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Open AccessThe effects of testing the relationships among relational concepts
Many concepts are defined by their relationships to one another. However, instructors might teach these concepts individually, neglecting their interconnections. For instance, students learning about statistic...
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Article
Visual selection and response selection without effector selection in tasks with circular arrays
Charles Eriksen and colleagues conducted influential visual-search experiments with circular arrays for which the responses were either vocal naming or unimanual left–right switch movements. These methods have...
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Training, retention, and transfer of data entry perceptual and motor processes over short and long retention intervals
In two experiments, subjects trained in a standard data entry task, which involved ty** numbers (e.g., 2147) using their right hands. At an initial test (20 min or 6 months after training), subjects complete...
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Article
Verbal and spatial acquisition as a function of distributed practice and code-specific interference
Theories of memory must account for memory performance during both the acquisition (i.e., ongoing learning) and retention (i.e., following disuse) stages of training. One factor affecting both stages is whethe...
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Article
Does spatial information impact immediate verbatim recall of verbal navigation instructions?
The present study addresses the issue of whether spatial information impacts immediate verbatim recall of verbal navigation instructions. Subjects heard messages instructing them to move within a two-dimension...
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Article
Algebraic reasoning and bat-and-ball problem variants: Solving isomorphic algebra first facilitates problem solving later
The classic bat-and-ball problem is used widely to measure biased and correct reasoning in decision-making. University students overwhelmingly tend to provide the biased answer to this problem. To what extent ...
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Training specificity and transfer in time and distance estimation
Learning is often specific to the conditions of training, making it important to identify which aspects of the testing environment are crucial to be matched in the training environment. In the present study, w...
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Effects of difficulty, specificity, and variability on training to follow navigation instructions
To study the relative merits of three training principles – difficulty of training, specificity of training, and variability of training – subjects were trained to follow navigation instructions to move in a g...
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Specificity and transfer effects in time production skill: examining the role of attention
Two experiments examined transfer of a prospective, time production skill under conditions involving changes in concurrent task requirements. Positive transfer of the time production skill might be expected on...
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Article
Pairing Words with Syntactic Frames: Syntax, Semantics, and Count-Mass Usage
Two experiments examined English speakers’ choices of count or mass compatible frames for nouns varying in imageability (concrete, abstract) and noun class (count, mass). Pairing preferences with equative (much/m...
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Memory for details about people: familiarity, relatedness, and gender congruency
This study examines factors that influence memory for details about people. In two experiments, subjects learned fictitious details about familiar (friends, relatives) and/or unfamiliar individuals, and were t...
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Item and order information in semantic memory: students’ retention of the “CU fight song” lyrics
University of Colorado (CU) students were tested on memory for the “CU Fight Song” in order to examine serial position effects in semantic memory while controlling for familiarity across positions. In Experiment ...
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The effects of spatial representation on memory for verbal navigation instructions
Three experiments investigated effects of mental spatial representation on memory for verbal navigation instructions. The navigation instructions referred to a grid of stacked matrices displayed on a computer ...
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Task integration in time production
Two experiments examined training on a prospective time production task. Participants produced intervals, expressed in fixed arbitrary units, while performing a concurrent secondary task. After a 15-min filled...
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Exploring specificity of speeded aiming movements: Examining different measures of transfer
Participants were trained and tested to move a mouse cursor from a start position to targets on a circular display in a perceptual-motor reversal condition, with horizontal, but not vertical, reversals. During...
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Contextual memory and skill transfer in category search
In three experiments, we examined transfer and contextual memory in a category search task. Each experiment included two phases (training and test), during which participants searched through category and exem...
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Global inhibition and midcourse corrections in speeded aiming
When some perceptual-motor relationships are reversed, participants might adopt a global inhibition strategy that replaces all normal movements with reversed movements. In two experiments, participants practic...
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Article
The effects of memory set size and information structure on learning and retention
Two experiments examined the effects of memory set size and information structure on learning and retention. Participants learned 48 (small set) or 144 (large set) facts about individuals, and were tested over...
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Using prior knowledge to minimize interference when learning large amounts of information
In three experiments, we examined mediated learning in situations involving learning a large amount of information. Participants learned 144 “facts” during a learning phase and were tested on facts during a te...
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Strategy shifts in classification skill acquisition: Does memory retrieval dominate rule use?
In two experiments, we demonstrated two types of strategies (rule-based and memory-based) and strategy transitions within the same binary classification task. The strategy that dominated later in practice depe...
