Debate over whether mental images are visual or spatial representations is seen as based on the false premise that they must be one or the other. Visual neurophysiological research and experiments with a brain-damaged patient (impaired visual representations) suggest that mental imagery has distinct visual and spatial representation components.…

A sentence parsing model is presented in which working-memory capacity influences the degree to which multiple syntactic representations are held during syntactic ambiguity processing. Four experiments with 130 college undergraduates suggest that working-memory capacity can influence the length of time in which multiple representations from the…

Seven experiments studying the relations among different measures of visible and informational persistence after a physical stimulus involving 52 undergraduate and graduate students rely on state-trace analysis to develop a theory of these two types of persistence in the context of visual-information processing. (SLD)

Proposes a probability heuristic model for syllogistic reasoning and confirms the rationality of this heuristic by an analysis of the probabilistic validity of syllogistic reasoning that treats logical inference as a limiting case of probabilistic inference. Meta-analysis and two experiments involving 40 adult participants and using generalized…

Seven studies involving 256 undergraduates examined how people represent, access, and make inferences about the real-world category domain, foods. Results give a detailed picture of the use of cross-classification in a complex domain. (SLD)

A large orthographic neighborhood (N) facilitates lexical decision for central and left visual field/right hemisphere (LVF/RH) presentation, but not for right visual field/left hemisphere (RVF/LH) presentation. Based on the SERIOL model of letter-position encoding, this asymmetric N effect is explained by differential activation patterns at the…

There are certain simple rotations of objects that most people cannot reason about accurately. Reliable gaps in the understanding of a fundamental physical domain raise the question of how learning to reason in that domain might proceed. Using virtual reality techniques, this project investigated the nature of learning to reason across the domain…

The model of a single central bottleneck for human information processing is critically examined. Most evidence cited in support of the model has been observed within the overlapping tasks paradigm. It is shown here that most findings obtained within that paradigm and that were used to support the model are also consistent with a simple resource…

This paper presents a cognitive approach to on-line spatial perception within scenes. A theoretical framework is developed, based on the idea that experience with a scene can activate a complex representation of layout that facilitates subsequent processing of spatial relations within the scene. The representations integrate significant, relevant…

The project of comparative cognition benefits from common measures across species. We report here on five experiments using the violation of expectancy looking time measure with free-ranging rhesus macaques ("Macaca mulatta"), each designed to build on current knowledge concerning spontaneous representations of number. Each subject, tested in only…

A framework for a distinct strategy-selection phase for answering questions is proposed. Six experiments with college students which support the model are described. The model is shown to be consistent with processing strategies in other areas of cognitive processing. (BS)

The SeLective Attention Model (SLAM) performs visual selective attention tasks and demonstrates that object selection and attribute selection are both necessary and sufficient for visual selection. The SLAM is described, particularly with regard to its ability to represent an individual subject performing filtering tasks. (TJH)

A series of 4 experiments involving 96 infants aged 6 to 17.5 months examined their capacities to detect repeated target words in fluent speech. Taken together, study results indicate that some ability to detect words in fluent speech contexts is present by 7.5 months of age. (SLD)

Experiments with 251 male and 280 female college students demonstrated that subjects' representations of the water levels in a tilted container could be influenced by problem presentation. Subjects who did not appear to know that water remains horizontal were attempting to solve an object-relative, rather than environment-relative, problem. (SLD)

Three experiments involving 107 adults who performed mental rotation tasks explored how location information is incorporated into image representation. Results suggest that image is coded retinotopically in image representations and that there is no spatiotropic transform in the early stages of visual processing. (SLD)