An under-addressed question regarding the usage of small devices is how information gathering from such devices is limited or changed relative to a full-size display? This study explores how factual recall from a text interacts with display size and other text characteristics. In this experiment, participants read several expository texts on…

Color and intensity coding provide perceptual cues to segregate categories of objects within a visual display, allowing operators to search more efficiently for needed information. Even within a perceptually distinct subset of display elements, however, it may often be useful to prioritize items representing urgent or task-critical information.…

Faces and objects of expertise compete for early perceptual processes and holistic processing resources (Gauthier, Curran, Curby, & Collins, 2003). Here, we examined the nature of interference on holistic face processing in working memory by comparing how various types of loads affect selective attention to parts of face composites. In dual…

English and German readers have been shown to mark a position to the left of the true centre as the subjective midpoint in word bisection. This effect resembles a well-known phenomenon observed with the bisection of solid lines (pseudoneglect), although this behavioural similarity does not imply a common origin. The purpose of the present study…

It has been suggested that learning an object's location relative to (1) intramaze landmarks and (2) local boundaries is supported by parallel striatal and hippocampal systems, both of which rely upon input from a third system for orientation. However, little is known about the developmental trajectories of these systems' contributions to spatial…

Memory for objects helps us to determine how we can most effectively and appropriately interact with them. This suggests a tightly coupled interplay between action and background knowledge. Three experiments demonstrate that grasping circumference can be affected by the size of a visual stimulus (Experiment 1), whether that stimulus appears to be…

The experience of controlling one's own actions, and through them events in the outside world, is a pervasive feature of human mental life. Two experiments investigated the relation between this sense of control and the internal processes involved in action selection and cognitive control. Action selection was manipulated by subliminally priming…

The present study examined the effect of perceived motion-in-depth on temporal interval perception. We required subjects to estimate the length of a short empty interval starting from the offset of a first marker and ending with the onset of a second marker. The size of the markers was manipulated so that the subjects perceived a visual object as…

Teaching students to use and interpret representations in science is critically important if they are to become scientifically literate and learn how to communicate their understandings and learning in science. This study involved 248 students (119 boys and 129 girls) from 26 grade 6 teachers' classes in nine primary schools in Brisbane,…

Research Findings: The present study evaluated the impact of a working memory (WM) stimulation program on the development of WM and early literacy skills (ELS) in preschoolers from socioeconomically deprived rural and urban schools in Chile. The sample consisted of 268 children, 144 in the intervention group and 124 in the comparison group. The…

The importance of visual input in the contemporary ELT classroom is such that it is commonplace to use audiovisual elements provided by pictures, films, clips and the like. The power of images is unquestionable, and as the old saying goes, an image is worth a thousand words. Following this line of reasoning, the objective of this article is to…

Research studies repeatedly emphasize the importance of vocabulary capabilities to a large variety of academic activities. This study compared a learning strategy that exclusively involved the visual review of vocabulary word-definition pairs to a strategy that, in addition, prompted participants to attempt free-recall retrieval of words to match…

This study examined the Flynn Effect (FE; i.e., the rise in IQ scores over time) in Estonia from Scale B of the National Intelligence Test using both classical test theory (CTT) and item response theory (IRT) methods. Secondary data from two cohorts (1934, n = 890 and 2006, n = 913) of students were analyzed, using both classical test theory (CTT)…

Auditory processing of speech is influenced by internal (i.e., attention, working memory) and external factors (i.e., background noise, visual information). This study examined the interplay among these factors in individuals with and without ADHD. All participants completed a listening in noise task, two working memory capacity tasks, and two…

The literature on learning with animations has focused so far on subject matters in which changes over time depicted in the animation are mapped onto changes over time in the reality of the concepts to be learned. The experiments presented in this article, however, suggest that also a nontemporal mapping of facts, as in paired-associate learning…