Box plots are frequently used, but are often misinterpreted by students. Especially the area of the box in box plots is often misinterpreted as representing number or proportion of observations, while it actually represents their density. In a first study, reaction time evidence was used to test whether heuristic reasoning underlies this…

The problem-size effect in simple additions, that is the increase in response times (RTs) and error rates with the size of the operands, is one of the most robust effects in cognitive arithmetic. Current accounts focus on factors that could affect speed of retrieval of the answers from long-term memory such as the occurrence of interference in a…

The differential allocation of information processing resources over time, here termed "temporal attention," may be achieved by relatively automatic "exogenous" or controlled "endogenous" mechanisms. Over 100 years of research has confounded these theoretically distinct dimensions of temporal attention. The current…

Relative to abstract words, concrete words typically elicit faster response times and larger N400 and N700 event-related potential (ERP) brain responses. These effects have been interpreted as reflecting the denser links to associated semantic information of concrete words and their recruitment of visual imagery processes. Here, we examined…

Neurobiology of reading research has yet to explore whether reliance on the ventral-lexical stream during word reading can be enhanced by the instructed reading strategy, or whether it is impervious to such strategies. We examined Instructions: "name all" vs. "name words" (based on spelling), Word Type: "regular words" vs. "exception words", and…

It is often proposed that individuals with high working memory span overcome proactive interference (PI) from previous trials, saving working memory for task-relevant items. We examined this hypothesis in word-list probe recognition. We found no difference in PI related to span. Instead, ex-Gaussian analysis of reaction time showed speed…

In visual searches, stimuli following the law of good continuity attract attention to the global structure and receive attentional priority. Also, targets that have unique features are of high feature contrast and capture attention in visual search. We report on a salient global structure combined with a high orientation contrast to the…

In the present experiments, the question being addressed was whether switching attention between perceptual dimensions and selective attention to dimensions are processes that compete over a common resource? Attention to perceptual dimensions is usually studied by requiring participants to ignore a never-relevant dimension. Selection failure…

The ability to detect dangerous animals rapidly in complex landscapes has been historically important during human evolution. Previous research has shown that snake images are more readily detected than images of benign animals. To provide a stringent test of superior snake detection in preschool children and adults, Experiment 1 consisted of two…

Large-scale enterprise applications are deployed as distributed applications. These applications consist of many inter-connected components with heterogeneous roles and complex dependencies. Each component typically consumes 5-15% of the server capacity. Deploying each component as a separate virtual machine (VM) allows us to consolidate the…

Purpose: The purpose of this study was to investigate whether previously reported parental questionnaire-based differences in inhibitory control (IC; Eggers, De Nil, & Van den Bergh, 2010) would be supported by direct measurement of IC using a computer task. Method: Participants were 30 children who stutter (CWS; mean age = 7;05 years) and 30…

This study examined how language proficiency and age of acquisition affect a bilingual language user's reliance on the dominant language during lexical access. Two bilingual groups performed a translation recognition task: Mandarin-English classroom bilinguals who acquired their dominant language (Mandarin) from birth and their non-dominant…

Item response time data were used in investigating the differences in student test-taking behavior between two device conditions: computer and tablet. Analyses were conducted to address the questions of whether or not the device condition had a differential impact on rapid guessing and solution behaviors (with response time effort used as an…

This study tested the effect of Spanish-accented speech on sentence comprehension in children with different degrees of Spanish experience. The hypothesis was that earlier acquisition of Spanish would be associated with enhanced comprehension of Spanish-accented speech. Three groups of 5-6-year-old children were tested: monolingual…

According to distractor-based response retrieval (Frings, Rothermund, & Wentura, 2007), irrelevant information will be integrated with the response to the relevant stimuli and further, the immediate repetition of irrelevant information can retrieve the previously executed response thereby influencing responding to the current target (leading…