Limits in visual working memory (VWM) strongly constrain human performance across many tasks. However, the nature of these limits is not well understood. In this article we develop an ideal observer analysis of human VWM by deriving the expected behavior of an optimally performing but limited-capacity memory system. This analysis is framed around…

Experiments were conducted to test a modern exemplar-familiarity model on its ability to account for both short-term and long-term probe recognition within the same memory-search paradigm. Also, making connections to the literature on attention and visual search, the model was used to interpret differences in probe-recognition performance across…

Purpose: The study addressed three research questions: Does lipreading improve between the ages of 7 and 14 years? Does hearing loss affect the development of lipreading? How do individual differences in lipreading relate to other abilities? Method: Forty children with normal hearing (NH) and 24 with hearing loss (HL) were tested using 4…

Children with developmental coordination disorder (DCD) have deficits in working memory, but little is known about the everyday memory of these children in real-life situations. We investigated the everyday memory function in children with DCD, and explored the specific profile of everyday memory across different domains. Nineteen children with…

Two studies are reported comparing the performance of monolingual and bilingual children on tasks requiring different levels of working memory. In the first study, 56 5-year-olds performed a Simon-type task that manipulated working memory demands by comparing conditions based on two rules and four rules and manipulated conflict resolution demands…

Two experiments examined the hypothesis that developing visual attentional mechanisms influence infants' Visual Short-Term Memory (VSTM) in the context of multiple items. Five- and 10-month-old infants (N = 76) received a change detection task in which arrays of three differently colored squares appeared and disappeared. On each trial one square…

In the lateralized change detection task, two item arrays are presented, one on each side of the display. Participants have to remember the items in the relevant hemifield and ignore the items in the irrelevant hemifield. A difference wave between contralateral and ipsilateral slow potentials with respect to the relevant items, the contralateral…

The psychometric function of single-letter identification is typically described as a function of stimulus intensity. However, the effect of stimulus exposure duration on letter identification remains poorly described. This is surprising because the effect of exposure duration has played a central role in modeling performance in whole and partial…

The aim of this study was to investigate verbal and nonverbal cognitive deficits in Italian students with developmental dyslexia. The performances of 32 dyslexic students, 64 age-matched typically reading controls, and 64 reading age-matched controls were compared on tests of lexical knowledge, phonological awareness, rapid automatized naming,…

The present study investigated cognitive abilities in children with difficulties in mathematics only (n = 48, M = 8 years and 5 months), combined mathematical and language difficulty (n = 27, M = 8 years and 1 month) and controls (n = 783, M = 7 years and 11 months). Cognitive abilities were measured with seven subtests, tapping visual perception,…

Working memory is typically defined as a system devoted to the simultaneous maintenance and processing of information. However, the interplay between these 2 functions is still a matter of debate in the literature, with views ranging from complete independence to complete dependence. The time-based resource-sharing model assumes that a central…

Adolescent cannabis use is associated with working memory impairment. The present randomized controlled trial assigned adolescents ages 14 to 21 enrolled in cannabis use treatment to receive either working memory training (experimental group) or a control training (control group) as an adjunctive treatment. Cognitive function, drug use, and other…

In four experiments we assessed whether visual working memory (VWM) maintains a record of previously processed visual information, allowing old information to be inhibited, and new information to be prioritized. Specifically, we evaluated whether VWM contributes to the inhibition (i.e., visual marking) of previewed distractors in a preview search.…

Two separate lines of study have clarified the role of selectivity in conscious access to visual information. Both involve presenting multiple targets and distracters: one "simultaneously" in a spatially distributed fashion, the other "sequentially" at a single location. To understand their findings in a unified framework, we propose a…

Purpose: In this explorative study, the authors investigated the relationship between auditory and cognitive abilities and self-reported hearing disability. Method: Thirty-two adults with mild to moderate hearing loss completed the Amsterdam Inventory for Auditory Disability and Handicap (AIADH; Kramer, Kapteyn, Festen, & Tobi, 1996) and…