Background: Individual differences in complex working memory tasks reflect simultaneous processing, executive functions, and attention control. Children with specific language impairment (SLI) show a deficit in verbal working memory tasks that involve simultaneous processing of information. Aims: The purpose of the study was to examine executive…

In a recently published study, Sloutsky and Fisher [Sloutsky, V. M., & Fisher, A.V. (2004a). When development and learning decrease memory: Evidence against category-based induction in children. "Psychological Science", 15, 553-558; Sloutsky, V. M., & Fisher, A. V. (2004b). Induction and categorization in young children: A similarity-based model.…

Background: Down syndrome (DS) is characterized by impaired memory span, particularly auditory verbal memory span. Memory span is linked developmentally to several language capabilities, and may be a basic capacity that enables language learning. If children with DS had better memory span, they might benefit more from language intervention. The…

Two instructional experiments used randomized, controlled designs to evaluate the effectiveness of writing instruction for students with carefully diagnosed dyslexia, which is both an oral reading and writing disorder, characterized by impaired "word" decoding, reading, and spelling. In Study 1 (4th to 6th grade sample and 7th to 9th grade…

Working memory has been called the "door to learning" (think the library) and is strongly related to performance in reading comprehension and problem-solving. Persons with strong working memory have a wide open door for acquiring all types of new information. They are able to hang on to new information, work with it, integrate it with lots of…

Categorization in well-known natural concepts is studied using a special version of the Varying Abstraction Framework (Vanpaemel, W., & Storms, G. (2006). A varying abstraction framework for categorization. Manuscript submitted for publication; Vanpaemel, W., Storms, G., & Ons, B. (2005). A varying abstraction model for categorization. In B. Bara,…

According to signal detection theory (SDT), retrieval warnings may decrease false memory in the associative list paradigm either by inducing a conservative criterion shift or by decreasing the amount of evidence that critical theme words were studied. Fitting a SDT model to 12 existing datasets revealed suggestive evidence that warnings impact…

Educational films for children aim to impart knowledge about a certain topic. In the present paper, it is investigated how much and what kind of information children can remember from educational films and how knowledge acquisition through films could be enhanced. The studies described here were designed to test the hypothesis that children's…

Purpose: To describe a cognitive neuroscience model of memory that can be used to guide assessment and promote consistent terminology among members of the rehabilitation team, and to relate the model to frequently used assessment measures. Method: Description of a model of memory, description of how frequently used memory measures relate to the…

Following a traumatic brain injury, including a mild concussion, most students will have some degree of memory impairment. It can take 1-3 years for a child's memory to improve to its maximum capability following injury. Children cannot wait that long before returning to school. Teachers need to know how to diversify their instruction in order to…

A major characteristic of age-related changes in memory in rodents is an increase in the rate of forgetting of new information, even when tests given soon after training reveal intact memory. Interference with CREB functions similarly results in rapid decay of memory. Using quantitative immunocytochemistry, the present experiment examined the…

The present study investigated developmental differences in the effects of repeated interviews and interviewer bias on children's memory and suggestibility. Three- and 5-year-olds were singly or repeatedly interviewed about a play event by a highly biased or control interviewer. Children interviewed once by the biased interviewer after a long…

The impurity of measures is considered as cause of erroneous interpretations of observed relationships. This paper concentrates on impurity with respect to the relationship between working memory and fluid intelligence. The means for the identification of impurity was the fixed-links model, which enabled the decomposition of variance into…

Research has suggested that short-term memory and working memory (as measured by simple and complex span tasks, respectively) are separate constructs that are differentially related to higher order cognitive abilities. This claim is critically evaluated by reviewing research that has compared simple and complex span tasks in both experimental and…

This paper reports two experiments conducted to examine priority effects and sex differences in object location memory. A new task of paired position-learning was designed, based on the A-B A-C paradigm, which was used in paired word learning. There were three different paired position-learning conditions: (1) positions of several different…