Words presented to the right visual field (RVF) are recognized more readily than those presented to the left visual field (LVF). Whereas the attentional bias theory proposes an explanation in terms of attentional imbalance between visual fields, the attentional advantage theory assumes that words presented to the RVF are processed automatically…

How does executive attentional control contribute to memory for sequences of visual objects, and what does this reveal about storage and processing in working memory? Three experiments examined the impact of a concurrent executive load (backward counting) on memory for sequences of individually presented visual objects. Experiments 1 and 2 found…

We report a series of investigations into the effects of common names, physical identity, and physical similarity on visual detection time. The effect of these factors on the capacity of the system processing the signals was also examined. We used a redundant targets design with separate testing of the target-distractor (single target),…

The current study was designed to examine the possible existence of two limited-capacity pools of central executive resources: one each for verbal and visuospatial processing. Ninety-one college students (M age = 19.0, SD = 2.2) were administered a verbal working memory task that involved updating numbers in 2-, 3-, and 4-load conditions. The task…

By age 2, children attribute referential mental states such as perceptions and emotions to themselves and others, yet it is not until age 4 that they attribute representational mental states such as beliefs. This raises an interesting question: is attribution of beliefs different from attribution of perceptions and emotions in terms of its neural…

Studies investigating changes in functional cerebral asymmetries (FCAs) with hormonal fluctuations during the menstrual cycle in young women have led to controversial hypotheses about an influence of estrogen (E) and/or progesterone (P) on FCAs. Based on methodical, but also on principal problems in deriving conclusions about hormone effects from…

Williams syndrome (WS) is a neurodevelopmental genetic disorder often described as being characterized by a dissociative cognitive architecture, in which profound impairments of visuo-spatial cognition contrast with relative preservation of linguistic, face recognition and auditory short-memory abilities. This asymmetric and dissociative cognition…

In this paper we examine a central issue in cognitive neuroscience: are there separate conceptual representations associated with different input modalities (e.g., Paivio, 1971, 1986; Warrington & Shallice, 1984) or do inputs from different modalities converge on to the same set of representations (e.g., Caramazza, Hillis, Rapp, & Romani, 1990;…

The experiment described in this report investigates the effects of various cognitive cues in questions asked regarding the relationship of elements in pictorial depth perception. The subjects of this study are 40 third grade Black and Puerto Rican children. They are confronted with four pictures from the Hudson Depth Perception Tests and asked to…

Two experiments evaluated the effects of mnemonic training upon 5- and 10-year-old children's learning and retention of patterns at varying intervals. Subjects were 172 middle class children evenly distributed across the two age groups. Experiment I investigated the effects of individual strategies (perceptual exploration, organization of…

Individual differences in perceptual information processing were tested using 327 ten year old children, with verbal tasks representing successive information processing and spatial tasks representing simultaneous information processing. Three sets of tasks, (1) visual/reconstruction (V/R), (2) visual/verbal (V/VL), and (3) verbal/reconstruction…

The development of sensory and perceptual ability in infants is an important area of infancy research. This book reflects current knowledge of perceptual development and points to some of the many questions that remain unanswered. The book is divided into four parts. Part 1, "How the Visual System Develops: Normal and Abnormal…

Three experiments tested whether qualitative differences in processing of verbal materials result from congenital hearing impairment. Subjects were children with reading levels equivalent to grades 4 to 6. Experiment 1 used repeated measurements with two modes of response and two kinds of cues; experiment 2 used acoustic similarity to produce…