This paper describes the design and use of an apparatus capable of measuring reaction time and movement time, and recording time across various segments of the sprint event. (MB)

This study compared the auditory lexical decision times of children (N=46, mean age=7) with specific language impairment (SLI) to those of typically developing age peers. Although SLI children were significantly slower than peers, speed of word recognition was not correlated with measures of language comprehension for the SLI group. Possible…

Explored the relationship of both simple and four-choice reaction time to scores for the Alice Heim 4 (AH4) test to assess whether correlations previously reported adequately represented the strength of the relationship and to test for departures from linearity. Findings for 900 adolescents and adult show the correlation to be a good summary for…

The parallel force unit model theory, in which the buildup and decline of force in rapid responses of short duration are assumed to reflect variability in timing of several parallel force units, is presented. Predictions derived from this theory are shown to be in qualitative agreement with empirical findings. (SLD)

In a study involving 38 adult females, nerve conduction velocity (NCV) did not correlate with intelligence or reaction time. A reanalysis of the Vernon and Mori data showed a possible sex difference in relation to NCV and intelligence, with the correlation between these variables much smaller in females than males. (SLD)

Studied task switching in 4 experiments involving 111 Israeli undergraduates. Results show the preparation for a task switch is not a by-product of general preparation by phasic alertness or predicting target onset and establish reconfiguration as a separate preparatory process. Suggests that there are at least three components of task switching…

In this study, we investigated whether the left and right hemispheres are differentially involved in causal inference generation. Participants read short inference-promoting texts that described either familiar or less-familiar scenarios. After each text, they performed a lexical decision on a letter string (which sometimes constituted an…

Bowdle and Gentner (2005) proposed a reconciliation of the comparison and categorization models of metaphor comprehension. Their career of metaphor model posits that, as a metaphorical term becomes more conventional, its mode of processing shifts from comparison to categorization. However, other recent studies (Chiappe, Kennedy, & Chiappe, 2003;…

A detailed examination of a commonly accepted practice in geology offers an example of how to stimulate critical thinking, teaches students how to read reactions, and challenges students to formulate better experiments for determining mineral ages more accurately. A demonstration of a Potassium-Argon radiometric method for dating minerals is…

Five individuals participated in an extensive practice study (10 1-hr sessions, 11,000 trials total) on a self-paced identity-judgment ?n-back task (n ranging from 1 to 5). Within Session 1, response time increased abruptly by about 300 ms in passing from n = 1 to n > 1, suggesting that the focus of attention can accommodate only a single item (H.…

This study investigated the effect of direct vocabulary learning using Computer Assisted Language Learning (CALL) on vocabulary knowledge, reading comprehension, and speed of word recognition. It found that students who used Tutorial CALL to learn highly frequent vocabulary did learn a significantly larger number of words than those in a control…

The authors propose that there are 2 different mechanisms whereby spatial cues capture attention. The voluntary mechanism is the strategic allocation of perceptual resources to the location most likely to contain the target. The involuntary mechanism is a reflexive orienting response that occurs even when the spatial cue does not indicate the…

Participants were required to detect spot stimuli briefly presented to the upper, central, or lower visual fields. The stimuli were presented either on a green or a red background. Results showed that reaction time (RT) was shorter for the lower visual field (LVF) compared to the upper visual field (UVF). Furthermore, this LVF advantage was…

Forward masked word primes that differed from the target in the initial, the final or both the initial and final positions tended to slow target decision latencies and there were no significant differences among prime types. After forward masked nonword primes we observed non significant facilitation when primes differed from the target by one…

The authors studied the role of attention as a selection mechanism in implicit learning by examining the effect on primary sequence learning of performing a demanding target-selection task. Participants were trained on probabilistic sequences in a novel version of the serial reaction time (SRT) task, with dual- and triple-stimulus participants…