Search

In a series of three experiments, native speakers of Japanese performed serial ordered written recall of visually presented Japanese kanji characters that varied systematically in visual and phonological similarity. Overall effects of phonological similarity were observed for retention of serial order under silent reading in Experiments 1 and 3 and they disappeared in articulatory suppression conditions in Experiments 2 and 3. All three experiments showed main effects of visual similarity even in articulatory suppression conditions in Experiments 2 and 3. This indicated spontaneous use of visual codes in immediate serial recall. It is suggested that any models of serial order memory should incorporate domain specificity. (Contains 4 figures and 5 tables.)

In working memory (WM) span tests, participants maintain memory items while performing processing tasks. In this study, we examined the impact of task processing requirements on memory-storage activities, looking at the stimulus order effect and the impact of storage requirements on processing activities, testing the processing time effect in WM span tests. The stimulus order effect is a phenomenon whereby span scores are higher when span lists end with a shorter task than when they end with a longer task. The processing time effect refers to the phenomenon whereby the processing speed slows for the later processing positions in a list in WM span tests when participants have more memory items to remember. Two experiments demonstrated the domain-specific nature of the stimulus order effect, which was observed only when the processing and storage materials were in the same domain (either verbal or visuospatial domains), and the domain-general nature of the processing time effect, which was observed with any combination of processing and storage materials. Although the domain specificity of the stimulus order effect is compatible with the representation-based interference view proposed by Saito and Miyake [Saito, S., & Miyake, A. (2004). "On the nature of forgetting and the processing-storage relationship in reading span performance." "Journal of Memory and Language," 50, 425-443.], the domain generality of the processing time effect is inconsistent with their account and indicates the involvement of a central bottleneck in WM span performance.

In 1987, Hideaki Tomoyori, a Japanese memorist, set a world record for reciting the first 40,000 digits of pi. The authors report results from a series of tests that give a view of Tomoyori's memory performance compared with that of a control group, matched for age and educational level. He showed very good scores on tasks with digits, such as digit memory span tasks and 5 x 5 number matrix learning, although some of the control participants were nearly as good. In contrast, his performance was not particularly good for learning word lists and story recall. Overall, his performance on the tasks does not suggest that he has superior cognitive abilities. We believe that his extraordinary memory performance in reciting the digits of pi results from his effective use of a combination of digit syllable transformations and imagery mnemonics developed from extensive practice. These results are consistent with the skilled memory framework.

This study investigated the effects of association values and the influences of prosodic information on Japanese children's repetition of nonwords with varying association values and with or without pitch accent. Fifteen 3- and 4-year-olds (mean age = 4.42 years, range: 3.9-4.9) and nineteen 5- and 6-year-olds (mean age = 5.71 years, range: 5.1-6.1) participated in this experiment. Concerning the nonword repetition scores, an effect of association value was found only in older children for consonants of nonwords only, whereas the effect of accent pattern was observed only in young children for both consonants and vowels of nonwords. The occurrences of both effects were connected to differences in the ages of the children and the types of phoneme in nonwords. We interpret these results in the context of the framework of phonological working memory.

Aim: We aimed to evaluate the diagnostic accuracy of the measurement of serum type IV collagen 7S (T4C7S) concentration for the staging of liver fibrosis in patients with nonalcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD). Methods: A systematic search or published works was carried out using the PubMed, Cochrane Library, and Web of Science Core Collection databases for studies of the accuracy of serum T4C7S concentration for the staging of fibrosis using Fibrosis stage (F)0–4 in patients with NAFLD diagnosed by liver biopsy. Results: Nine articles describing 1475 participants with NAFLD were included. For fibrosis ≥F1, with n = 849, summary estimates of sensitivity of 0.79, specificity of 0.69, and area under the curve (AUC) of 0.80 were obtained using a median T7C4S cut‐off value of 4.6 ng/ml. For fibrosis ≥F2, with n = 1,090, summary estimates of sensitivity of 0.78, specificity of 0.78, and AUC of 0.84 were obtained using a median cut‐off value of 4.9 ng/ml. For fibrosis ≥F3, with n = 1311 participants and a median cut‐off value of 5.4 ng/ml, a pooled sensitivity of 0.82, specificity of 0.81, and AUC of 0.83 were obtained. For fibrosis ≥F4, with n = 753 and a median cut‐off value of 6.6 ng/ml, a pooled sensitivity of 0.85, specificity of 0.81, and AUC of 0.85 were obtained. Conclusions: Serum T4C7S concentration was found to be an accurate method of staging liver fibrosis in patients with NAFLD. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background and Aim: SmartExam is a novel computational method compatible with FibroScan that uses a software called SmartDepth and continuous controlled attenuation parameter measurements to evaluate liver fibrosis and steatosis. This retrospective study compared the diagnostic accuracy of conventional and SmartExam‐equipped FibroScan for liver stiffness measurement (LSM). Methods: The liver stiffness and the associated controlled attenuation parameters of 167 patients were measured using conventional and SmartExam‐Equipped FibroScan as well as reference methods like magnetic resonance elastography (MRE) and magnetic resonance imaging‐based proton density fat fraction (MRI‐PDFF) measurements to assess its diagnostic performance. M or XL probes were selected based on the probe‐to‐liver capsule distance for all FibroScan examinations. Results: The liver stiffness and controlled attenuation parameter (CAP) correlation coefficients calculated from conventional and SmartExam‐equipped FibroScan were 0.97 and 0.82, respectively. Using MRE/MRI‐PDFF as a reference and the DeLong test for analysis, LSM and the area under the receiver operating characteristic curve for CAP measured by conventional and SmartExam‐equipped FibroScan showed no significant difference. However, the SmartExam‐equipped FibroScan measurement (33.6 s) took 1.4 times longer than conventional FibroScan (23.2 s). Conclusions: SmartExam has a high diagnostic performance comparable with that of conventional FibroScan. Because the results of the conventional and SmartExam‐equipped FibroScan were strongly correlated, it can be considered useful for assessing the fibrosis stage and steatosis grade of the liver in clinical practice, with less variability but little longer measurement time compared with the conventional FibroScan. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Four experiments examined the nature of forgetting and the processing--storage relationship during performance on a prevalent working memory task, the reading span test. Using two different presentation paradigms, Experiments 1 and 2 replicated Towse, Hitch, and Hutton's (1998, 2000) finding that the Short-Final lists, which presented a long sentence first and a short sentence last, led to better recall performance than the reverse-order Long-Final lists. This effect was still obtained when the retention duration for the target words was held constant and the amount of sentence processing required during that interval was varied (Experiment 3). However, the effect disappeared when the retention duration was varied while holding constant the amount of sentence processing required (Experiment 4). These results suggest that the amount of processing activities, not the sheer passage of time, may be the critical factor underlying the sentence order effect, thereby challenging purely time-based explanations of forgetting during reading span performance. In addition, the analysis of reading times (Experiment 1) revealed that the number of memory items had a subtle yet reliable negative effect on reading times, suggesting that the processing and storage requirements of the reading span test are not completely independent.

Children engage cognitive control reactively when they encounter conflicts; however, they can also resolve conflicts proactively. Recent studies have begun to clarify the mechanisms that support the use of proactive control in children; nonetheless, sufficient knowledge has not been accumulated regarding these mechanisms. Using behavioral and pupillometric measures, we tested the novel possibility that 5‐year‐old children (N = 58) learn to use proactive control via the acquisition of abstract task knowledge that captures regularities of the task. Participants were assigned to either a proactive training group or a control training group. In the proactive training group, participants engaged in a training phase where using proactive control was encouraged, followed by a test phase using different stimuli where both proactive and reactive control could be used. In the control training group, participants engaged in a training phase where both cognitive control strategies could be used, followed by a similarly‐structured test phase using different stimuli. We demonstrated children in the control training group responded more quickly and accurately and showed greater cue‐related pupil dilation in the test phase than in the training phase. However, there were no differences in response times, accuracies, and pupil dilation between the proactive and control training groups in the training and test phases. These findings suggest that prior task experience, that goes beyond specific knowledge about the timing of task goal activation, can lead children to engage more proactive control endogenously, even if they are not directly encouraged to do so. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]