Using transfer methodology, several possible factors that could have affected the expression of serial position learning were examined with runway-trained rats. A 3-trial series (SNP) --for which S and P refer to series trials when sucrose (S) and plain (P) Noyes pellets were used as a reward, and N refers to a trial without reward -- was the…

Research on memory development has increasingly moved out of the laboratory and into the real world. Whereas early researchers asked whether confusion and susceptibility to suggestion made children unreliable witnesses, furthermore, contemporary researchers are addressing a much broader range of questions about children's memory, focusing not only…

In antisaccade tasks, subjects are required to generate a saccade in the direction opposite to the location of a sudden-onset target stimulus. Compared to young adults, older adults tend to make more reflex-like eye movements towards the target, and/or show longer saccadic onset latencies on correct direct antisaccades. To better understand the…

Fragile X syndrome is a neurodevelopmental disorder that is caused by large methylated expansions of a CGG repeat (>200) region upstream of the FMR1 gene that results in the lack of expression of the fragile X mental retardation protein (FMRP). Affected individuals display a neurobehavioral phenotype that includes a significant impairment in…

We investigated the effect of familiarity on people's perception of facial likeness by asking participants to choose which of two mirror-symmetric chimeric images (made from the left or right half of a photograph of a face) looked more like an original image. In separate trials the participants made this judgment for their own face and for the…

Are the linguistic forms that are memorized in the mental lexicon and those that are specified by the rules of grammar subserved by distinct neurocognitive systems or by a single computational system with relatively broad anatomic distribution? On a dual-system view, the productive -ed-suffixation of English regular past tense forms (e.g.,…

Individuals with Down syndrome suffer from relatively poor verbal short-term memory. Recent work has indicated that this deficit is not caused by problems of audition, speech, or articulatory rehearsal within the phonological loop component of Baddeley and Hitch's working memory model. Given this, two experiments were conducted to investigate…

We adapted a paradigm developed by Clayton and Dickinson (1998), who demonstrated memory for what, where, and when in scrub jays, for use with rhesus monkeys. In the study phase of each trial, monkeys found a preferred and a less-preferred food reward in a trial-unique array of three locations in a large room. After 1h, monkeys returned to the…

A growing body of research has emphasized the linkage between performance in immediate serial recall of lists, nonword repetition, and word learning. Recently, it has been reported that primacy and recency effects are obtained in repetition of individual syllables within nonwords (Gupta, in press). Five experiments examined whether such…

In three eye-movement monitoring experiments, participants' working memory capacity was assessed and they read sentences containing subject-extracted and object-extracted relative clauses. In Experiment 1, sentences lacked helpful semantic cues, object-relatives were harder to process than subject relatives, and working memory capacity did not…

Veridical and false memory were examined in lists that contained 12 words that all converged onto the same meaning of a critical nonpresented word (e.g., snooze, wake, bedroom, slumber..., for SLEEP) or lists that contained 6 words that converged onto one meaning and 6 words that converged onto a different meaning of a homograph (e.g., stumble,…

Although the male advantage in traditional spatial abilities is well established, the female advantage in object location memory remains tentative. Object location memory is the only spatial ability that yields a female advantage, leading some to speculate that other factors, such as verbal memory, may solely account for the sex difference. The…

This study examined 5- and 6-year-olds' suggestibility and interviewer demeanor as joint predictors of their memory for a novel experience. Session 1 consisted of children taking part in a novel laboratory event. Session 2 took place after approximately a 1-week delay and consisted of children completing both a memory test concerning what happened…

According to several current models of short-term memory, items are retained in order by associating them with positional codes. The models differ as to whether temporal oscillators provide those codes. The authors examined errors in recall of sequences comprising 2 groups of 4 consonants. A critical manipulation was the precise timing of items…

The authors argue that human desire involves conscious cognition that has strong affective connotation and is potentially involved in the determination of appetitive behavior rather than being epiphenomenal to it. Intrusive thoughts about appetitive targets are triggered automatically by external or physiological cues and by cognitive associates.…