Two experiments are reported to distinguish between the representation of sentences in immediate versus longer-term memory. It is indicated that the immediate representation is a verbatim image of the sentence but at delays there are both verbatim images and propositional representations. (Author/RM)

E. Hazeltine, D. Teague, and R. B. Ivry have presented data that have been interpreted as evidence against a central bottleneck. This article describes simulations of their Experiments 1 and 4 in the ACT-R cognitive architecture, which does possess a central bottleneck in production execution. The simulation model is capable of accounting for the…

Research is reported investigating the processes involved in rejecting certain false categorical statements. (RM)

There is a frequent misperception that the move from behaviorism to cognitivism implies an abandonment of the possibilities of decomposing knowledge into its elements for the purposes of study and decontextualizing these elements for instruction. Cognitivism does not imply outright rejection of decomposition and decontextualization. Two movements…

Two stages of skill development are: declarative (facts are interpreted) and procedural (knowledge is embodied in skill procedures). Knowledge compilation moves skills from the declarative to procedural stage in subprocesses of composition, which collapses sequences of productions into single productions, and proceduralization, which embeds…

The ACT theory of the learning of procedures is described. ACT is a computer simulation program that uses a propositional network to represent knowledge of general facts and a set of productions (condition action rules) to represent knowledge of procedures. There are currently four different mechanisms by which ACT can make additions and…

This article describes the Adaptive Control of Thought-Rational (ACT-R) cognitive architecture (Anderson et al., 2004; Anderson & Lebiere, 1998) and its detailed application to the learning of algebraic symbol manipulation. The theory is applied to modeling the data from a study by Qin, Anderson, Silk, Stenger, & Carter (2004) in which children…

Two experiments explored how memory for new information is affected by awareness of parallels to pre-experimental knowledge. Results suggest that the benefit of prior knowledge derives from the more elaborate encodings that analogy promotes. (Author/AM)

It is argued that human memory is adaptively designed and that much can be learned by understanding its adaptiveness. The information-retrieval problem is framed, and optimal memory behavior is derived. Applying this framework to the classic free-recall paradigm is discussed. (SLD)

ACT-R is a theory of cognition that is capable of learning the relative usefulness of alternative rules. A model using this implicit procedural learning mechanism is described that explains results from a concept formation task created by McDonald and MacWhinney (1991), a role assignment created by Blackwell (1995), and a new role assignment…

This report describes several of the design decisions underlying ACT, a production system model of human cognition. ACT can be considered a high level computer programming language as well as a theory of the cognitive mechanisms underlying human information processing. ACT design decisions were based on both psychological and artificial…

The results demonstrate a use of semantic information to circumvent an item-by-item search of memory. Similar results have been obtained in the fact-retrieval paradigm of long-term memory. (PN)

This book presents a description of a new theory of memory which departs from existing concepts. It integrates and explains in detail the recent research findings in sentence memory, language comprehension, search on long term memory, verbal learning, and forgetting and imagery. It also reports new experiments which clarify these issues. A major…

Two experiments that study subjects' memory for active and passive sentences are reported. A reaction time methodology is used to measure subjects' memory for verbatim information about the sentence. Retention of verbatim information displays traditional short-term versus long-term discontinuity. (CHK)

Discusses research on mechanisms that determine the temporal properties of the retrieval of information, represented in long-term memory as a network of associations among concepts. A theory is developed concerned with processes leading from presentation of a probe to levels of activation in the network. (JN)