Examined whether variations in adult native speaker performance arise from variations in working memory capacity or variations in procedural grammatical competence. Three groups of 18-year-old native speakers of English were tested on comprehension and recall of English complex noun phrase constructions. Results support the view that variations in…

We examined infants' long-term retention of a single unique emotional experience into early childhood. Twenty-month-olds who had participated in a still-face procedure at 5 months (experience group) fixated the face of the person who had instigated the still face significantly less than the faces of 2 other novel persons. Control 20-month-olds…

Recent research on the brain has identified a number of cognitive strategies for constructing knowledge and improving retention of new information. Classroom teachers have begun implementing many of these strategies in their teaching, but what about library media specialists? As leaders and learners in the Information Age, library media…

This study examined the contributions of the different components of the working memory (WM) model to a range of mathematical skills in children, using measures of WM function that did not involve numerical stimuli. A sample of 148 children (78 Year 3, mean age 8 years and 1 month, and 70 Year 5 pupils, mean age 9 years and 10 months) completed WM…

In this study, we investigate children's and adults' relative clause attachment preferences in sentences such as "The student photographed the fan of the actress who was looking happy." Twenty-nine 6- to 7-year-old monolingual English children and 37 adult native speakers of English participated both in an auditory questionnaire study and in an…

The brain, a pattern-finding organ, seeks to create meaning through establishing or refining existing neural networks; this is learning. Emotion affects what is learned and what is retained.

The relation between cognitive and motor performance was studied in a sample of 378 children aged 5-6. Half of these children had no behavior problems; the others were selected for externalizing (38%) or internalizing problems (12%). Quantitative and qualitative aspects of motor performance were related to several aspects of cognition, after…

Recent experiments have shown that placing dissimilar items on lists of phonologically similar items enhances accuracy of ordered recall of the dissimilar items [Farrell, S., & Lewandowsky, S. (2003). Dissimilar items benefit from phonological similarity in serial recall. "Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition," 29,…

Researchers have regarded inductive reasoning as one of the seven primary mental abilities that account for human intelligent behaviours. Researchers have also shown that inductive reasoning ability is one of the best predictors for academic performance. Modelling of inductive reasoning is therefore an important issue for providing adaptivity in…

In two experiments, the authors tested the effect of two types of reading on the spelling memory of strange or sound-spelling inconsistent words in Dutch students with and without learning disabilities: standard reading and regularized reading. Standard reading refers to reading the word the way it has to be read. Regularized reading refers to…

An item that stands out (is isolated) from its context is better remembered than an item consistent with the context. This isolation effect cannot be accounted for by increased attention, because it occurs when the isolated item is presented as the first item, or by impoverished memory of nonisolated items, because the isolated item is better…

This study examines college students' beliefs about health, prescriptions, doctors, and the influence those beliefs have on adherence to prescribed medication regimens. After a brief review of attitudinal factors that influence adherence to prescription medicine directions, the authors discuss measurement issues and explain the reasons for their…

In this experimental study, 44 undergraduates completed five computer-based instructional lessons and either two multiplechoice tests or two fill-in-the-blank tests. Color-coded borders were displayed during the lesson, adjacent to the screen text and illustrations. In the experimental condition, corresponding border colors were shown at posttest.…

This article reports 3 experiments in which effects of orthographic and phonological word length on memory were examined for short lists shown at rapid serial visual presentation (RSVP) and short-term memory (STM) rates. Only visual-orthographic length reduced RSVP serial recall, whereas both orthographic and phonological length lowered recall for…

Emerging data support the construct validity of component process variables of learning and memory within the Hopkins Verbal Learning Test-Revised (HVLT-R; Brandt & Benedict, 2001); however, the test-retest reliabilities of such measures are heretofore largely unknown. This study reveals generally modest-to-low 1-year test-retest stability for…