Paired associates and serial list memory are typically investigated separately. An "isolation principle" (J. B. Caplan, 2005) was proposed to explain behavior in both paradigms by using a single model, in which serial list and paired associates memory differ only in how isolated pairs of items are from interference from other studied items. In…

Rhesus monkeys were trained and tested in visual and auditory list-memory tasks with sequences of four travel pictures or four natural/environmental sounds followed by single test items. Acquisitions of the visual list-memory task are presented. Visual recency (last item) memory diminished with retention delay, and primacy (first item) memory…

Objective: Previous research has demonstrated that during task conditions requiring an increase in inhibitory function or working memory, children and adults with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) exhibit greater and more varied prefrontal cortical(PFC) activation compared to age-matched control participants. This pattern may reflect…

The Predominantly Inattentive (PI) and Combined (CB) subtypes of AD/HD differ in cognitive tempo, age of onset, gender ratio, and comorbidity, yet a differentiating endophenotype has not been identified. The aim of this study was to test rigorously diagnosed PI, CB, and typical children on measures selected for their potential to reveal…

Background: Individuals with autism spectrum disorders (ASD) present with a particular profile of memory deficits, executive dysfunction and impaired social interaction that may raise concerns about their recall and reliability in forensic and legal contexts. Extant studies of memory shed limited light on this issue as they involved either…

Children (n = 122) and adults (n = 200) with dyslexia completed rapid automatic naming (RAN) letters, rapid automatic switching (RAS) letters and numbers, executive function (inhibition, verbal fluency), and phonological working memory tasks. Typically developing 3rd (n = 117) and 5th (n = 103) graders completed the RAS task. Instead of analyzing…

Semantic retrieval (SR) and executive-procedural (EP), but not visuospatial (VS) skills, have been found to be uniquely predictive of mathematical calculation skills in a sample of clinically referred college students. This study set out to cross-validate these results in an independent sample of clinically referred college students (N = 337) as…

This review explores the factors of cognitive processing, style, and metacognitive organization as they contribute to academic success. Specific discussions consider aspects of short- and long-term memory, including how these affect learning and academic performance, and the keys to attaining long-term memory capability by involving redundancy,…

Background: Very little is known about the neuropsychological correlates of adaptive functioning in people with intellectual disabilities (ID). This study examined whether specific cognitive deficits and demographic variables predicted everyday functioning in adults with ID. Method: People with ID (n = 101; ages 19-41 years; mean education = 11…

This article addresses the application of the assessment triangle developed by the National Research Council (Pellegrino, Chudowsky, & Glaser, 2001), most specifically the cognition vertex of that triangle, to the unique learning characteristics of students with significant cognitive disabilities in developing and demonstrating academic…

Many people in western society find it difficult to discuss their feelings, thoughts, and beliefs about death and dying. The exploration of Early Recollections (ER), part of an Adlerian approach which emphasizes knowledge of a person's private logic, offers one way of understanding attitudes toward death. This study was conducted in order to…

Recent theories in cognitive psychology have emphasized the role of capacity requirements in encoding tasks. To examine the notion that age-related differences in the recall performance reflect differences in cognitive capacity, 80 adults (40 undergraduates, and 40 senior citizens) recalled newspaper advertisements under free recall and cued…

Introspection is a technique which can be used to explore memory. For this study, two questions were posed: (1) do students who better retain previously learned intellectual skills and propositions report a greater number of links between and within Gagne and White's four memory structures (networks of propositions, intellectual skills, images,…

Proposing a shift in the locus of theoretical analysis of cognition, this paper argues that cognitive functioning may be more readily characterized without the mediation of long-term mental associations and structure. An account of cognition is proposed in which mental relations are transient functional relations, and in which psychological…

A study tested the theory that an item that stands out from its background is better remembered than one that is similar to the background (the isolation effect). Specifically, the study examined whether the isolation effect would be greater when there was a larger and more confusing mass of background items, whether position of the isolated item…