Collaboration enhances conceptual learning with multiple representations. However, learning with multiple representations also involves perceptual learning processes. These often-overlooked learning processes are the target of perceptual trainings, which expose students to short nonverbal tasks so that students can induce visual patterns across…

Prior research has shown that interruptions lead to a variety of performance costs. However, these costs are heterogenous and poorly understood. Under some circumstances, interruptions lead to large decreases in accuracy on the primary task, whereas in others task duration increases, but task accuracy is unaffected. Presently, the underlying cause…

Visual inspection of luggage using X-ray technology at airports is a time-sensitive task that is often supported by automated systems to increase performance and reduce workload. The present study evaluated how time pressure and automation support influence visual search behavior and performance in a simulated luggage screening task. Moreover, we…

In the first year of life, the ability to search for hidden objects is an indicator of object permanence and, when multiple locations are involved, executive function (i.e. inhibition, cognitive flexibility and working memory). The current study was designed to examine attentional predictors of search in 5-month-old infants (as measured by the…

The present study explored the temporal allocation of attention in groups of 8-year-old children, 10-year-old children, and adults performing a rapid serial visual presentation task. In a dual-condition task, participants had to detect a briefly presented target (T2) after identifying an initial target (T1) embedded in a random series of…

When trained to locate a hidden platform in a T-maze moved between two positions, rats appear to adopt a conditional strategy based on start point discrimination. To determine if location cues or orientation cues at the start point underlie this discrimination, separate groups of rats were trained on two place problems, each with unique start…

A number of studies have shown that visual working memory (WM) is poorer for complex versus simple items, traditionally accounted for by higher information load placing greater demands on encoding and storage capacity limits. Other research suggests that it may not be complexity that determines WM performance per se, but rather increased…

Five experiments examined what is learned based on the perceptual and semantic information of objects in visual statistical learning (VSL). In the familiarization phase, participants viewed a sequence of line drawings and detected repetitions of various objects. In a subsequent test phase, they watched 2 test sequences (statistically related…

The goals of this study were to explore the deficits in working memory associated with literacy disorders (i.e. developmental disorders of reading and/or spelling) and the developmental trajectories of these working memory deficits. The performance of 28 children with literacy disorders was compared to a non-disabled control group with the same…

Three experiments assessed the development of children's part and configural (part-relational) processing in object recognition during adolescence. In total, 312 school children aged 7-16 years and 80 adults were tested in 3-alternative forced choice (3-AFC) tasks. They judged the correct appearance of upright and inverted presented familiar…

Beaconing is a process in which the distance between a visual landmark and current position is reduced in order to return to a location. In contrast, dead reckoning is a process in which vestibular, kinesthetic and/or optic flow cues are utilized to update speed of movement, elapsed time of movement, and direction of movement to return to a…

The present work investigated the effects of caffeine (0 mg, 100 mg, 200 mg, 400 mg) on a flanker task designed to test Posner's three visual attention network functions: alerting, orienting, and executive control [Posner, M. I. (2004). "Cognitive neuroscience of attention". New York, NY: Guilford Press]. In a placebo-controlled, double-blind…

The capacity to solve tasks that contain high concentrations of visual-spatial information, including graphs, maps and diagrams, is becoming increasingly important in educational contexts as well as everyday life. This research examined gender differences in the performance of students solving graphics tasks from the Graphical Languages in…

Research suggests that visual selective attention develops across childhood. However, there is relatively little understanding of the neurological changes that accompany this development, particularly in the context of adult theories of selective attention, such as N. Lavie's (1995) perceptual load theory of attention. This study examined visual…

For successful basketball shooting, players must use information about the location of the basket relative to themselves. In this study, the authors examined to what extent shooting performance depends on the absolute distance to the basket ("m") and the angle of elevation (alpha). In Experiment 1, expert players took jump shots under different…