The relation between perceptual organization and categorization processes in 3- and 4-month-olds was explored. The question was whether an invariant part abstracted during category learning could interfere with Gestalt organizational processes. A 2003 study by Quinn and Schyns had reported that an initial category familiarization experience in…

Stress facilitates memory formation, but only when the stressor is closely linked to the learning context. These effects are, at least in part, mediated by corticosteroid hormones. Here we demonstrate that corticosterone rapidly facilitates synaptic potentiation in the mouse hippocampal CA1 area when high levels of the hormone and high-frequency…

Extensive evidence documents emotional modulation of hippocampus-dependent declarative memory in humans. However, little is known about the emotional modulation of striatum-dependent procedural memory. To address how emotional arousal influences declarative and procedural memory, the current study utilized (1) a picture recognition and (2) a…

In 5 experiments, a Hebb repetition effect, that is, improved immediate serial recall of an (unannounced) repeating list, was demonstrated in the immediate serial recall of visual materials, even when use of phonological short-term memory was blocked by concurrent articulation. The learning of a repeatedly presented letter list in one modality…

Much of what psychologists know about infant perception and cognition is based on habituation, but the process itself is still poorly understood. Here the authors offer a dynamic field model of infant visual habituation, which simulates the known features of habituation, including familiarity and novelty effects, stimulus intensity effects, and…

Problems in the experimental laboratory in scientific research are discussed and solutions are proposed for the problem of conflicts between the experimental model and reality. As a possible beginning for change, an apparatus is suggested to replace the tachistoscope. (SCC)

The three studies described in this section were undertaken to examine further aspects of depth of processing and to throw more light on the factors underlying good memory performance. (Author)

The role of differential processing opportunities in directed forgetting was investigated in two free-recall experiments. (Editor)

The purpose of this investigation was to determine more clearly whether the phenomenon of language retention is found at higher levels of complexity. (Author)

How the criticism of a teacher led to the improvement of his experimental psychology course and a symposium on teaching experimental psychology. (Author/DE)

Examines experimental studies in which learning procedures such as reinforcement, direct instruction, and modeling are applied in an attempt to alter characteristics of children's information processing behaviors. Discusses whether the studies have demonstrated acquisition of generalized cognitive functions or merely elicitation of task specific…

In a short-term free-recall paradigm, Ss presented a list of numbers followed by a list of words were cued after presentation to (a) recall numbers only, (b) recall numbers then words, (c) recall words then numbers, or (d) recall numbers, then perform a word association task. (Editor)

Two paired-associate (PA) learning studies observed the acquisition performance of 85 college students with either odors or abstract figures as stimuli and numbers as responses. (Editor)

Memory trigrams were presented by one of three methods: visual-concurrent (all three letters appeared simultaneously), visual-successive, and auditory-successive. (Editor)

This experiment investigated whether suppressing correlated vowel phonemes of consonants by pairing each consonant with a redundant vowel /a/ would have the same effect on recall in two input modes - auditory and articulatory. (Editor/RK)