Increasingly, investigators conduct interviews with eyewitnesses from different cultures. The culture in which people have been socialised can impact the way they encode, remember, and report information about their experiences. We examined whether eyewitness memory reports of mock witnesses from collectivistic (sub-Saharan Africa) and…

Social-communication is profoundly impaired among autistic individuals. Difficulties representing others' mental states have been linked to modulations of gaze and speech, which have also been shown to be impaired in autism. Despite these observed impairments in 'real-world' communicative settings, research has mostly focused on lab-based…

A common practice in tact training is to include a supplemental verbal stimulus (e.g., "What is it?") in addition to the presentation of a nonverbal discriminative stimulus. Previous literature has suggested that this supplemental verbal stimulus can impede acquisition and generalization relative to the presentation of the object alone,…

The current paper presents two experiments investigating the effect of presence versus absence of compulsory number marking in a native language on a speaker's ability to recall number information from photos. In Experiment 1, monolingual English and Japanese adults were shown a sequence of 110 photos after which they were asked questions about…

This study explored whether the color of letters could influence letter discrimination task performances and whether this effect of color could be modulated by processing level (global vs. local) and attention level of color (color-attended vs. color-unattended). We used the Navon letters in red, green, or white as stimuli at a relatively small…

A cognitive-energetic account of individual differences in working memory capacity (WMC) and sustained attention performance is proposed suggesting that variation in the voluntary control of the intensity of attention (intrinsic alertness) is critical for the relation between WMC and attention control. Four experiments examining individual…

Images of children and family life are prevalent across social media contexts. In particular, "Instagram" is a popular platform for sharing photographs and videos of children and families. This paper explores the representation of children and family life, with an emphasis on the 'image of the child' that exists on Instagram. A…

The current study examined eye movement control in autistic (ASD) children. Simple targets were presented in isolation, or with central, parafoveal, or peripheral distractors synchronously. Sixteen children with ASD (47-81 months) and nineteen age and IQ matched typically developing children were instructed to look to the target as accurately and…

Studies have identified deficits in attention in individuals with aphasia in language and nonlanguage tasks. Attention may play a role in the construction and use of language, as well as in learning and the process of rehabilitation, yet the role of attention on rehabilitation is not fully understood. To improve the understanding of attention and…

Social motivation theory states that individuals with ASD find social stimuli less rewarding (Chevallier et al. in Trends Cognit Sci 16(4):231-239, 2012). An alternative theory suggests that competition from circumscribed interests (CIs) may better account for diminished social attention (Sasson et al. in Autism Res 1(1):31-42, 2008). This study…

The potential role of iconic memory in dyslexia-specific partial report deficits has never been investigated although it may help distinguish between different visuo-attentional theories of dyslexia. The present study is a first step towards such an investigation within an iconic memory framework. 20 French-speaking university students with…

Motivationally attractive cues can draw in behavior in a phenomenon termed incentive salience. Incentive cue attraction is an important model for animal models of drug seeking and relapse. One question of interest is the extent to which the pursuit of motivationally attractive cues is related to the value of the paired outcome or can become…

Reading is one of the most important daily visual tasks. Majority of people become expert readers at a very young age and perform this complex task effortlessly and automatically throughout most of their lives. However, in this "effortless" task, multiple complex processes must be efficiently carried out in a very short amount of time.…

The Rhythmic Arts Project (TRAP) curriculum integrates visual, tactile, auditory and speech experiences through rhythmic drumming actions to address life skills. We evaluated life skills before and after participation in TRAP in a school-based setting in children with Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD). Participants were 23 children in grades 6-12 in…

Inclusive preschool classrooms have become increasingly common in recent decades, affording opportunities for children with and without disabilities opportunities to interact and develop positive relationships. Children with disabilities may be unintentionally excluded from these interactions due to communication differences. This paper discusses…