we expected greater postural sway during slacklining while performing the concurrent auditory attention task. Twenty young, experienced slackliners performed an auditory oddball task, silently counting rare target tones presented in a series of frequently occurring standard tones. Results revealed similar P3 topographies and morphologies during both movement conditions. Contrary to our predictions we observed neither significantly reduced P3 amplitudes, nor significantly increased latencies during slacklining. Unexpectedly, we found greater postural sway during slacklining with no additional task compared to dual-tasking. Further, we found a significant correlation between the participant's skill level and P3 latency, but not between skill level and P3 amplitude or postural sway. This pattern of results indicates an interference effect for less skilled individuals, whereas individuals with a high skill level may have shown a facilitation effect. Our study adds to the growing field of research demonstrating that ERPs obtained in uncontrolled, daily-life situations can provide meaningful results. We argue that the individual CMI effects on the P3 ERP reflects how demanding the balancing task is for untrained individuals, which draws on limited resources that are otherwise available for auditory attention processing. In future work, the analysis of concurrently recorded motion-sensor signals will help to identify the cognitive demands of motor tasks executed in natural, uncontrolled environments.

A Team Cognition Measurement Method for Single Pilot Operations Human-Machine System Design

Team cognition is an important indicator to reflect the trend of single pilot operation (SPO) human-machine system team performance. How to measure team cognition to explore different function allocation decisions before the implementation of prototypes or simulators has become a significant step in the early SPO human-machine system design. Therefore, this article proposed a team cognition measurement method based on the social network analysis (SNA) method, namely cognitive social network analysis (CSNA). The CSNA method firstly identified the nodes, edge directions and channel resource values of each task; secondly calculated the cognitive demands of each task based on multiple resource theory; thirdly summed the cognitive demands of the same task to construct the association matrix; and finally calculated global and nodal network metrics. The results of the study showed that (1) the CSNA method could identify design flaws of the initial SPO human-machine system; (2) the CSNA method increased the ability to identify the changes in both the cognitive demands of tasks and the overall workloads of human agents compared to the SNA method; (3) the CSNA method could help researchers make reasonable design suggestions to improve the team performance of the redesigned SPO human-machine system. The above results not only verify the feasibility of the CSNA method, but also show that the CSNA method is superior to the current SNA method.

Difficulty-Generating Features of Text-based Physics Tasks

Influencing the difficulty of performance tasks is of great interest in science education as in several other subjects. In the context of the VAMPS project, difficulty-generating features with respect to the cognitive demand of text-based physics tasks were systematically varied at three levels. Based on preliminary work and two pilot studies presented here briefly, a model was developed by which cognitive requirement was varied according to three features. The viability of this model was empirically tested with a sample of n = 414 secondary school students. The feature <i>cognitive activity</i> proved to be a significant factor influencing the empirically measured difficulty of tasks. With the help of the feature <i>number of information obtained from task stem</i> and <i>number of subject-specific mental procedures</i>, no systematic influence on task difficulty could be shown. The influence of the test persons’ individual prior knowledge on the actual task difficulty is generally assumed to be a confounding factor. Overall, the present study contributes to a better understanding of construct representation in assessments of subject-specific proficiency and empirically confirms that a systematic variation of the task feature <i>cognitive activity</i> on three levels affects task difficulty

Assessing Concepts, Procedures, and Cognitive Demand of ChatGPT-generated Mathematical Tasks

In November 2022, ChatGPT, an Artificial Intelligence (AI) large language model (LLM) capable of generating human-like responses, was launched. ChatGPT has a variety of promising applications in education, such as using it as thought-partner in generating curricular resources. However, scholars also recognize that the use of ChatGPT raises concerns, such as outputs that are inaccurate, nonsensical, or vague. We, two mathematics teacher educators, engaged in a collaborative self-study using qualitative descriptive approaches to investigate the procedures, concepts, and cognitive demand of ChatGPT-generated mathematical tasks focused on fraction multiplication using the area model approach. We found that the ChatGPT-generated tasks were mostly procedural and not cognitively demanding. Moreover, despite ten variations of input prompts, ChatGPT did not produce any tasks that used the area model approach for fraction multiplication. Rather, it generated tasks focused on procedural approaches. Alarmingly, some tasks were conceptually and/or procedurally inaccurate and vague. We suggest that educators cannot fully rely on ChatGPT to generate cognitively demanding fraction multiplication tasks using the area model. We offer recommendations for educators’ strategic use of ChatGPT to generate cognitively demanding mathematical tasks.

Student learning and instructional tasks in different curricular contexts: A longitudinal study

This paper compares the longitudinal effect of instructional tasks on algebra learning that used a Standards-based curriculum [Connected Mathematics Project (CMP)] to that of classrooms that used a traditional curriculum (non-CMP). CMP was developed based on the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics (NCTM) Standards and can be characterized as a problem-based curriculum. CMP teachers were more than three times as likely to implement high-level instructional tasks than non-CMP teachers. Increases in the cognitive demand were associated with enhanced growth rates in problem solving, computation, and equation solving. Notably, when controlling for the cognitive demand of the instructional tasks, the advantage of the CMP curriculum over the non-CMP curricula on students’ growth in problem solving disappeared. However, non-CMP curricula had an advantage on students’ growth over the CMP curriculum after the cognitive demand of the instructional tasks was controlled.