Performance in elementary cognitive tasks is moderately correlated with fluid intelligence and working memory capacity. These correlations are higher for more complex tasks, presumably due to increased demands on working memory capacity. In accordance with the binding hypothesis, which states that working memory capacity reflects the limit of a…

Developing treatment strategies to enhance memory is an important goal of neuroscience research. Activation of multiple biochemical signaling cascades, such as the protein kinase A (PKA) and extracellular signal-regulated kinase (ERK) pathways, is necessary to induce long-term synaptic facilitation (LTF), a correlate of long-term memory (LTM).…

Science learning requires visuospatial thinking. Accordingly, spatial ability is regarded as the key to learning science well, but its effects are sometimes not as significant as expected. To this end, this research aims to conceptualize spatial abilities and to clarify their relation to science learning based on an analysis of empirical studies.…

Theories of working memory often disagree on the relationships between processing and storage, particularly on how heavily they rely on an attention-based limited resource. Some posit separation and specialization of resources resulting in minimal interference to memory when completing an ongoing processing task, while others argue for a greater…

To account for natural variability in cognitive processing, it is standard practice to optimize a model's parameters by fitting it to behavioral data. Although most language-related theories acknowledge a large role for experience in language processing, variability reflecting that knowledge is usually ignored when evaluating a model's fit to…

Despite the importance of rehearsal to most models of verbal working memory, its role has been recently called into question. Much prior work in support of rehearsal models has centered on the experimental effects of word-length, phonological-similarity, and irrelevant sound on serial order recall performance and the interaction of all three with…

The autobiographical memory model of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) argues that centralizing a traumatic event into one's life story is a maladaptive process associated with increased PTSD symptoms. Current measures of event centralization make no reference to whether individuals centralize the event in a positive or negative way. This study…

A basic function of cognition is to detect regularities in sensory input to facilitate the prediction and recognition of future events. It has been proposed that these implicit expectations arise from an internal predictive coding model, based on knowledge acquired through processes such as statistical learning, but it is unclear how different…

Ambridge calls for exemplar-based accounts of language acquisition. Do modern neural networks such as transformers or word2vec -- which have been extremely successful in modern natural language processing (NLP) applications -- count? Although these models often have ample parametric complexity to store exemplars from their training data, they also…

Although studies have demonstrated a relationship between working memory and achievement in math and reading, it is still unclear why working memory might be related to these abilities. In the present article, we examined the viability of several possible theories in 2 separate analyses of math and reading. In each case, we contrasted the…

A major goal of education is to help students retain as much meaningful information as possible for long periods of time. The learning process by which students acquire new knowledge and behaviors is closely related to memory, which is the core of cognition. In a previous study, we developed virtual reality visualization model (VRVM) that can be…

Young children can quickly and intuitively represent the number of objects in a visual scene through the Approximate Number System (ANS). The precision of the ANS--indexed as the most difficult ratio of two numbers that children can reliably discriminate--is well known to improve with development: whereas infants require relatively large ratios to…

This article proposes that two processes are involved in the generation of content during writing: (a) an active, knowledge-constituting process in which content is synthesized by constraints within semantic memory representing the implicit structure of the writer's understanding, and (b) a reflective, knowledge-transforming process in which…

Guided by evolutionary-developmental models, this study tested the hypothesis that children's exposure to parental relationship instability, defined by initiation and dissolution of caregiver intimate relationships, has both costs in cognitive impairments and benefits in enhanced learning skills. Participants included 243 mothers and their…

The interaction between working memory and language processing is widely discussed in cognitive research. However, those studies often explore the relationship between language comprehension and working memory (WM). The role of WM is rarely considered in language production, despite some evidence suggesting a relationship between the two cognitive…