The capacities of detecting visual regularities were tested among twenty typical (age 11.1 ± 0.32), and twenty poor (age 11.03 ± 0.28) native-Arab readers. Two stages were implemented, passive exposure to visual regularities and forced decision task. In the first stage, the participants were passively presented with four shapes; each shape was…

Structural patterns existing in language can be exploited for implicit prediction of sequences in speech and visual input via a process termed statistical learning (SL). Despite extensive examination of SL in dyslexia, whether SL problems arise from modality-constrained learning processes or from global learning processes is still unknown, nor is…

Attention allocation determines the information that is encoded into memory. Can participants learn to optimally allocate attention based on what types of information are most likely to change? The current study examined whether participants could incidentally learn that changes to either high spatial frequency (HSF) or low spatial frequency (LSF)…

Visual search for targets in repeated displays is more efficient than search for the same targets in random distractor layouts. Previous work has shown that this contextual cueing is severely impaired under central vision loss. Here, we investigated whether central vision loss, simulated with gaze-contingent displays, prevents the incidental…

Substantial research has focused on the allocation of spatial attention based on goals or perceptual salience. In everyday life, however, people also direct attention using their previous experience. Here we investigate the pace at which people incidentally learn to prioritize specific locations. Participants searched for a T among Ls in a visual…

Eye gaze is a powerful directional cue that automatically evokes joint attention states. Even when faces are ignored, there is incidental learning of the reliability of the gaze cueing of another person, such that people who look away from targets are judged less trustworthy. In a series of experiments, we demonstrated further properties of the…

When observers search for a target object, they incidentally learn the identities and locations of "background" objects in the same display. This learning can facilitate search performance, eliciting faster reaction times for repeated displays. Despite these findings, visual search has been successfully modeled using architectures that maintain no…

A study of developmental aspects of selective attention and task-related strategies of attention in 2nd and 6th graders. Age differences were found and interpreted as reflecting the development of flexible as well as selective attention strategies. (DP)

This study found that color in a film helped fourth- and fifth-grade students of all ability levels learn incidental information, but affected learning of task-relevant information differently depending on ability level. (Author/JEG)

Results as a whole did not support the hypothesis that poor readers show deficits in selective attention relative to age-matched normal readers. (RH)

Using mathemagenic-based research as a guide, this study attempted to determine whether the location of a picture (pre- or post-reading passage) or the type of picture (overview or specific incident) could affect reading comprehension. Ninety-two college students were randomly assigned to one of the cells in a two-by-two factorial design and…

This study compared the effects of two types of incidental learning paradigms and examined the influence of different kinds of stimulus relationships on first and sixth graders' selective learning processes. (GO)

Recent findings [Turcotte, Gagnon, & Poirier, 2005. The effect of old age on the learning of supra-span sequences. "Psychology and Aging," 20, 251-260.] indicate that incidental learning of visuo-spatial supra-span sequences through immediate serial recall declines with old age (Hebb's paradigm). In this study, we examined whether…

This study investigated incidental learning in middle and lower class black and white preschool children. The study questioned whether (a) preschool children acquire learning incidentally; (b) there was a difference in the quantity of such learning between black and white children; (c) differences in learning was influenced by socioeconomic…