Describes study of undergraduates that measured the effect of audiovisual channel correspondence during television news programs on attention and memory. Learning variables in multimedia presentations are discussed, reaction time with visual and auditory probes is examined, factual memory and visual memory tests are described, and implications for…

Study examined transfer of learners' first language (L1) orthographic processing strategies to second language processing. Two groups learning Japanese, differing by L1 writing system (phonographic vs. morphographic), were tested on ability to represent novel kanji characters in short-term memory. Results indicate learners with a morphographic L1…

Reviews suggestions derived from the clinical and experimental literatures for interviewing child witnesses to abuse. Guidelines for questioning children are provided and phases of a forensic interview are outlined in a step-by-step fashion. The suggestions presented highlight a developmental perspective designed to facilitate children's memory…

Investigated the effects of student working-memory capacity, preference for amount of instruction, spatial problem-solving ability, and school mathematics grades on eighth graders' recall of factual information and conceptual understanding. Pairs of students worked through 16 activities using a dynamic, computer-based geometry program. Presents…

Notes that the microgenetic method has revealed new information about normally achieving children's cognition, and reviews data from three different microgenetic studies. Concludes that there are similar sequences of strategy change, similar rates of strategy change, and similar frequency of strategy discovery and use in children with and without…

Studied whether memories of deceased play active roles in ongoing lives of survivors. Seventy-one people described a significant death. Four roles were reliably identified and labeled role model, situation specific guidance, values clarification, and remembrance formation. Role adoption was predicted by closeness of relationship and suddenness of…

Investigates the relation between foreign language proficiency and multilingual lexicosemantic organization, using two sets of unbalanced Dutch-English-French trilingual adults as participants. Results indicate that foreign language proficiency determines multilingual lexicosemantic organization. (35 references) (Author/CK)

A study explored working memory (WM) capacity, WM task requirements, as well as effects between WM, skills, knowledge base, and intelligence in adults with mental retardation and children aged 3-6 years. Adults were better on measures reflecting skills and knowledge base. Children performed better in phonological and visuo-spatial WM tasks.…

Summarizes recent studies identifying specific linguistic-cognitive markers for reading disabilities and describes efforts to develop measures of these markers in the areas of phonological awareness, rapid automatic naming, and verbal short-term memory. (Author/DB)

In 2 experiments, the authors tested whether the classical modality effect--that is, the stronger recency effect for auditory items relative to visual items--can be extended to the spatial domain. An order reconstruction task was undertaken with four types of material: visual-spatial, auditory-spatial, visual-verbal, and auditory-verbal.…

Conventional wisdom is that some topics in introductory psychology are more difficult for students than others. Such wisdom seems reasonable given mismatches between students' and instructors' expectations and variations in both instructor expertise and student motivation across topical areas. Five instructors pooled students' exam performance…

This study determined the degree to which the phonological and executive components of memory reflect language-specific capacities in reading achievement. We tested whether the memory processes in a sample of English-language learners that played a major role in predicting second-language acquisition and risk for reading disability (RD) in Grade 1…

Two studies examined the possibility of retrieval-induced forgetting by 7-year-olds. Children heard a story while viewing pictures of events mentioned in the story, each highlighting objects drawn from two distinct semantic categories (e.g. animals and food). Over the next several days, children were asked the same yes/no questions about half the…

Background: The objective of this study is to identify intact and deficient cognitive processes in children with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) and children with high functioning autism (HFA). Method: Three rigorously diagnosed groups of children aged between 6 and 12 years (54 ADHD, 41 HFA, and 41 normal controls) were tested on…

The authors measured memory for individual features (objects only or locations only) and the combination of those features (objects and locations) in 9-, 12-, and 21-year-old students with a "yes" or "no" recognition task. Analysis of recognition memory performance (d' scores) revealed that although age differences existed in memory for individual…