Synaptic plasticity is thought to contribute to memory formation. Serotonin-induced facilitation of sensory-motor (SN-MN) synapses in "Aplysia" is an extensively studied cellular analog of memory for sensitization. Serotonin, a modulatory neurotransmitter, is released in the CNS during sensitization training, and induces three temporally and…

Working memory is the cognitive ability to hold a discrete amount of information in mind in an accessible state for utilization in mental tasks. This cognitive ability is impaired in many clinical populations. There have been a number of theoretical shifts in the way that working memory is conceptualized and assessed in the experimental…

Approximately 30% of healthy persons aged over 75 years show A[beta] deposition at autopsy. It is postulated that this represents preclinical Alzheimer's disease (AD). We evaluated the relationship between A[beta] burden as assessed by PiB PET and cognitive decline in a well-characterized, non-demented, elderly cohort. PiB PET studies and…

Memory in autism spectrum disorder (ASD) is characterised by greater difficulties with recall rather than recognition and with a diminished use of semantic or associative relatedness in the aid of recall. Two experiments are reported that test the effects of item-context relatedness on recall and recognition in adults with high-functioning ASD…

Many models of learning rely on accessing internal knowledge states. Yet, although infants and young children are recognized to be proficient learners, the ability to act on metacognitive information is not thought to develop until early school years. In the experiments reported here, 3.5-year-olds demonstrated memory-monitoring skills by…

A central goal in cognitive and developmental science is to develop models of behavior that can generalize across both tasks and development while maintaining a commitment to detailed behavioral prediction. This paper presents tests of one such model, the Dynamic Field Theory (DFT). The DFT was originally proposed to capture delay-dependent biases…

Embedded hierarchical structures, such as "the rat the cat ate was brown", constitute a core generative property of a natural language theory. Several recent studies have reported learning of hierarchical embeddings in artificial grammar learning (AGL) tasks, and described the functional specificity of Broca's area for processing such structures.…

Using reading times and event-related brain potentials (ERPs), we investigated the processing of Japanese subject and object relative clauses (SRs/ORs). Previous research on English relative clauses shows that ORs take longer to read (King & Just, 1991) and elicit anterior negativity between fillers and gaps (King & Kutas, 1995), which is…

One of the alluring aspects of examining chromatin modifications in the role of modulating transcription required for long-term memory processes is that these modifications may provide transient and potentially stable epigenetic marks in the service of activating and/or maintaining transcriptional processes. These, in turn, may ultimately…

Improvements in motor sequence performance have been observed after a delay involving sleep. This finding has been taken as evidence for an active sleep consolidation process that enhances subsequent performance. In a review of this literature, however, the authors observed 4 aspects of data analyses and experimental design that could lead to…

Recent articles in "Teaching of Psychology" have endorsed the classroom use of various mnemonic techniques. Yet a degree of mnemonophobia (i.e., fear of using mnemonics) may persist in the minds of some "ToP" readers due to various lingering misconceptions. In this regard, we conducted 3 practical experiments with college students using the…

Studies suggest motor deficit asymmetry may help predict the pattern of cognitive impairment in individuals with Parkinson disease (PD). We tested this hypothesis using a highly validated and sensitive spatial memory task, spatial delayed response (SDR), and clinical and neuroimaging measures of PD asymmetry. We predicted SDR performance would be…

The current study was designed to investigate children's memory and suggestibility for events differing in valence (positive or negative) and veracity (true or false). A total of 82 3- and 5-year-olds were asked repeated questions about true and false events, either in a grouped order (i.e., all questions about a certain event asked consecutively)…

The present study was conducted to investigate the existence of any possible relationship between the use of language learning strategies and multiple intelligences' scores of foreign language learners of English. Ninety subjects participated in the study. To measure the participants' multiple intelligence scores, MIDAS, a commercially designed…

This narrative inquiry aims to look at teacher-pupil relationships through teacher memories. When 49 university students of education were asked to write their memories of teachers, they told about their teachers in relation to pupils. The data were analysed thematically and, based on that, re-read through the concepts of body, caring and power in…