Examined the relationship between elementary cognitive tasks and the general factor of intelligence ("g") through tests administered to 568 elementary school students in a study of twins. Findings indicate a memory processing component in addition to a general information processing component contributing to "g" estimates. (SLD)

Investigated external memory strategies of typical 7-, 9-, 11-, and 17-year olds and 11- and 17-year olds with mild mental retardation using tasks allowing direct comparison of self-report and strategy observed. Found strong positive correlations between frequency of reported and observed strategy use. Self-reports were accurate but not always…

This study examined the metacognitive ability (recall readiness) in matched groups of children with autism, children with mental retardation, and normally developing children (all with a mental age of 7). Children with autism and children with mental retardation had impaired recall readiness compared to the normally developing children. (Author/DB)

Learning is about making connections between subjects, across disciplines, over time, and from individual to universal experience. Our school system is not geared toward connectivity. Knowledge is divided into discrete subjects, and the day into fixed periods. Six questions facilitate students' movement from experience to subjects. (MLH)

Describes one teacher's use of color to make classroom instruction more interesting. Techniques included using colored paper for handouts, conducting an experiment to see whether the use of colors could enhance students' memory power, and using colored flashcards to teach vocabulary. (Author/VWL)

Three experiments investigated effectiveness of activity outcomes as 5- to 7-year-olds' memory cues. Outcomes either were maintained during activity and preserved in the end product, or "disappeared" during activity and transformed in the end product. Findings indicated that memory for the activity varied with cue condition and with…

Tested 3-, 5-, and 8-year-olds on temporal generalization with visual stimuli. Found increasing sharpness of generalization gradient with increasing age, and change from symmetrical to adult-like asymmetrical generalization gradients among 8-year-olds. Theoretical models attributed changes to increasing precision of the reference memory with…

This retrospective study incorporating drawing and group discussion examined the memories of 478 university students in Sweden regarding their play at 4 age periods: 3-6 years, 7-12 years, 13-18 years, and adult. Findings indicated that ages 7-12 years were especially important for play memories: people, place, and interaction were all considered…

Applied reliable component analysis (RCA) to the normative data (2,100 children and adolescents) for the Universal Nonverbal Intelligence Test (UNIT) (A. Bracken and R. McCallum, 1998) to allow for the computation of reliable uncorrelated memory and reasoning scores. RCA sores were highly replicable, had good convergent validity, and had greater…

Examination of auditory short-term memory was evaluated with 21 adolescents with Down syndrome (DS) and mental-age-matched and language-production-matched subjects using a digit span task. DS subjects had shorter digit spans than MA controls. Language production level accounted for substantial variance in digit span in individuals with DS.…

This study investigated the metamemory monitoring abilities of 18 adult survivors of at least moderate traumatic brain injury. Participants also made judgments-of-learning (JOL) predictions of their recall ability immediately or after a list-learning task or after a slight delay. Survivors were as accurate as controls in delayed JOL predictions…

Adults' source judgments are more accurate when they focus on speakers' emotions than when adults focus on their own emotions. Focusing on speakers may lead to better source memory because it encourages processing of the perceptual characteristics of the source and binding of that information to the content of what is being said. The purpose of…

According to temporal distinctiveness models, items that are temporally isolated from their neighbors during list presentation are more distinct and thus should be recalled better. Event-based theories, by contrast, deny that time plays a role at encoding and predict no beneficial effect of temporal isolation, although they acknowledge that a…

Three experiments examined whether the survival of the phonological similarity effect (PSE) under articulatory suppression for auditory but not visual to-be-serially recalled lists is a perceptual effect rather than an effect arising from the action of a bespoke phonological store. Using a list of 5 auditory items, a list length at which the…

This study attempted to model specific language impairment (SLI) in a group of 6year-old children with typically developing language by introducing cognitive stress factors into a grammaticality judgment task. At normal speech rate, all children had near-perfect performance. When the speech signal was compressed to 50% of its original rate, to…