Two voluntary task-switching experiments probed the influence of previous exposures to stimuli and categorizations of these stimuli on task choice during subsequent exposures to the same stimuli. Subjects performed origin and size judgments under standard voluntary task-switching instructions to perform the tasks equally often in a random order.…

Across languages, children with developmental dyslexia are known to have impaired lexical phonological representations. Here, we explore associations between learning new phonological representations, phonological awareness, and sensitivity to amplitude envelope onsets (rise time). We show that individual differences in learning novel phonological…

Long-term memory for fear of an environment (contextual fear conditioning) emerges later in development (postnatal day; PD 23) than long-term memory for fear of discrete stimuli (PD 17). As contextual, but not explicit cue, fear conditioning relies on the hippocampus; this has been interpreted as evidence that the hippocampus is not fully…

Previous studies suggested that the beta-adrenergic receptor antagonist propranolol might be a novel, potential treatment for post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). This hypothesis stemmed mainly from rodent studies showing that propranolol interferes with the reconsolidation of Pavlovian fear conditioning (FC). However, subsequent investigations…

The role of focusing 4-year-olds' attention on "feeling" or "looking" was examined in three experiments by testing predictions about children's memory for their interactions with an adult partner as they engaged in a collaborative task. Children made collages with an adult partner, and they were later asked to remember who placed the pieces on the…

Temporal distinctiveness models of recency in free recall predict that increasing the delay between the end of sequence and attempting recall of items from that sequence will reduce recency. An empirical dissociation is reported here that violates this prediction when the delay is introduced by the act of recall itself. Analysis of data from a…

The 22q11.2 deletion syndrome (22qDS) and schizophrenia have genetic and neuropsychological similarities, but are likely to differ in memory profile. Confirming differences in memory function between the two disorders, and identifying their genetic determinants, can help to define genetic subtypes in both syndromes, identify genetic risk factors…

Visual scenes contain many statistical regularities such as the likely identity and location of objects that are present; with experience, such regularities can be encoded and can ultimately facilitate the deployment of spatial attention to important locations. Memory-guided attention has been extensively examined in adults with the "contextual…

The amygdala is a key area of the brain where the emotional memories are stored throughout the lifespan. It is well established that synapses in the lateral nucleus of amygdala (LA) can undergo long-term potentiation, a putative cellular correlate of learning and memory. However, a type of short-term synaptic plasticity, known as…

The present study examined whether various indices of interference control were related to one another and to other cognitive abilities. It was found that the interference control measures were weakly correlated and could form a single factor that was related to overall memory performance on the tasks as well as to measures of working memory…

Speakers tend to attenuate information that is predictable or repeated. To what extent is this done automatically and egocentrically, because it is easiest for speakers themselves, and to what extent is it driven by the informational needs of addressees? In 20 triads of naive subjects, speakers told the same Road Runner cartoon story twice to one…

We investigate the effects of word characteristics on episodic recognition memory using analyses that avoid Clark's (1973) "language-as-a-fixed-effect" fallacy. Our results demonstrate the importance of modeling word variability and show that episodic memory for words is strongly affected by item noise (Criss & Shiffrin, 2004), as measured by the…

Informed by recurring international controversies, this study explores representations of the Second World War as official history in Chinese, Japanese, and Korean secondary-level textbooks and theorizes about how they influence and function as collective memories about this time period. Using grounded theory, it finds that the examined Japanese…

Objective: It is an open question whether working memory (WM) and response inhibition (RI) constitute one integral phenotype in attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). Method: The authors investigated 45 adult ADHD patients and 41 controls comparable for age, gender, intelligence, and education during a letter n-back and a stop-signal…

The question of which cognitive impairments are primarily associated with dyslexia has been a source of continuous debate. This study examined the cognitive profile of Hebrew-speaking compensated adult dyslexics and investigated whether their cognitive abilities accounted for a unique variance in their reading performance. Sixty-nine young adults…