The development of advanced writing skills has been neglected in schools of the United States, with even some college graduates lacking the level of ability required in the workplace (National Commission on Writing, 2003, 2004). The core problem, we argue, is an insufficient degree of appropriate task practice distributed throughout the secondary…

Perceptual integration of the sound directly emanating from the source with reflections needs both temporal storage and correlation computation of acoustic details. We examined whether the temporal storage is frequency dependent and associated with speech unmasking. In Experiment 1, a break in correlation (BIC) between interaurally correlated…

Sleep is known to promote the consolidation of motor memories. In everyday life, typically more than 1 isolated motor skill is acquired at a time, and this possibly gives rise to interference during consolidation. Here, it is shown that reward expectancy determines the amount of sleep-dependent memory consolidation. Subjects were trained on 2…

A controversial issue in bilingual research is whether in the early stages of L2 learning, access to the conceptual system involves mediation of L1 lexical representations [Kroll, J. F., & Stewart, E. (1994). Category interference in translation and picture naming: Evidence for asymmetric connections between bilingual memory representations.…

The current study examined basic cognitive abilities that are related to or included in the concept of working memory (WM): different WM components, three executive functions, simple short-term storage (STM), and sustained attention. Tasks were selected from well-established models and balanced in terms of content. The predictive power of storage…

A growing movement in the United States and around the world involves promoting the advantages of conducting an eyewitness lineup in a sequential manner. We conducted a large study (N = 2,529) that included 24 comparisons of sequential versus simultaneous lineups. A liberal statistical criterion revealed only 2 significant sequential lineup…

Forgetting is frustrating, usually because it is unintended. Other times, one may purposely attempt to forget an event. A global theory of recognition and free recall that explains both types of forgetting and remembering from multiple list experiments is presented. The critical assumption of the model is that both intentional and unintentional…

Segmentation of target odorants from background odorants is a fundamental computational requirement for the olfactory system and is thought to be behaviorally mediated by olfactory habituation memory. Data from our laboratory have shown that odor-specific adaptation in piriform neurons, mediated at least partially by synaptic adaptation between…

Retrieval practice can enhance long-term retention of the tested material (the testing effect), but it can also impair later recall of the nontested material--a phenomenon known as retrieval-induced forgetting (Anderson, M. C., Bjork, R. A., & Bjork, E. L. (1994). "Remembering can cause forgetting: retrieval dynamics in long-term memory." "Journal…

Purpose: This work is aimed at addressing a seeming contradiction related to the use of noise-reduction (NR) algorithms in hearing aids. The problem is that although some listeners claim a subjective improvement from NR, it has not been shown to improve speech intelligibility, often even making it worse. Method: To address this, the hypothesis…

This longitudinal study explores linkages between patterns of mother-child conversation as events unfold and children's subsequent event memory reports. Eighty-nine mother-child dyads took part in novel "adventures" in their homes when the children were 36 and 42 months old. In contrast to "low joint talk" dyads, the conversations of "high joint…

The present study examined the impact of training mothers in high-elaborative, emotional reminiscing on children's autobiographical memory and emotion knowledge. Eighty mothers were randomly allocated to one of two training conditions: in the "reminiscing" condition, mothers were encouraged to reminisce by asking their children (aged 3.5 to 5…

Research in science education has referred to limitations in information processing resulting from both mental capacity and working memory capacity. Mental capacity is often conceptualised within the framework of the theory of constructive operators. However, the cognitive resources underlying working memory are not well specified within the…

The goal of the present investigation was to assess semantic learning in Korsakoff patients (KS), compared with uncomplicated alcoholics (AL) and control subjects (CS), taking the nature of the information to-be-learned and the episodic memory profiles of the three groups into account. Ten new complex concepts, each illustrated by a photo and…

A critical question for societies emerging from conflict is what should be done about the traumatic memories of the past. In post-conflict societies political issues of memory and identity are at the same time issues for curriculum construction. Using the examples of post-conflict Rwanda and South Africa, I raise questions about the competing…