Although lifespan changes in cognitive performance and Flynn effects have both been well documented, there has been little scientific focus to date on the net effect of these forces on cognition at the population level. Two major questions moving beyond this finding guided this study: (1) Does the Flynn effect indeed continue in the 2000s for…

Using data from a longitudinal study of preterms and full-terms, the present study examined the structure of infant cognition at 12 months, the extent to which five 12-month abilities (attention, processing speed, recognition, recall, and representational competence) mediated the relation from prematurity to mental development at 2-3 years, and…

Working memory (WM) has been associated with the acquisition of arithmetic skills, however, the components of WM that underlie this acquisition have not been explored. This study explored the contribution of two WM systems (the phonological loop and the central executive) to mathematical performance in young children. The results showed that a…

College undergraduates learned word lists involving three-term contingencies (stimulus-response-outcome). Learning rate was correlated approximately 0.5 with scores on Raven's Advanced Progressive Matrices (Raven) but did not correlate significantly with several tasks (inspection time, card-sorting, trail-making, PASAT) shown to be associated with…

Age related declines in fluid intelligence were accounted for by age-related declines in a general latency factor (cognitive speed) for 63 adults aged 26 to 80 years, but results called into question the assumption that cognitive speed accounts for all individual IQ differences. (SLD)

Evaluated was the continuous recognition memory of 20 undergraduate students and 20 retarded adults. Available from: Ablex Publishing Corporation, 355 Chestnut Street, Norwood, New Jersey 07648. (CL)

Three studies of college students found a sex difference in the correlation of memory scanning rate, short- and long-term components of free recall, and word recognition with memory span. Findings are discussed in terms of prior work and a theory presented to account for the obtained sex differences. (Author/RD)

Ninety-six mildly mentally retarded persons and 96 nonretarded college students estimated the frequency of occurrence of words and pictures in a study test paradigm. Frequency estimates were equal for words, but the nonretarded subjects were superior in accuracy on pictorial items. This finding points to an encoding deficiency attributed to…

Two experiments examined whether correlations between IQ and probed serial running memory depend on IQ-related individual differences in the retention of order information in short-term memory. Children's IQ correlated with memory, regardless of whether instructions emphasized serial or free recall; and with recent item but not recent order…

The relation between individual differences in verbal ability and memory for order was investigated. Results indicated that (1) order and item information may be retained separately; (2) verbal ability is related to short-term recall but not recognition of order; and (3) transformation of order at output increases the relation. (Author/RD)

Individual differences in digit span, susceptibility to proactive interference, and various aptitude/achievement test scores were investigated in two experiments with college students. Results indicated that digit span was strongly correlated with aptitude/achievement scores, but did not indicate that susceptibility to proactive interference…

Two methodological issues involved in determining the relationship between learning and general intelligence were examined: (1) the use of learning strategies in a paired-associate task and (2) the importance of time (rather than errors) in the measurement of learning efficiency. (Author/RD)

Retarded subjects were compared with mental- and chronological-age matched controls on serial short-term memory (STM) tasks. Retarded subjects were inferior to the control groups on both primacy and recency items, under two recall conditions. These data are discussed in relation to possible mechanisms underlying IQ-related individual differences…