Theories of spoken word production generally assume a distinction between at least two types of phonological processes and representations: lexical phonological processes that recover relatively arbitrary aspects of word forms from long-term memory and post-lexical phonological processes that specify the predictable aspects of phonological…

We assessed potential facilitation of congruent body posture on access to and retention of autobiographical memories in younger and older adults. Response times were shorter when body positions during prompted retrieval of autobiographical events were similar to the body positions in the original events than when body position was incongruent.…

Older adults' susceptibility to misinformation in an eyewitness memory paradigm was examined in two experiments. Experiment 1 showed that older adults are more susceptible to interfering misinformation than are younger adults on two different tests (old-new recognition and source monitoring). Experiment 2 examined the extent to which processes…

Sex differences in spatial ability are well documented, but poorly understood. In order to see whether working memory is an important factor in these differences, 50 males and 50 females performed tests of three-dimensional mental rotation and spatial visualization, along with tests of spatial and verbal working memory. Substantial differences…

Olfactory memory is especially persistent. The current study explored whether this applies to a form of perceptual learning, in which experience of an odor mixture results in greater judged similarity between its elements. Experiment 1A contrasted 2 forms of interference procedure, "compound" (mixture AW, followed by presentation of new mixtures…

Effects of object-name contiguity on word production were examined in 1 1/2- to 2-yr-old children. Two objects and two spoken names were presented in each of three experiments. Each object was the referent of 1 spoken name. An object was presented either together with its spoken name (modeling trial) or alone (test trial). Modeling trials and test…

We examined the importance of children's classroom activity, defined as task-focused versus task-avoidance behavior, on different literacy outcomes in an orthographically consistent language. Greek children (n=95) were tested in kindergarten, grade 1, and grade 2 on measures of general cognitive ability, phonological awareness, RAN, and short-term…

Elena has a psychiatric disability: bipolar (manic/depressive) disorder. Daniele suffers from depression. Both are serious cognitive disorders that have significant effects on learning, especially learning online. One of the problems students with psychiatric disabilities encounter is finding support in online environments, especially when 10, 50,…

This study investigated children's memory of stressful, personally meaningful events--in this case, injury experiences. Children (2 to 13 years old) who were brought to the emergency room of a hospital were recruited as subjects if they had sustained trauma injuries such as broken bones or lacerations requiring suturing. A total of 42 were…

Research has demonstrated that subjects are sensitive to both thematic and non-thematic information in pictorial stimuli. Three experiments were conducted to investigate memory for pictures under conditions of difficult foil discriminability and lengthy retention intervals. The foils differed from the studied persons in the number and quality of…

This study examines the stages of information processing during a single eye fixation, by overloading or disrupting short-term memory. Ten navy enlistees identified tones that were emitted at sporadic times, while they read general-interest passages through an eye view monitor. Each trial ended with a ten-item test to ensure that all subjects…

Piaget's theory that distinct stages in the organization of memory correspond to successive stages in cognitive development was tested using 150 eighth graders. Cognitive levels were assessed with Inhelder and Piaget's balance beam task, initially, and again at seven months. Mnemonic levels were assessed with Piaget and Inhelder's memory of an…

Ninety-six mildly mentally retarded persons and 96 nonretarded college students estimated the frequency of occurrence of words and pictures in a study test paradigm. Frequency estimates were equal for words, but the nonretarded subjects were superior in accuracy on pictorial items. This finding points to an encoding deficiency attributed to…

Auditory and visual memory span were examined with 13 Down Syndrome and 15 other trainable mentally retarded young adults. Although all subjects demonstrated relatively poor auditory memory span, Down Syndrome subjects were especially poor at long-term memory access for visual stimulus identification and short-term storage and processing of…