The four sections of this paper provide an analysis of the structure of human memory. The first section, intended to provide a clear example of personal memory, examines a hypothetical episode in the life of an undergraduate student, and shows how one episode can give rise to three different forms of memory: personal, semantic, and rote…

Discusses research on mechanisms that determine the temporal properties of the retrieval of information, represented in long-term memory as a network of associations among concepts. A theory is developed concerned with processes leading from presentation of a probe to levels of activation in the network. (JN)

This sixth in a series of edited transcripts based on a conference at Utah State University discusses ideas from cognitive psychology that have implications for instructional design. Highlights include information processing phases; pattern recognition; short-term and long-term memory; purposes of instruction; cognitive structures; and cognitive…

Examined three-year olds' difficulty in recalling a false belief immediately after they discover the true state of affairs. Challenges the argument that children are genuinely amnesic and their false belief is deleted and no longer available for retrieval. Suggests that three-year-olds have been much underestimated in their capacity to undertake…

Examined the degree to which young children can use anatomically detailed dolls to show what they remembered of their experience in a case of suspected sexual abuse. Very young children had difficulty appreciating and exploiting a representational relation between themselves and a doll. Consequently, they provided more information verbally and…

Research on the cognitive processes used in semantic priming has shown that the processing of a given stimulus is speeded by prior processing of a related stimulus as the result of automatic and/or effortful priming. To investigate the effect of age on semantic priming, two independent studies were conducted at Pomona College in California and at…

Most popular strategies, including illustrations, for improving prose processing consist of procedures that force attention either to the text's macrostructure or to the organization and interconnections of its propositions. These strategies are assumed to enhance students' comprehension of the text as encoded, as well as to afford students an…

Investigated adult age differences in accessing and retrieving information from long-term memory. Results showed that older adults (N=26) were slower than younger adults (N=35) at feature extraction, lexical access, and accessing category information. The age deficit was proportionally greater when retrieval of category information was required.…

Analyzed whether feelings have a disproportionate impact on the way people perceive and remember unusual, atypical people. The results of four experiments suggest that mood has a significantly greater influence on judgments when the targets do not fit a prototypical pattern, thus requiring more lengthy, extensive processing. (RJM)

Reviews the literature on the relation between early memory development and corresponding changes in brain development of infants. Finds that an adult-like form of explicit memory emerges between 8 and 12 months of age, drawing heavily on limbic and cortical structures. Offers theoretical perspectives for studying the ontogeny of memory. (JW)

Assessed preschoolers' recall of past events and emotional reactions to those events and the importance of emotion-related cues in activating event memory. Suggests the children were competent at remembering a past event that precipitated an emotion and displayed this competence by recalling their emotional reactions, goals, plans, and actions, as…

Examined the conditions under which children's memory is resistant to suggestibility versus vulnerable to suggestibility. Results suggest that children have more accurate memory for an event that occurred to them frequently, and that they are less vulnerable to suggestive influences such as biased interviewing procedures than they would be for an…

This study explored relationship between working memory (WM) and mathematical problem solving, comparing children with learning disabilities (LD) to chronologically age-matched and younger achievement-matched children on measures of WM, phonological processing, problem-solving, and word problem-solving accuracy. Found support for notion that…

This study tested the hypothesis that children with high working memory capacities solve single-digit additions by direct retrieval of the answers from long-term memory more often than do children with low working memory capacities. Counting and reading letter span tasks were administered to groups of third-grade (mean age=107 months) and…

The authors manipulated repetitions and/or changes of abstract response rules and the specific stimulus- response (S-R) associations used under these rules. Experiments 1 and 2, assessing trial-to-trial priming effects, showed that repetition of complete S-R couplings produced only benefits when the rule also repeated (i.e., rule-S-R conjunctions)…