According to temporal distinctiveness models, items that are temporally isolated from their neighbors during list presentation are more distinct and thus should be recalled better. Event-based theories, by contrast, deny that time plays a role at encoding and predict no beneficial effect of temporal isolation, although they acknowledge that a…

In 3 experiments motivated by the implicit memory literature, the authors investigated the effects of different strengthening operations on the list strength effect (LSE) for explicit free recall, an effect posited by R. M. Shiffrin, R. Ratcliff, and S. E. Clark (1990) to be due to context cuing. According to the one-shot hypothesis, a fixed…

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…

A psychological model can show the technical writer how to present information for effective communication by explaining how readers perceive, understand, learn, and remember. The principles underlying the model are the reader's psychological set, the mind's pattern-forming tendencies, the span of short-term memory, and the mind's need for…

Two experiments examined the influence of a delay between learning and reproducing locations on 7-, 9- and 11-year-old children's memory for location. Findings indicated that bias toward category centers when replacing objects in their original locations increased following an intervening delay, as predicted by the Category-Adjustment model, with…

The study of Down Syndrome (N=16), other mentally retarded, and non retarded subjects (all matched for mental age) found that Down Syndrome subjects showed significantly poorer recall of auditorially presented stimuli than the other two groups (which did not differ). (Author/DB)

Examined developmental change in the duration of memory for tone pitch in children and adults. In experiment 1, performance on a two-tone comparison task deteriorated across the intertone interval more quickly in younger than in older subjects. Experiment 2 demonstrated that the developmental difference in pitch memory persistence is unlikely to…

Toddlers were asked to find a hidden toy based on one hidden in a scale model of the room, after varying periods of delay. Subjects experiencing a longer delay on the first trial performed more poorly than those experiencing the long delay later in the trials. Results indicate the difficulty for children of keeping a symbol-referent relation in…

This study compared working memory in 28 high-functioning autistic individuals (ages 7-18) with that of 30 individuals with Tourette Syndrome or typically developing. No group differences were found. Performance was significantly correlated only with age and IQ. Results suggest that working memory is not an executive function seriously impaired in…

Complex (working memory) span tasks have generally shown larger and more consistent correlations with higher-order cognition than have simple (or short-term memory) span tasks. The relation between verbal complex and simple verbal span tasks to fluid abilities as a function of list-length was examined. The results suggest that the simple…

The aim of the present research was to study age-related changes in duration reproduction by differentiating the working memory processes underlying this time estimation task. We compared performances of young and elderly adults in a duration reproduction task performed in simple and concurrent task conditions. Participants were also administered…

For years, mainstream thinking about math anxiety assumed that people fear math because they are bad at it. However, a growing body of research shows a much more complicated relationship between math ability and anxiety. It is true that people who fear math have a tendency to avoid math-related classes, which decreases their math competence.…

In this paper we focus on some of the findings of the science education research community in the area of representations and problem solving. Problem solving depends on the construction and manipulation of mental models (internal representations) in the mind. A large knowledge base (declarative, procedural, strategic, situational, and schematic…

Working memory (WM) has been associated with the acquisition of arithmetic skills, however, the components of WM that underlie this acquisition have not been explored. This study explored the contribution of two WM systems (the phonological loop and the central executive) to mathematical performance in young children. The results showed that a…

This study examined whether children with mathematical difficulties (MDs) or comorbid mathematical and reading difficulties have a working memory deficit and whether the hypothesized working memory deficit includes the whole working memory system or only specific components. In the study, 31 10-year-olds with MDs and 37 10-year-olds with both…