Previously acquired aversive and appetitive memories are not stable and permanent. The reactivation of such memories by re-exposure to training stimuli renders them vulnerable to disruption by amnestic agents such as the noncompetitive N-methyl-"D"-aspartate receptor antagonist (+)-5-methyl-10,11-dihydro-"SH"-dibenzo{a,d}cyclohepten-5,10imine…

Typically, the phonological similarity between to-be-recalled items and TBI auditory stimuli has no impact if recall in serial order is required. However, in the present study, the authors have shown that the free recall, but not serial recall, of lists of phonologically related to-be-remembered items was disrupted by an irrelevant sound stream…

In 2 experiments participants named pictures of common objects with superimposed distractor words. In one naming condition, the pictures and words were presented simultaneously on every trial, and participants produced the target response immediately. In the other naming condition, the presentation of the picture preceded the presentation of the…

Children with autism are often characterized as having abnormalities in auditory processing. This study examined automatic and active processing of simple auditory stimuli in children using a component of event related potentials, the mismatch negativity (MMN). Amplitude of MMN in children with autism was significantly smaller than in children…

Although sensory problems, including unusual tactile sensitivity, are heavily associated with autism, there is a dearth of rigorous psychophysical research. We compared tactile sensation in adults with autism to controls on the palm and forearm, the latter innervated by low-threshold unmyelinated afferents subserving a social/affiliative…

The functional specificity of the brain region known as the Visual Word Form Area (VWFA) was examined using fMRI. We explored whether this area serves a general role in processing symbolic stimuli, rather than being selective for the processing of words. Brain activity was measured during a visual 1-back task to English words, meaningful symbols…

In order to examine the relative influence of size-based expectancies and social cues on the perceived weight of objects, two studies were performed, using equally weighing dolls differing in sex-related and age-related vulnerability or physical strength cues. To increase variation in perceived size, stimulus objects were viewed through optical…

Fluency--the ease with which people process information--is a central piece of information we take into account when we make judgments about the world. Prior research has shown that fluency affects judgments in a wide variety of domains, including frequency, familiarity, and confidence. In this paper, we present evidence that fluency also plays a…

Using a conditioned taste aversion procedure with rats as the subjects, two experiments examined the effect of presenting a conditioned stimulus (CS saccharin solution) in one context followed by an unconditioned stimulus (US LiCl) in a different context. Experiment 1 showed that animals which received the above-mentioned procedure (Group D)…

Features from stimuli presented at a high rate in a single spatial position (Rapid Serial Visual Presentation, RSVP) can migrate forming a wrong combination or illusory conjunction. Several serial and parallel models have been proposed to explain the generation of this type of errors. The behavioral results fit better the two-stage parallel model…

Two experiments examined the neural mechanisms underlying the ontogenetic emergence of auditory eyeblink conditioning. Previous studies found that the medial auditory thalamus is necessary for eyeblink conditioning with an auditory conditioned stimulus (CS) in adult rats. In experiment 1, stimulation of the medial auditory thalamus was used as a…

The joint effects of stimulus quality and word frequency in lexical decision were examined in 4 experiments as a function of nonword type (legal nonwords, e.g., BRONE, vs. pseudohomophones, e.g., BRANE). When familiarity was a viable dimension for word-nonword discrimination, as when legal nonwords were used, additive effects of stimulus quality…

Six experiments investigated how variability on irrelevant stimulus dimensions and variability on response dimensions contribute to spatial and nonspatial stimulus-response (S-R) correspondence effects. Experiments 1-3 showed that, when stimuli varied in location and number, S-R correspondence effects for location or numerosity occurred when…

Some recent evidence suggests that mental rotation of characters in children aged 7 or 8 years might be lateralized to the left parietal hemisphere. An alternative statement exists, however, the finding might be completely unspecific for mental rotation but either be simply a function of task difficulty or a consequence of the use of characters as…

Assessing speech discrimination skills in individual infants from clinical populations (e.g., infants with hearing impairment) has important diagnostic value. However, most infant speech discrimination paradigms have been designed to test group effects rather than individual differences. Other procedures suffer from high attrition rates. In this…