Iconicity, or the resemblance between form and meaning, is often ascribed to a special status and contrasted with default assumptions of arbitrariness in spoken language. But does iconicity in spoken language have a special status when it comes to learnability? A simple way to gauge learnability is to see how well something is retrieved from…

Most of the mechanisms involved in neural plasticity support cognition, and aging has a considerable effect on some of these processes. The neural cell adhesion molecule (NCAM) of the immunoglobulin superfamily plays a pivotal role in structural and functional plasticity and is required to modulate cognitive and emotional behaviors. However,…

Metamemory refers to the ability of individuals to monitor and control their own memory performance. Although little theoretical consideration of the possible differences between the monitoring of episodic and of semantic knowledge has been published, results from patient and drug studies that used the "feeling of knowing" (FOK) paradigm show a…

It is unclear how neural correlates of episodic memory retrieval differ depending on the type of material that is retrieved. Here, we used a source memory task to compare electrical brain activity for the recollection of three types of stimulus material. At study, healthy adults judged how well visually presented objects, words, and faces fitted…

Emotionality is a key component of subjective experience that influences memory. We tested how the emotionality of words affects memory monitoring, specifically, judgments of learning, in both cued recall and free recall paradigms. In both tasks, people predicted that positive and negative emotional words would be recalled better than neutral…

Einstein et al. (2005) predicted no cost to an ongoing task when a prospective memory task met certain criteria. Smith, Hunt, McVay, and McConnell (2007) used prospective memory tasks that met these criteria and found a cost to the ongoing task, contrary to Einstein et al.'s prediction. Einstein and McDaniel (2010) correctly noted that there are…

The present study investigated the effects of approach versus avoidance motivation on declarative learning. Human participants navigated a virtual reality version of the Morris water task, a classic spatial memory paradigm, adapted to permit the experimental manipulation of motivation during learning. During this task, participants were instructed…

One widely acknowledged way to improve our memory performance is to repeatedly study the to be learned material. One aspect that has received little attention in past research regards the context sensitivity of this repetition effect, that is whether the item is repeated within the same or within different contexts. The predictions of a…

Two studies are reported that explore the effect of bilingualism on memory performance. Following previous reports of a bilingual advantage in executive control that sometimes shows a greater advantage in older adults, we compared younger and older monolinguals and bilinguals on a memory paradigm that yielded separate measures of familiarity and…

Previous research has identified the age prospective memory paradox of age-related declines in laboratory settings in contrast to age benefits in naturalistic settings. Various factors are assumed to account for this paradox, yet empirical evidence on this issue is scarce. In 2 experiments, the present study examined the effect of task setting in…

Background: Progressive myelination during adolescence implicates an increased vulnerability to neurotoxic substances and enduring neurocognitive consequences. This study examined the cognitive manifestations of altered white matter microstructure in chronic marijuana and alcohol-using (MJ + ALC) adolescents. Methods: Thirty-six MJ + ALC…

Object location memory has been considered the only spatial ability in which females display an advantage over males. We examined sex differences in long-term object location memory. After participants studied an array of objects, they were asked to recall the locations of these objects three minutes later or one week later. Results showed a…

The current study investigated the relevance of semantic processing and stimulus salience for memory performance in young ADHD patients and healthy control participants. 18 male ADHD patients and 15 healthy control children and adolescents participated in an ERP study during a visual memory paradigm with two different encoding tasks requiring…

The performance of children (and sometimes adults) with visual impairments (VI) on a range of tasks that reflect learning, memory and mental imagery is considered in this article. Sometimes the evidence suggests that there are impairments in performance in comparison with typically developing children with vision, and sometimes some advantages…

In human face-to-face communication, the content of speech is often illustrated by coverbal gestures. Behavioral evidence suggests that gestures provide advantages in the comprehension and memory of speech. Yet, how the human brain integrates abstract auditory and visual information into a common representation is not known. Our study investigates…