Three experiments examined the immediate free recall (IFR) of auditory-verbal and visuospatial materials from single-modality and dual-modality lists. In Experiment 1, we presented participants with between 1 and 16 spoken words, with between 1 and 16 visuospatial dot locations, or with between 1 and 16 words "and" dots with synchronized…

Young and nondemented older adults completed a visual object continuous recognition memory task in which some stimuli (lures) were similar but not identical to previously presented objects. The lures were hypothesized to result in increased interference and increased pattern separation demand. To examine variability in object pattern separation…

Rapid serial naming tasks are frequently used to explain variance in reading skill. However, the construct being measured by rapid naming is yet undetermined. The Phonological Processing theory suggests that rapid naming relates to reading because of similar demands of access to long-term stored phonological representations of visual stimuli. Some…

Deaf children with cochlear implants (CIs) represent an intriguing opportunity to study neurocognitive plasticity and reorganization when sound is introduced following a period of auditory deprivation early in development. Although it is common to consider deafness as affecting hearing alone, it may be the case that auditory deprivation leads to…

The conditions for serial search are described. A multiple target search methodology (Thornton & Gilden, 2007) is used to home in on the simplest target/distractor contrast that effectively mandates a serial scheduling of attentional resources. It is found that serial search is required when (a) targets and distractors are mirror twins, and…

In a previous study, it was shown that the attentional blink (AB)--the failure to recall the 2nd of 2 visual targets (T1 and T2) presented within 500 ms in rapid serial visual presentation--is reduced when T2 is preceded by a distractor that shares a feature with T2 (e.g., color; Nieuwenstein, Chun, van der Lubbe & Hooge, 2005). Here, this cuing…

The present study assessed the effects of a distinct visual stimulus (a light) associated with each component of a four-component chain of nonsense syllables. When these added lights were used to train the chains of nonsense syllables, speed of acquisition was unaffected, but errors were reduced, loss of previously acquired responses was reduced,…

A serial recognition task was used to compare performance of two age groups of learning disabled children (mean chronological ages 8.1 and 10.6) with 2- and 3-dimensional representations of nonlabeled 8-point random shapes. (Author/JMB)

Children's short-term memory was studied under two experimental conditions: one in which recall was expected to be facilitated because of the provision of a study period, and one in which a distracting task was imposed that was expected to interfere with recall. Forty subjects at each of two age levels, 7 and 11 years, were tested in a…

With a serial-recall procedure the last few items are better recalled following auditory as opposed to visual presentation. The present study investigated the locus of this modality effect. (Editor)

Educable mental retardates and normal grade school students were presented seven classes of materials in both visual and auditory modalities for the determination of immediate memory span thresholds. Major conclusions included auditory presentation produces higher thresholds than visual, and retarded children may employ different processing…

The effects of different levels of rehearsal quality on serial recall, over and above simple labeling, were studied in a sample of 104 kindergartners. Subjects were randomly assigned to four experimental conditions. In one condition the subject and experimenter rehearsed together; in a second condition only the experimenter rehearsed; in the third…

A system of precategorized acoustic storage has accounted for the recency effect obtained in the immediate serial recall of sequences of digits, consonants, or syllables. Four experiments in recall of word sequences investigated fit to this model. A system of postcategorical lexical storage was concluded to explain the results. (Author/RD)