A simple view, which dates back to Turing, proposes that complex cognitive operations are composed of serially arranged elementary operations, each passing intermediate results to the next. However, whether and how such serial processing is achieved with a brain composed of massively parallel processors, remains an open question. Here, we study…

The conditions for serial search are described. A multiple target search methodology (Thornton & Gilden, 2007) is used to home in on the simplest target/distractor contrast that effectively mandates a serial scheduling of attentional resources. It is found that serial search is required when (a) targets and distractors are mirror twins, and…

Studies investigating reading and spelling difficulties heavily focused on the neural correlates of reading impairments, whereas spelling impairments have been largely neglected so far. Hence, the aim of the present study was to investigate brain structure and function of children with isolated spelling difficulties. Therefore, 31 children, aged…

The present experiments examined perceptual specificity effects using a rereading paradigm. Eye movements were monitored while participants read the same target word twice, in two different low-constraint sentence frames. The congruency of perceptual processing was manipulated by either presenting the target word in the same distortion typography…

Psychometric intelligence correlates with reaction time in elementary cognitive tasks, as well as with performance in time discrimination and judgment tasks. It has remained unclear, however, to what extent these correlations are due to top-down mechanisms, such as attention, and bottom-up mechanisms, i.e. basic neural properties that influence…

Signal detection theory (SDT) parameters can describe a learner's ability to discriminate (d[prime symbol]) normal from abnormal and the learner's criterion ([lambda]) to under or overcall abnormalities. To examine the serial changes in SDT parameters with serial exposure to radiological cases. 46 participants were recruited for this study: 20…

Evidence that outcome associations, position associations, and response patterns each contribute to performance in animal serial learning came from two experiments in which three-trial series of rewarded and not-rewarded trials were examined. Response patterns were disrupted in Experiment 1 by placing animals directly in the goal on selected…

In almost all daily activities fingers of both hands are used in coordinated succession. The present experiments explored whether learning in such tasks pertains not only to the overall sequence spanning both hands but also to the constituent sequences of each hand. In a serial reaction time task, 2 repeating hand-related sequences were…

The purpose of the present study was to synthesize research that compares children with and without reading disabilities (RD) on measures of short-term memory (STM) and working memory (WM). Across a broad age, reading, and IQ range, 578 effect sizes (ESs) were computed, yielding a mean ES across studies of -0.89 (SD = 1.03). A total of 257 ESs…

Three hypotheses of forgetting from immediate memory were tested: time-based decay, decreasing temporal distinctiveness, and interference. The hypotheses were represented by 3 models of serial recall: the primacy model, the SIMPLE (scale-independent memory, perception, and learning) model, and the SOB (serial order in a box) model, respectively.…

How does the brain carry out working memory storage, categorization, and voluntary performance of event sequences? The LIST PARSE neural model proposes an answer that unifies the explanation of cognitive, neurophysiological, and anatomical data. It quantitatively simulates human cognitive data about immediate serial recall and free recall, and…

Knowledge of sequential relationships enables future events to be anticipated and processed efficiently. Research with the serial reaction time task (SRTT) has shown that sequence learning often occurs implicitly without effort or awareness. Here, the authors report 4 experiments that use a triplet-learning task (TLT) to investigate sequence…

Nonhuman animals, like humans, appear sensitive to the structure of the elements of sequences, perhaps even when the structure relates nonadjacent elements. In the present study, we examined the contribution of chunking, rule learning, and item memory when rats learned serial patterns composed of two interleaved subpatterns. In one group, the…

Background: In the last few years, experimental data have been reported on differences in implicit memory processes of genetically distinct groups of individuals with Intellectual Disability (ID). These evidences are relevant for the more general debate on supposed asynchrony of cognitive maturation in children with abnormal brain development.…

In a previous study, it was shown that the attentional blink (AB)--the failure to recall the 2nd of 2 visual targets (T1 and T2) presented within 500 ms in rapid serial visual presentation--is reduced when T2 is preceded by a distractor that shares a feature with T2 (e.g., color; Nieuwenstein, Chun, van der Lubbe & Hooge, 2005). Here, this cuing…