Purpose: This study examined working memory in children with developmental language disorder (DLD). The overarching goal of this work was to integrate three primary processing-based hypotheses of DLD, (a) limited verbal working memory, (b) slowed processing speed, and (c) inefficient inhibition of interference, by using the…

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…

A functional, perceptual-motor, account of serial short-term memory (STM) is examined by investigating the way in which an irrelevant spoken sequence interferes with verbal serial recall. Even with visual list-presentation, verbal serial recall is particularly susceptible to disruption by irrelevant spoken stimuli that have the same identity…

The emergence of strategic verbal rehearsal at around 7 years of age is widely considered a major milestone in descriptions of the development of short-term memory across childhood. Likewise, rehearsal is believed by many to be a crucial factor in explaining why memory improves with age. This apparent qualitative shift in mnemonic processes has…

Three experiments examined the immediate free recall (IFR) of auditory-verbal and visuospatial materials from single-modality and dual-modality lists. In Experiment 1, we presented participants with between 1 and 16 spoken words, with between 1 and 16 visuospatial dot locations, or with between 1 and 16 words "and" dots with synchronized…

The role of memory in behavioral distraction by auditory attentional capture was investigated: We examined whether capture is a product of the novelty of the capturing event (i.e., the absence of a recent memory for the event) or its violation of learned expectancies on the basis of a memory for an event structure. Attentional capture--indicated…

The present experiments examined perceptual specificity effects using a rereading paradigm. Eye movements were monitored while participants read the same target word twice, in two different low-constraint sentence frames. The congruency of perceptual processing was manipulated by either presenting the target word in the same distortion typography…

The purpose of the present study was to synthesize research that compares children with and without reading disabilities (RD) on measures of short-term memory (STM) and working memory (WM). Across a broad age, reading, and IQ range, 578 effect sizes (ESs) were computed, yielding a mean ES across studies of -0.89 (SD = 1.03). A total of 257 ESs…

How does the brain carry out working memory storage, categorization, and voluntary performance of event sequences? The LIST PARSE neural model proposes an answer that unifies the explanation of cognitive, neurophysiological, and anatomical data. It quantitatively simulates human cognitive data about immediate serial recall and free recall, and…

Three experiments demonstrated that increasing the length of a mobile serial list impaired 6-month olds' memory for serial order. Findings indicated that the primacy effect was absent on a 24-hour delayed recognition test and was exhibited on a reactivation test, adding to growing evidence that young infants possess two functionally distinct…

Nonhuman animals, like humans, appear sensitive to the structure of the elements of sequences, perhaps even when the structure relates nonadjacent elements. In the present study, we examined the contribution of chunking, rule learning, and item memory when rats learned serial patterns composed of two interleaved subpatterns. In one group, the…

The buffer model proposed by Atkinson and Shiffrin gives a valid measure of primary-memory capacity (i.e., the estimate is close to the true value), a property lacking in both the original Waugh and Norman method and Watkins' modifications of that method. (Author/PN)

Background: In the last few years, experimental data have been reported on differences in implicit memory processes of genetically distinct groups of individuals with Intellectual Disability (ID). These evidences are relevant for the more general debate on supposed asynchrony of cognitive maturation in children with abnormal brain development.…

Retarded subjects were compared with mental- and chronological-age matched controls on serial short-term memory (STM) tasks. Retarded subjects were inferior to the control groups on both primacy and recency items, under two recall conditions. These data are discussed in relation to possible mechanisms underlying IQ-related individual differences…

Two experiments, one with congenitally deaf and one with hearing individuals, investigated memory for serial order via Cued Speech (CS). Deaf individuals, but not hearing individuals experienced with CS, appeared to use the phonology of CS to support their recall. The recency effect was greater for hearing individuals provided with sound than for…