Most previous studies of semantic processing have examined group-level data. We investigated the possibility that there might be individual differences in semantic decision performance even among the standard undergraduate population and that such differences might provide insights into semantic processing. We analyzed the Calgary Semantic…

Visual working memory (VWM) has a limited capacity of approximately 3-4 visual objects. Current theories of VWM propose that a limited pool of resources can be flexibly allocated to objects, allowing them to be represented at varying levels of precision. Factors that influence the allocation of these resources, such as the complexity and…

This article reports two experiments in which the artificial orthography paradigm was used to investigate the mechanisms underlying learning to read. In each experiment, participants were taught the meanings and pronunications of words written in an unfamiliar orthography, and the statistical structure of the mapping between written and spoken…

When speakers name multiple semantically related items, opposing effects can be found. Semantic facilitation is found when naming 2 semantically related items in a row. In contrast, semantic interference is found when speakers name semantically related items separated by 1 or more intervening unrelated items. This latter form of interference is…

Nowadays, most of e-learning systems embody online discussion forums as a medium for collaborative learning that supports knowledge sharing and information exchanging between learners. The exponential growth of the available shared information in e-learning online discussion forums has caused a difficulty for learners in discovering interesting…

The degree to which meanings are related in memory affects ambiguous word processing. We examined irregular polysemes, which have related senses based on similar or shared features rather than a relational rule, like regular polysemy. We tested to what degree the related meanings of irregular polysemes ("wire") are represented with…

Error patterns in vocabulary learning data were used as a window into the mechanisms that underlie vocabulary learning performance in bilinguals vs. monolinguals. English--Spanish bilinguals (n = 18) and English-speaking monolinguals (n = 18) were taught novel vocabulary items in association with English translations. At testing, participants…

The domain model is an essential part of an adaptive learning system. For each educational course, it involves educational content and semantics, which is also viewed as a form of conceptual metadata about educational content. Due to the size of a domain model, manual domain model creation is a challenging and demanding task for teachers or…

The way in which an event is packaged linguistically can be informative about the number of participants in the event and the nature of their participation. At times, however, a sentence is ambiguous, and pragmatic information weighs in to favor one interpretation over another. Whereas adults may readily know how to pick up on such cues to…

Recollection is constructive and prone to distortion, but the mechanisms through which recollections can become embellished with rich yet illusory details are still debated. According to the conceptual fluency hypothesis, abstract semantic or conceptual activation increases the familiarity of a nonstudied event, causing one to falsely attribute…

Reconstructing memory for sequences is a complex process, likely involving multiple sources of information. In 3 experiments, we examined the source(s) of information that might underlie the ability to accurately place an event within a temporal context. The task was to estimate, after studying each list, the temporal position of a single test…

Visual narratives, including graphic novels, illustrated instructions, and picture books, convey event sequences constituting a plot but cannot depict all events that make up the plot. Viewers must generate inferences that fill the gaps between explicitly shown images. This study explored the inferential products and memory implications of…

In discourse processing, speakers collaborate toward a shared mental model by establishing and recruiting prominence relations between different discourse referents. In this article we investigate to what extent the possibility to infer a referent's existence from preceding context (as indicated by the referent's information status as inferred or…

The elaborative retrieval account of retrieval-based learning proposes that retrieval enhances retention because the retrieval process produces the generation of semantic mediators that link cues to target information. We tested 2 assumptions that form the basis of this account: that semantic mediators are more likely to be generated during…

A key assumption of dual process theory is that reasoning is an explicit, effortful, deliberative process. The present study offers evidence for an implicit, possibly intuitive component of reasoning. Participants were shown sentences embedded in logically valid or invalid arguments. Participants were not asked to reason but instead rated the…