Does recognition memory rely on discrete recollection, continuous evidence, or both? Is continuous evidence sensitive to only the recency and duration of study (familiarity), or is it also sensitive to details of the study episode? Dual process theories assume recognition is based on recollection and familiarity, with only recollection providing…

Conjunction errors occur when participants incorrectly identify as "old" novel test stimuli created by recombining parts of two study stimuli (parent items). Prior studies have reported that the conjunction error rate is higher when parent items are studied together than when they are studied apart (a parent proximity effect). In several…

Script analysis as a test of executive functions is presumed sensitive to cognitive changes seen with increasing age. Two studies evaluated if gender differences exist in performance on scripts for familiar and unfamiliar tasks in groups of cognitively intact older adults. In Study 1, 26 older adults completed male and female stereotypical…

This narrative inquiry sought to explore the views of eight young New Zealanders, aged nine to 14 years, who had experienced specific difficulties with learning. Narrative research procedures were used to gather and interpret the stories the young participants told about their experiences. Findings revealed that young people become aware of their…

This study investigated the role of concurrent musical parts in pitching ability in sight-singing, concentrating on the effects of melodic and harmonic coherence. Twenty-two experienced singers sang their part twice in each of four novel chorales. The chorales contained either original or altered melody and original (tonal) or altered (atonal)…

This article explores the influence of prior knowledge on the setting of goals and use of content in museum website visits. Goal setting is a crucial process in organizing the activities of surfers in open environments, such as museum websites, where surfers faced ill-defined tasks. To this end, 12 graduate students were asked to surf through two…

This paper provides three representative examples that highlight the ways in which procedures can be combined to study interactions across traditional domains of study: segmentation, word learning, and grammar. The first section uses visual familiarization prior to the Headturn Preference Procedure to demonstrate that synchronized visual…

The linguistic, cultural, and ethnic mixture in many countries, including the United States, is changing rapidly and varies significantly from such old standbys as "Johnny Appleseed" or "Dick and Jane." Learning to communicate effectively in a new language involves gaining familiarity with the present-day culture of the country in which one…

The influences of domain-specific meteorological knowledge and general visual-spatial abilities on the comprehension of simple weather maps were examined in a regression-based study involving a sample of participants with relatively low meteorological knowledge and in an experiment involving a contrast between samples of higher- and…

Young infants have repeatedly been shown to be slower than older infants to shift fixation from a midline stimulus to a peripheral stimulus. This is generally thought to reflect maturation of the neural substrates that mediate the disengagement of attention, but this developmental difference may also be attributable to young infants' slower…

This study represents an endeavor to point out facts and tendencies in higher education in Ireland and Wales by which American universities and colleges may profit. It complements similar studies in England and Scotland (see ED540852), and presupposes familiarity with the principal features and terminology of these studies. The compiler of this…

Examined relations between preschoolers' emotion production and classroom social behavior. Also examined influence of familiarity with a child on the perception of emotion expressions and on those relations between emotion expression and social behavior. Found that children who were more negative and dependent had angry production biases and were…

Examines the phenomenon of the"first time"--a teenager's first date, first job, first sexual experience. Since these experiences are imbued with an inordinate amount of emotional investment, they offer an alternative understanding to adolescents' emotional underpinnings and clarify why many adolescents experience stressful times during this stage…

Fifty-four college students rated their foreign-born instructors on presentation, organization, interest, enthusiasm, and attitude. Paired t-test analyses showed that increased interaction with an instructor with a different background increased consonance between students and instructors irrespective of their nationality. (JOW)

The impact of interestingness and "narrativity" on comprehension, attention, and reading speed and the role of topic familiarity were studied for 16 college students in psychology classes and 8 from engineering classes who read excerpts from psychology and engineering texts. Results support schema-based comprehension theory. (SLD)