Humans have the ability to attentionally select the most relevant visual information from their extrapersonal world and to retain it in a temporary buffer, known as visual short-term memory (VSTM). Research suggests that at least two non-contiguous items can be selected simultaneously when they are distributed across the two visual hemifields. In…

To examine the development of visual short-term memory (VSTM) for location, we presented 6- to 12-month-old infants (N = 199) with two side-by-side stimulus streams. In each stream, arrays of colored circles continually appeared, disappeared, and reappeared. In the "changing" stream, the location of one or more items changed in each cycle; in the…

The present paper explores cross-cultural variation in spatial cognition by comparing spatial reconstruction tasks by Dutch and Namibian elementary school children. These two communities differ in the way they predominantly express spatial relations in language. Four experiments investigate cognitive strategy preferences across different levels of…

We examined whether individual differences in working memory influence the facility with which individuals learn new categories. Participants learned two different types of category structures: "rule-based" and "information-integration." Successful learning of the former category structure is thought to be based on explicit…

Adults can represent approximate numbers of items independently of language. This approximate number system can discriminate and compare entities as varied as dots, sounds, or actions. But can multiple different types of entities be enumerated in parallel and stored as independent numerosities? Subjects who were prevented from verbally counting…

The ability to automatically and implicitly detect complex and noisy regularities in the environment is a fundamental aspect of human cognition. Despite considerable interest in implicit processes, few researchers have conceptualized implicit learning as an ability with meaningful individual differences. Instead, various researchers (e.g., Reber,…

Examines connectionist simulations indicating that starting with simplified inputs or limited memory is not necessary in training recurrent neural networks to learn pseudo-natural languages; such restrictions hinder acquisition. Suggests that Gold's theorem and possible lack of explicit negative evidence do not implicate innate,…

Recent work suggests that infants rely on mechanisms of object-based attention and short-term memory to represent small numbers of objects. Such work shows that infants discriminate arrays containing 1, 2, or 3 objects, but fail with arrays greater than 3 [Feigenson, L., & Carey, S. (2003). Tracking individuals via object-files: Evidence from…

Developmental dyslexics have difficulty accessing the meaning of written words via phonological recoding due to a short-term memory deficit, although they can access meaning by a direct visual route. Evidence that dyslexia is a genetically-based dysfunction of the interior parietal lobule is reviewed. Implications for remedial instruction are…

Infants' abilities to identify objects based on their perceptual features develop gradually during the first year and possibly beyond. Earlier we reported [Kaldy, Z., & Leslie, A. M. (2003). Identification of objects in 9-month-old infants: Integrating "what" and "where" information. Developmental Science, 6, 360-373] that infants at 9 months of…

Here, we demonstrate that action video game play enhances subjects' ability in two tasks thought to indicate the number of items that can be apprehended. Using an enumeration task, in which participants have to determine the number of quickly flashed squares, accuracy measures showed a near ceiling performance for low numerosities and a sharp drop…

Thirty-one 8- and 9-year-old children selected for dyscalculia, reading difficulties or both, were compared to controls on a range of basic number processing tasks. Children with dyscalculia only had impaired performance on the tasks despite high-average performance on tests of IQ, vocabulary and working memory tasks. Children with reading…