Motion-perception deficits and reading impairment: it's the noise, not the motion

We tested the hypothesis that deficits on sensory-processing tasks frequently associated with poor reading and dyslexia are the result of impairments in external-noise exclusion, rather than motion perception or magnocellular processing. We compared the motion-direction discrimination thresholds of adults and children with good or poor reading performance, using coherent-motion displays embedded in external noise. Both adults and children who were poor readers had higher thresholds than their respective peers in the presence of high external noise, but not in the presence of low external noise or when the signal was clearly demarcated. Adults' performance in high external noise correlated with their general reading ability, whereas children's performance correlated with their language and verbal abilities. The results support the hypothesis that noise-exclusion deficits impair reading and language development and suggest that the impact of such deficits on the development of reading skills changes with age.     

Color term knowledge does not affect categorical perception of color in toddlers

Categorical perception of color is shown when colors from the same category are discriminated less easily than equivalently spaced colors that cross a category boundary. The current experiments tested various models of categorical perception. Experiment 1 tested for categorical responding in 2- to 4-year-olds, the age range for the onset establishment of color term knowledge. Experiment 2 tested for categorical responding in Himba toddlers, whose language segments the color space differently from the way in which the English language does so. Experiment 3 manipulated the conditions of the task to explore whether the categorical responding in Experiments 1 and 2 was equivalent to categorical perception. Categorical perception was shown irrespective of naming and was not stronger in those children with more developed color term knowledge. Cross-cultural differences in the extent of categorical perception were not found. These findings support universalistic models of color categorization and suggest that color term knowledge does not modify categorical perception, at least during the early stages of childhood.     

Comments on “Measuring memory for source: Some theoretical assumptions and technical limitations”

Researchers must consider limitations and assumptions inherent in their measure of source monitoring when drawing conclusions, an important point raised by Murnane and Bayen (1998). However, the issues they raise do not invalidate the conclusions we draw from the findings reported in Henkel and Franklin (1998). Issues regarding conclusions about source monitoring performance, the relation between recognition and source accuracy, and the use of empirical and multinomial analyses are discussed.     

Knowing what to remember and forget: A developmental study of cue memory in intentional forgetting

These experiments are the first to investigate children’s encoding and use of information about a memory cue in Bjork’s (1972) intentional forgetting task. In Experiment 1, children in Grades 2, 4, and 6 and college students were given cues to either remember or forget after the presentation of each picture. Recall and recognition tests of pictures and cues followed. The procedure in Experiment 2 was identical to that in Experiment 1 except that the list of presentation pictures was altered for some children (Grades 3 and 4) and adolescents (Grades 8 and 9) so that remember and forget cues were associated with particular taxonomic categories. In Experiment 3, the testing component was modified so that children (Grades 2, 3, and 4) and college students were asked to recall only the cue associated with each picture. The results indicated that (1) children as young as second graders encode the cue associated with each picture, although to a lesser extent than do college students, (2) much improvement in intentional forgetting is still occurring during adolescence, (3) only adults adequately cluster their recall by cue, (4) associating remember and forget cues with items from different categories does not increase the differentiation between cues, and (5) eliminating picture recall and recognition has minimal effects on the magnitude of cue judgments. These results suggest that children’s difficulties on intentional forgetting tasks stem, at least in part, from their poorer encoding of information about whether an item should be remembered or forgotten.     

An emergency situation simulator for examining time-pressured decision making

Between deliberate planning efforts and reactionary decision making lies a realm of time-pressured decision making. A number of real-world occupations deal with this realm on a regular basis, including air traffic controllers and emergency service dispatchers. To study this type of decision making, an emergency situation simulator has been developed, which recreates the stressful environment of the emergency service dispatcher by generating realistic hypothetical emergency situations.     

Factor structure of the Mini-Mental State Examination in adult psychiatric inpatients

The factor structure of the Mini-Mental State Examination (MMSE) has been examined primarily in geriatric populations using differing methodology and yielding inconsistent results. This study examined the MMSE in 339 adult inpatients at a nonforensic state psychiatric hospital. Data were analyzed in the form of 30 dichotomous variables (1 for each scored response). A 5-factor oblique solution was retained, comprising factors of Orientation, Attention-Working Memory, Verbal Recall, Comprehension-Praxis, and Naming. Higher order factors of Executive Functioning and Language-Praxis were also found. The results fit the traditional neurocognitive domains of a mental status examination and generally replicated findings from the 2 largest studies published to date despite differences in population, suggesting that the obtained factors are fairly robust.