According to most theories of text comprehension, readers construct and store in memory at least two inter-related representations: a text base containing the explicit ideas in a text and a discourse model that contains the overall meaning or "gist" of a text. The authors propose a refinement of this view in which text representations are…

A central question in Childhood Apraxia of Speech (CAS) is whether the core phenotype is limited to transcoding (planning/programming) deficits or if speakers with CAS also have deficits in auditory-perceptual "encoding" (representational) and/or "memory" (storage and retrieval of representations) processes. We addressed this and other questions…

In this article, we demonstrate that planning tasks enhance recall when the context of planning (a) is self-referential and (b) draws on familiar scenarios represented in episodic memory. Specifically, we show that when planning tasks are sorted according to the degree to which they evoke memories of personally familiar scenarios (e.g., planning a…

Previous functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) studies have identified activation in the prefrontal-parietal-sub-cortical circuit during feigned memory impairment when comparing with truthful telling. Here, we used fMRI to determine whether neural activity can differentiate between answering correctly, answering randomly, answering…

A hoary assumption of the law is that children are more prone to false-memory reports than adults, and hence, their testimony is less reliable than adults'. Since the 1980s, that assumption has been buttressed by numerous studies that detected declines in false memory between early childhood and young adulthood under controlled conditions.…

Previous studies have indicated cross cultural differences in conscious processes, such that Asians have a global preference and Westerners a more analytical one. We investigated whether these biases also apply to unconscious knowledge. In Experiment 1, Japanese and UK participants memorized strings of large (global) letters made out of small…

This article is a tribute to the writings of Dr. Roland Barth through a personal story spanning over two decades. It explores Dr. Barth's personal vision of an effective school through recent brain-based principles. It revisits Barth's axioms and uses recent implications from the neurosciences as new supporting evidence for their success in…

This study investigates the effects of successive and simultaneous information presentation methods on learner's visual search ability and working memory load for different information densities. Since the processing of information in the brain depends on the capacity of visual short-term memory (VSTM), the limited information processing capacity…

Two experiments were conducted investigating the role of visual sequential memory skill in the word recognition efficiency of undergraduate university students. Word recognition was assessed in a lexical decision task using regularly and strangely spelt words, and nonwords that were either standard orthographically legal strings or items made from…

False memories created by the Deese/Roediger-McDermott (DRM) procedure typically show a developmental reversal whereby levels of false recall increase with age. In contrast, false memories produced by phonological lists have been shown to decrease as age increases. In the current study we show that phonological false memories, like semantic false…

The experience of regret rests on a counterfactual analysis of events. Previous research indicates that regret emerges at around 6 years of age, marginally later than the age at which children begin to answer counterfactual questions correctly. We hypothesized that the late emergence of regret relative to early counterfactual thinking is a result…

Schools located near to airports are exposed to high levels of noise which can cause cognitive, health, and hearing problems. Therefore, this study sought to explore whether this noise may cause auditory language processing (ALP) problems in primary school learners. Sixty-one children attending schools exposed to high levels of noise were matched…

A multitask battery tapping nonverbal memory and language skills was used to assess 60 children at 18, 24, and 30 months of age. Analyses focused on the degree to which language, working memory, and deliberate memory skills were linked concurrently to children's Elicited Imitation task performance and whether the patterns of association varied…

The Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale-fourth edition (WAIS-IV) and the Wechsler Memory Scale-fourth edition (WMS-IV) were co-developed to be used individually or as a combined battery of tests. The independent factor structure of each of the tests has been identified; however, the combined factor structure has yet to be determined. Confirmatory…

It is generally accepted that, with practice, people improve on most tasks. However, when tasks have multiple parts, it is not always clear what aspects of the tasks practice or training should focus on. This research explores the features that allow training to improve the ability to resume a task after an interruption, specifically focusing on…