Reviews and reinterprets current developmental directed-forgetting literature within an inhibition framework. Argues that item-by-item cued directed-forgetting tasks manipulate selective rehearsal to produce greater recall of to-be-remembered than to-be-forgotten items, producing directed-forgetting effects by second grade. Blocked and…

Reviews selected pioneering findings in the child-developmental and adulthood-aging literature and evaluates them within the framework of Nelson (Thomas O.) and Narens' (Louis) (1990) theory of metamemory. Makes suggestions for conceptually-based analytical research to help specify the mechanisms that underlie developmental differences in…

The latency and amplitude of the P300, an event-related potential, during the performance of a memory-scanning task were used as indices of the efficiency of information processing that may mediate individual differences in intelligence. Results with 61 female college students contradict a pure speed of processing explanation of the relationship…

Focuses on the interpretation of research data of Berthier, Starkstein, Lylyk, and Leiguarda (1990) reporting a case of faster recovery, after selective sodium amytal injection, of the patient's second language than his native language. Paradis (1990) argued that these results do not support Ojemann and Whitaker's (1978) hypothesis. (five…

Responds to Paradis's (1990) argument that these authors misreported the facts presented by Berthier, Starkstein, Lylyk, and Leiguarda (1990) regarding the recovery by a bilingual patient of his second language earlier than his native tongue subsequent to injection of a narcotic drug. The article argues that Paradis is incorrect. (nine references)…

Professional boxers provided information about their careers and training practices and completed neuropsychological testing. Test performance did not relate to age, boxing record, career length, or knockout history. The amount of sparring inversely related to performance on several of the tests, with impairment in the areas of attention,…

Examines how well students remember information presented through computer-assisted instruction as a function of a self-reference strategy. Memory test scores and student confidence levels were significantly higher for self-reference students. Confidence level had a relatively high correlation with the total memory test score. Amount of time spent…

The short-term verbal memory performance of 19 children and young adults with Down syndrome (DS) was contrasted with that of two control groups. Results confirm the expected verbal short-term memory deficit in DS subjects and suggest that this deficit is specific to memory for verbal information and is not primarily caused by auditory or…

A study examined the executive functioning of 55 elementary school children with and without problems in written expression. A model that reflects some of the executive function domains (initiate, sustain, set shifting and inhibition/stopping) which significantly separate good writers from poor writers was used, however, none of the executive…

Two experiments used Headed Records memory model to examine preschoolers' performance on a variation of Perner's Smarties task, a false-beliefs test. Data indicated that when the computational demands imposed by the original task are reduced, young children can and do remember what they had thought about the contents of a tube even after its true…

A study investigated the relationship between working memory (WM), declarative strategy knowledge, and math achievement in 111 children with and without mathematical disabilities (MD). Results found verbal and visual-spatial WM, stable verbal strategy choices, and expert strategy choices related to visual-spatial processing all contributed…

Responds to an article that argues that in the study of bilingualism, conceptual representations should be treated as related but not equivalent to word meanings, as knowledge-based, dynamic and language- and culture-specific. (Author/VWL)

Compared reality monitoring of interactive events among children and adults. Found that 4-year-olds had more difficulty discriminating imagined actions than 12-year-olds and adults. Imagined actions were more often confused with performed ones than the reverse for 4- and 8-year-olds. Reality monitoring decreased over time. Object use during…

Tested in two studies 4- to 7-year-olds' face recognition by manipulating the faces' configural and featural information. Found that even with only a single 5-second exposure, most children could use configural and featural cues to make identity judgments. Repeated exposure and feedback improved others' performance. Even proficient memories were…

This study compared the working memory abilities of children identified as having special educational needs with those making normal academic progress at ages 7 and 8. Special needs children showed marked working memory impairments, especially on tasks tapping central executive functions. Results have implications for identifying children at risk…