It is known that in American Sign Language (ASL) span is shorter than in English, but this discrepancy has never been systematically investigated using other pairs of signed and spoken languages. This finding is at odds with results showing that short-term memory (STM) for signs has an internal organization similar to STM for words. Moreover, some…

Single trial methods reveal unimpaired free recall of unrelated words in Asperger's syndrome (AS). When repeated trials are used (free recall learning), typical individuals show improved recall over trials, subjective organization of material (SO) and a correlation between free recall and SO. We tested oral (Experiment 1) and written (Experiment…

Patients with mild Alzheimer's disease (AD) display a greater tendency to endorse unstudied items as "old" on memory tests than healthy older adults. This liberal response bias may result in mistaken beliefs about the completion of common tasks. This research attempted to determine whether it was possible to shift the response bias of mild AD…

Information processing theory suggests that cognitive changes following trauma are common and hypothesized to have an impact on attention, memory, and intrusive thoughts. There is an ever-expanding empirical literature where cognitive features of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) are being explored. However, it can sometimes be difficult for…

Recent evidence suggests that rats require an intact hippocampus in order to recognize familiar objects when they encounter them again in a different context. The two experiments reported here further examined how changes in context affect rats' performance on the novel-object preference (NOP) test of object-recognition memory, and how those…

The saccadic eye movement system provides researchers with a powerful tool with which to explore the cognitive control of behaviour. It is a behavioural system whose limited output can be measured with exceptional precision, and whose input can be controlled and manipulated in subtle ways. A range of cognitive processes (notably those involved in…

Cognitive control of behavior continues to improve through adolescence in parallel with important brain maturational processes including synaptic pruning and myelination, which allow for efficient neuronal computations and the functional integration of widely distributed circuitries supporting top-down control of behavior. This is also a time when…

The cognitive underpinnings of arithmetic calculation in children are noted to involve working memory; however, cognitive processes related to arithmetic calculation and working memory suggest that this relationship is more complex than stated previously. The purpose of this investigation was to examine the relative contributions of processing…

Processing speed, inhibitory control and working memory have been identified as the main possible culprits of age-related cognitive decline. This article describes a study of their interrelationships and dependence on age, including exploration of whether any of them mediates between age and the others. We carried out a LISREL analysis of the…

Methylphenidate (MPH) often ameliorates attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) behavioral dysfunction according to "indirect" informant reports and rating scales. The standard of care behavioral MPH titration approach seldom includes "direct" neuropsychological or academic assessment data to determine treatment…

Three experiments investigated forgetting when a processing task is interpolated between presentation and recall of memory items with children ages 8-17 years. Findings showed consistent effects of the duration of the task, but no effects of its difficulty or similarity to memory material, and no developmental differences in task performance.…

In 3 experiments motivated by the implicit memory literature, the authors investigated the effects of different strengthening operations on the list strength effect (LSE) for explicit free recall, an effect posited by R. M. Shiffrin, R. Ratcliff, and S. E. Clark (1990) to be due to context cuing. According to the one-shot hypothesis, a fixed…

Overt rehearsal and free recall performance was analyzed longitudinally in two experimental testing sessions at 7 and later at 9 years of age. Measures of short- and long-term memory recall, and two measures of input processing were obtained. Significant increases between age levels were exhibited by all variables except short-term memory.…

This article presents a review of the "Process Assessment of the Learner-Second Edition" (PAL-II), an individual or group-administered instrument designed to assess the cognitive processes involved in academic tasks in kindergarten through sixth grade. The instrument allows the examiner to identify reasons for underachievement and…

Emerging research supports the contribution of executive function (EF) to reading comprehension; however, a unique pattern has not been established for children who demonstrate comprehension difficulties despite average word recognition ability (specific reading comprehension deficit; S-RCD). To identify particular EF components on which children…