Variations in perceptual and cognitive demands (load) play a major role in determining the efficiency of selective attention. According to load theory (Lavie, Hirst, Fockert, & Viding, 2004) these factors (a) improve or hamper selectivity by altering the way resources (e.g., processing capacity) are allocated, and (b) tap resources rather than…

This study examined the differences in processing between regular and dyslexic readers in a lexical decision task in different visual field presentations (left, right, and center). The research utilized behavioral measures that provide information on accuracy and reaction time and electro-physiological measures that permit the examination of brain…

According to the Perceptual Symbols Theory of cognition (Barsalou, 1999), modality-specific simulations underlie the representation of concepts. A strong prediction of this view is that perceptual processing affects conceptual processing. In this study, participants performed a perceptual detection task and a conceptual property-verification task…

This study demonstrated effects of age, education, and sex on complex reaction time in a large national sample (N = 3,616) with a wide range in age (32-85) and education. Participants completed speeded auditory tasks (from the MIDUS [Midlife in the U.S.] Stop and Go Switch Task) by telephone. Complexity ranged from a simple repeated task to an…

Secondary task performance was used to evaluate the attentional demands of encoding the first letter in a sequential letter-match task. Unlike earlier studies, comparing secondary task performance between two primary task conditions indicated that letter encoding involves attention. Performance during the intertrial interval varied with subjects'…

Studied task switching in 4 experiments involving 111 Israeli undergraduates. Results show the preparation for a task switch is not a by-product of general preparation by phasic alertness or predicting target onset and establish reconfiguration as a separate preparatory process. Suggests that there are at least three components of task switching…

Subjects decided whether sentences as "The treaty passed" were "true" or "false," given number of votes cast for the bill and criterion that determined its status. An additive-stages model was applied to verification times from the present and prior studies, and was used to describe certain markedness and congruity…

Three pairs of spatial antonyms (higher than/lower than, above/below, and rising away from/falling away from) were used in a task in which subjects judged whether a sentence accurately described a previously presented pictorial relationship. Subjects' reaction times were used as the dependent measure. Since all three word pairs were used…

Equation problems elicited a strategy in which the subject attempted to isolate the X variables on one side of the equation, whereas word problems elicited a strategy in which the subject attempted to reduce the expression. These results suggest that problem format influences the type of strategy used to solve algebra problems. (Author/PN)

Results of three experiments indicated that latency of correct recognition was sensitive to the influence of a priming treatment. The magnitude of the priming effect depended on both the taxonomic frequency of the probe items, and the length of the interval between the prime and the recognition test. (Author/RD)

The relationship between psychometric intelligence and 2 selective reaction time (RT) tasks was determined for 81 university students (27 males and 54 females). Results generally support the paradigm of W. E. Hick (1952). Some surprising findings are discussed with respect to the specific demands of selective RT tasks. (SLD)

The technique for examining the time course of information processing developed by D. E. Meyer et. al. (1988) is analyzed. Research is provided, which suggests that this new method gives important qualitative support to some stochastic models and quantitative support to the continuous diffusion model of information processing. (SLD)

Presents two experiments involving 16 and 14 college students that were designed to enhance the sensitivity of reaction time as an information-processing correlate of general ability. Data from both are interpreted in terms of mental efficiency theories of intelligence. (SLD)

Research was conducted to investigate the effects of contextual information on the speed and accuracy with which two general classes of inferences were verified by readers. These types of inferences were based on information in conversations that were or were not topically ambiguous, depending upon the amount of available contextual information.…

The results of this study support the assumption that long-term memory is not modified when a person performs a task utilizing an automatic process. Twelve university students performed an incidental learning task which consisted of scanning lists of words for either their own name, first names other than their own, words representing a unit of…