In two experiments we investigated the automatic adjusting of the attentional focus to simple geometric shapes. The participants performed a visual search task with four stimuli (the target and three distractors) presented always around the fixation point, inside an outlined frame not related to the search task. A cue informed the subject only…

Negative priming refers to slowed down reactions when the distractor on one trial becomes the target on the next. Following two popular accounts, the effect might be due either to inhibitory processes associated with the frontal cortex, or to an ambiguity in the retrieval of episodic information. We used event-related brain potentials (ERPs) to…

To determine the role of configural changes on the development of face encoding and memory, we investigated face recognition in an n-back repetition task with upright, inverted and contrast-reversed unfamiliar faces in adults and children (8-16 years). Repetitions occurred immediately (0-lag) or after one intervening face (1-lag). Face recognition…

Describes an experiment measuring response latency which required subjects to make a word-nonword decision in response to a visually presented item. (AM)

This study explored some ways that cognitive style (different individual patterns of perceiving, memorizing, organizing and utilizing stimuli) might influence intellectual achievements. It was specifically concerned with cognitive tempo--the individual's tendency to be either slow and accurate (reflective) or fast and inaccurate (impulsive). A…

This study investigates the perceptual processing capabilities by analysis of eye movement of children from differing levels of field independence/dependence. Forty nine field independent (24 girls, 26 boys) and 36 field dependent (19 girls, 17 boys) children in third grade were analyzed as they viewed either seven dynamic or seven static segments…

As part of a long term project relating individual differences in performance on paper and pencil tests of intellectual aptitude and achievement to differences observed in laboratory studies of cognition, data have been collected comparing test scores with simple choice reaction times. The three studies summarized here suggest that the…

The purpose of this study was to examine the relationship between the various techniques used to estimate the time required by the human to process a visual stimuli, i.e., recognize a stimulus input into the visual perceptual system. Sixteen tests of visual processing speed were administered to 110 undergraduate students. In summary, scores tended…

Four experiments are reported in which relations of semantic distance to response latencies in similarity judgments, to reaction times in a same-different classification task, and to proximity of recall in a free recall task were investigated. (Author/RM)

In secondary-task reading experiments, easy text filled cognitive capacity more completely than difficult text. A cognitive interpretation is that, in reading easy passages, the cognitive processors are full. But in difficult passages, frequent breakdowns in comprehension temporarily empty processor spaces, leaving cognitive capacity for the…

Ten nursery school children who knew how to count but were unacquainted with arithmetic were taught a simple algorithm for solving single-digit addition problems and were then given extended practice. The reaction time on the final block of extended practice suggested that subjects had invented a more efficient procedure to replace the original…

Three studies are described in which choice reaction time (RT) was related to such psychometric ability measures as verbal comprehension, numerical reasoning, hidden figures, and progressive matrices tests. Fairly consistent negative correlations were found between these tests and choice RT when high school samples were used. (Author/CTM)

Given the currently numerous applications of word-nonword classification tasks in psychological research, the present study was designed to determine the relative influences of a large number of potentially important variables on response time in tasks of this sort. (Author/NCR)

Three experiments (simple versus choice reaction time, Posner letter identification, and Sternberg memory scanning) attempted to determine whether reliable individual differences in cognitive processing exist in children and, if so, whether these differences are systematically related to age and ability. (Author/JMB)

It was shown that hierarchies change with development and that relative salience of a dimension is negatively associated with both reaction time of choice and number of errors on the identity task. (Authors)