Responses to probe targets that have been distractors in a prime display are slower than responses to unrepeated stimuli, a finding labeled negative priming (NP). However, without probe distractors the NP effect usually diminishes. The present study is the first to investigate ERP correlates of NP without probe distractors to shed light on the…

The present study evaluated the interplay between two mechanisms of maintenance of verbal information in working memory, namely articulatory rehearsal as described in Baddeley's model, and attentional refreshing as postulated in Barrouillet and Camos's Time-Based Resource-Sharing (TBRS) model. In four experiments using complex span paradigm, we…

Psychometric intelligence correlates with reaction time in elementary cognitive tasks, as well as with performance in time discrimination and judgment tasks. It has remained unclear, however, to what extent these correlations are due to top-down mechanisms, such as attention, and bottom-up mechanisms, i.e. basic neural properties that influence…

Elementary cognitive tasks (ECTs) are simple tasks involving basic cognitive processes for which speed of performance typically correlates with IQ. Inspection time (IT) has the strongest IQ correlations and is considered critical evidence for neural speed underlying individual differences in intelligence. However, results from Bors et al. [Bors,…

First order knowledge and understanding, relating to the "stuff" of history, is, of course, absolutely fundamental to the development of children's historical knowledge and understanding. However, as Frances Blow shows, in a contribution to a series of articles exploring second order concepts in history published in Teaching History by…

In a German out-of-school laboratory, 293 medium-achieving 10th-grade students participated in a lesson unit about gene technology. They were divided into two groups (I-1, I-2), both of which followed the same hands-on lesson procedure. Students within I-2 were additionally confronted with alternative conceptions to central issues of the specific…

The authors investigated the impact of response activation on dual-task performance by presenting a subliminal prime before the stimulus in Task 2 (S2) of a psychological refractory period (PRP) task. Congruence between prime and S2 modulated the reaction times in Task 2 at short stimulus onset asynchrony despite a PRP effect. This Task 2…

In reaction time (RT) research on nonspecific preparation, the preparation period is often identified with the foreperiod (FP), the interval between the offset of a neutral warning stimulus (S1) and the onset of the reaction stimulus (S2). However, the "effective preparation period" may be longer than FP: nonspecific preparation may start prior to…

Objective: Both executive functions and time perception are typically impaired in subjects with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). However, the exact neural mechanisms underlying these deficits remain to be investigated. Method: Fourteen subjects with ADHD and 14 age- and IQ-matched controls (aged 9 through 15 years) were assessed…

Conflict adaptation effects refer to the reduction of interference when the incongruent stimulus occurs immediately after an incongruent trial, compared with when it occurs after a congruent trial. The present study analyzes the key conditions that lead to adaptation effects that are specific to the type of conflict involved versus those that are…

When the bottom halves of two faces differ, people's behavioral judgment of the identical top halves of those faces is impaired: they report that the top halves are different, and/or take more time than usual to provide a response. This behavioral measure is known as the composite face effect (CFE) and has traditionally been taken as evidence that…

The current article outlines a behavior-analytic approach to the study of so-called implicit attitudes and cognition. The Implicit Relational Assessment Procedure (IRAP), the conceptual basis of which was derived from relational frame theory, is offered as a methodology that may be used in the experimental analysis of implicit attitudes and…

The purpose of this study was to explore changes in activation of the cortical network that serves auditory sentence comprehension in children in response to increasing demands of complex sentences. A further goal is to study how individual differences in children's receptive language abilities are associated with such changes in cortical…

Psychological research has placed great emphasis on inhibitory control due to its integral role in normal cognition and clinical disorders. The stop-signal task and associated measure--stop-signal reaction time (SSRT)--provides a well-established paradigm for measuring response inhibition. However, motivational influences on stop-signal…

We examined how maternal strategic behaviors during a mother-child collaborative sort-recall task of categorically similar items related to children's recall and children's strategic behavior in a sort-recall task that they completed independently. Mother-child dyads participated in the collaborative sort-recall task when children were 40 months…