A choice reaction time experiment tested the idea that the operations performed on symbols from different notational systems depend, not only on the interpretation of the symbols, but also on the symbol's notational characteristics or the ways in which they map the world. (Author)

Three experiments evaluated performance on a mental multiplication task and the adequacy of several different models of mental addition as extended to multiplication. Results are discussed in terms of a network-retrieval approach to mental arithmetic, the commonalities between addition and multiplication, and rule- versus retrieval-based…

Findings indicate that, when skimming, readers find it difficult to perceptually select from a passage information that is relevant to their goal in skimming. There was a reaction time advantage for verification of gist-relevant information as opposed to details, which tended to increase with reading rate. (Author/PN)

The agencies requiring the longest amount of time to respond generally provided better quality responses. The size of the agency seemed unrelated to either the speed or the quality of response. Response quality was generally inadequate with less than 50 percent of the responding states adequately answering the parent's question. (Author)

Repeated observations of a colored form results in slower reaction-time responses to the familiarized stimulus than to a comparable novel stimulus due to alertness decrement and encoding facilitation. This two-factor theory of repetition was found to hold for words as well as for colors. (Author/BW)

Undergraduates analyzed a story in which an agent's intervention was followed by the target's compliance, noncompliance, or countercompliance to the request. Influence was attributed to the agent in conditions demonstrating change, regardless of direction of change. Influence decreased if the target delayed final compliance. (Author/CP)

Three reaction time (RT) experiments using a modified Strenberg procedure were conducted to determine the number of memory representations maintained for perceptual (dot-pattern) concepts. (Editor)

Examines an alternation effect and a repetition effect in a two-choice reaction time task. Two further experiments examine the roles of subjective expectancy and an automatic facilitation in determining these effects. (Editor/RK)

A study compared 14 younger adults (ages 21-26) and 13 older adults (ages 60-70) to investigate the effects that argument structure can have on language processing, reaction-time, and event-related potential (ERP). High-complexity stimuli produced higher P300 amplitudes than low-complexity stimuli. The older group demonstrated significantly longer…

In three experiments, 3-, 4-, and 5-year olds and adults identified words from a list presented by a single talker or multiple talkers. Subjects were less accurate identifying or slower repeating words spoken by multiple speakers than by a single speaker. Processing of multiple speakers' words became easier with age. Children matched their…

When the stimulus to be intercepted traveled at slow or moderate speeds, subjects' (N=18) expectancies did not modify choice reaction time (CRT) and movement time. However, when the stimulus traveled at fast speed, CRT was reduced as a function of event probability, at the cost of more response initiation errors. (IAH)

A study compared the reaction time and efficiency of cognitive processing on a speeded classification task, involving 43 children with attention deficit disorder/hyperactivity, 22 children with attention deficit disorder without hyperactivity, and 16 controls, aged 6-13. It was found that the children's diagnoses could not be distinguished on…

Analysis of 22 mean response times (RTs) for children with specific language impairment (SLI) found that SLI children's RTs increased linearly as a function of RTs for age-matched non-SLI control children. Intergroup differences in processing speed between children with and without SLI reflect some general component of cognitive processing.…

Accuracy of letter identification and latency of reaction time were studied as a function of retinal position in 19 dyslexic adolescents. Dyslexics did not show higher performance scores in the peripheral visual fields but did have longer reaction times in all experimental conditions. (SLD)