Higher schooling attainment is associated with better cognitive function at older ages, but it remains unclear whether the relationship is causal. We estimate causal effects of schooling on performances on the Consortium to Establish a Registry for Alzheimer's Disease (CERAD) word-recall (memory) test at older ages in China, Ghana, India, Mexico,…

This study examines effects of memory load on the processing of scalar implicature via a dual-task paradigm using reading span and self-paced reading. Results indicate that participants showed online sensitivity to underinformative sentences (e.g., "Some birds have wings and beaks") at the end of the sentence. This online sensitivity…

As a former youth worker and community organizer of over 20 years, I have inhabited multiple roles in movement building at various stages of my own development. This experience has given me a unique perspective from which to view the relationship between self, community, and movement building as it unfolds. One of the many lessons I've learned…

Reduction in the expression or function of [alpha]5-subunit-containing GABA[subscript A] receptors ([alpha]5GABA[subscript A]Rs) leads to improvement in several hippocampus-dependent memory domains. However, studies thus far mostly lack anatomical specificity in terms of neuronal circuits and populations. We demonstrate that mice with a selective…

A substantial number of experimental studies on stereotype threat explores performance of girls in mathematics. Only few concentrated on gender differences favoring girls in language performance. However, gender differences in a reading test in the Program for International Student Assessment are three times larger than in mathematics.…

In this commentary on the Special Issue, I will address the question of what memory spans measure concerning language, as language has, at least, a linear and a hierarchical dimension. I suggest that if anything what is measured has to do with the linear dimension. Then, I will discuss the welcome results on bilingual children with language…

Communication and information sharing via social media platforms is a common and popular activity. The majority of existing studies indicate that social media usage has detrimental effects on learning and memory. However, it is an open question as to whether social media usage affects memory even after learning. To test this, healthy young adults…

When reporting from memory, people may often be asked unanswerable questions--questions for which the correct answer has never been encoded. These unanswerable questions should be met with an "I don't know" response. Previous research has shown that a manipulation commonly used to enhance memory at retrieval--context…

Metamemory refers to the metacognitive awareness of one's own memory status. Previous research has shown that item value plays a dominant role in self-regulated study (e.g., strategic choices regarding when, what, and how to study). In spite of extensive research on the effects of item value on in learners' study behaviour, less is known about the…

The production effect--whereby reading words aloud improves memory for those words relative to reading them silently--was investigated in two experiments with 7- to 10-year-old children residing in Brisbane, Australia. Experiment 1 (n = 41) involved familiar printed words, with words read aloud or silently appearing either in mixed- or…

Misinformation often has an ongoing effect on people's memory and inferential reasoning even after clear corrections are provided; this is known as the continued influence effect. In pursuit of more effective corrections, one factor that has not yet been investigated systematically is the narrative versus non-narrative format of the correction.…

Despite identical learning experiences, individuals differ in the memory formed of those experiences. Molecular mechanisms that control the neurophysiological bases of long-term memory formation might control how precisely the memory formed reflects the actually perceived experience. Memory formed with sensory specificity determines its utility…

There is a long-standing debate over whether the passage of time causes forgetting from working memory, a process called trace decay. Researchers providing evidence against the existence of trace decay generally study memory by presenting familiar verbal memory items for 1 s or more per memory item, during the study period. In contrast,…

The medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC) is known to be critical for specific forms of long-term recognition memory, however the cellular mechanisms in the mPFC that underpin memory maintenance have not been well characterized. This study examined the importance of phosphorylation of cAMP responsive element binding protein (CREB) in the mPFC for…

Females are at higher risk for certain opioid addictive behaviors, but the influence of ovarian hormones is unknown. In our rat model of heroin self-administration, females exhibited higher relapse rates that correlated with rates of heroin seeking on the first extinction session. We administered estradiol alone, or in combination with…