Long-term semantic memory (LTM) is known for affecting recall during working memory (WM) tasks. However, the way LTM intervenes in WM remains unknown. Moreover, the available findings are incongruent concerning how attention modulates the impact of LTM on WM. To examine this issue, the involvement of LTM representations in a complex span task was…

This study explored possible deficits in selective attention brought about by Dementia of Alzheimer Type (DAT). In three experiments, we tested patients with early DAT, healthy elderly, and young adults under low memory demands to assess perceptual filtering, conflict resolution, and set switching abilities. We found no evidence of impaired…

The vigilance of young adults with and without mild mental retardation (MR) was compared, with subjects performing two memory demanding, cognitively based tests. The vigilance decrement of MR adults declined more rapidly than did the vigilance of non-MR adults, due to an interaction between target detectability and response bias, and poor target…