Statistical learning enables humans to involuntarily process and utilize different kinds of patterns from the environment. However, the cognitive mechanisms underlying the simultaneous acquisition of multiple regularities from different perceptual modalities remain unclear. A novel multidimensional serial reaction time task was developed to test…

Though there is substantial evidence that individuals can prioritize more valuable information in visual working memory (WM), little research has examined this in the verbal domain. Four experiments were conducted to investigate this and the conditions under which effects emerge. In each experiment, participants listened to digit sequences and…

When learning procedures in real life, learners generally use action atomization strategies (interleaving instructions consultation and execution) and need several repetitions to acquire the skill. However, in studies on procedural learning, delayed execution paradigms (2 separate steps consisting of instructions consultation, then execution)…

The law of prior entry states that attended objects come to consciousness more quickly than unattended ones. This has been well established in spatial cueing paradigms, where two task-relevant stimuli are presented near-simultaneously at two different locations. Here, we suggest that prior entry also plays a pivotal role in temporal attention…

Learning sequential structures is of fundamental importance for a wide variety of human skills. While it has long been debated whether implicit sequence learning is perceptual or response-based, here we propose an alternative framework that cuts across this dichotomy and assumes that sequence learning rests on associative changes that can occur…

A simple view, which dates back to Turing, proposes that complex cognitive operations are composed of serially arranged elementary operations, each passing intermediate results to the next. However, whether and how such serial processing is achieved with a brain composed of massively parallel processors, remains an open question. Here, we study…

Studies investigating reading and spelling difficulties heavily focused on the neural correlates of reading impairments, whereas spelling impairments have been largely neglected so far. Hence, the aim of the present study was to investigate brain structure and function of children with isolated spelling difficulties. Therefore, 31 children, aged…

The conditions for serial search are described. A multiple target search methodology (Thornton & Gilden, 2007) is used to home in on the simplest target/distractor contrast that effectively mandates a serial scheduling of attentional resources. It is found that serial search is required when (a) targets and distractors are mirror twins, and…

Psychometric intelligence correlates with reaction time in elementary cognitive tasks, as well as with performance in time discrimination and judgment tasks. It has remained unclear, however, to what extent these correlations are due to top-down mechanisms, such as attention, and bottom-up mechanisms, i.e. basic neural properties that influence…

Three hypotheses of forgetting from immediate memory were tested: time-based decay, decreasing temporal distinctiveness, and interference. The hypotheses were represented by 3 models of serial recall: the primacy model, the SIMPLE (scale-independent memory, perception, and learning) model, and the SOB (serial order in a box) model, respectively.…

This study was designed to address two issues: "At what age do children spontaneously use a cumulative rehearsal strategy?" and "What effect does the use of the strategy have on their performance?" The subjects, 28 children at each of five grade levels (nursery, kindergarten, first, third, and fifth), were tested in a serial-position recall task.…

Investigates whether elementary school children can successfully execute a mental rotation on Marmor's state-comparison task without knowledge of logical sequence relations, whereas such knowledge is required to construct or evaluate external representations of the successive states in a rotation movement. (HOD)

Eight-year-old children were trained on length or weight relationships between adjacent members of a five-item series of colored objects. Visual feedback was provided. Results indicated more salient visual feedback reduced learning effort for length but not for weight comparisons. Encoding differences found in another experiment were used to…

Two groups of reading-disabled (RD) children were compared with controls (age- and IQ-matched competent readers), on a serial running memory task. RD children performed reliably worse than their controls due to an inability to encode serial items in the form of serial phonological patterns. (Author/RD)

To examine developmental aspects of auditory sensory memory, a series of experiments was conducted on the stimulus suffix effect with the primary variables being age of subject (7 and 11 years), rates of presentation, and length of list. Effects were nearly identical across age groups when a fast presentation rate was used. (Author/DB)