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Attentional bias for threat (ABT) has been implicated as a central mechanism underpinning anxiety. However, documented inconsistencies in the link between ABT and anxiety do not support a purely psychopathological view of ABT. While ABT is thought to be concomitant with the tendency to be less attentive to positive stimuli, neuroimaging evidence for the functional independence of positive and negative information-processing systems suggests this need not be the case. This may hold important implications for understanding the inconsistently observed ABT-anxiety link. To this end, the current study examined whether qualitative differences in positive attentional biases captured on a dot probe task would moderate the association between ABT and anxiety (N = 232). Findings indicated that ABT (indexed within the same task) was associated with self-reported anxiety only among persons characterised by an attentional bias away from positive stimuli, but not those characterised by an attentional bias towards positive stimuli. However, positive attentional biases did not independently predict anxiety, suggesting this selective association occurred against a backdrop of individuals experiencing similar levels of anxiety. Present findings hold implications for the design of behavioural training programs which target anxiety though the reduction of ABT, and emphasise the complex origins of anxiety., Author(s): Maryann Wei [sup.1] , Steven Roodenrys [sup.1] , Leonie Miller [sup.1] Author Affiliations: (1) grid.1007.6, 0000 0004 0486 528X, School of Psychology, University of Wollongong, , Northfields Ave, Building [...]

The mechanisms underlying forgetting have been central to theorising about verbal short-term and working memory, and the importance of interference as opposed to decay continues to be vigorously debated. Here, we present two experiments to evaluate the nature and locus of phonological interference as a source of forgetting in serial recall. In these experiments, we replicate studies showing that repetition of phonemes across items impairs recall of the later list item, even with visual presentation and typed recall. In addition, we manipulate the degree of phonemic overlap between a target word and preceding words in the list, and demonstrate that consonants that are only similar, as opposed to identical, to each other can interfere with the recall of other list items. Taken together, the experiments suggest that the primary factor driving phonological interference is the similarity of the articulatory features of the phonemes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The current study extended investigations on anxiety-related cognitive processes. There were two testing phases: an online study, and a laboratory session. Emotional attentional bias was assessed on both counts using an extended dot probe task. A neurocognitive test battery was administered in the laboratory session with the end goal of examining whether neurocognitive impairments would mediate the association between attentional bias and anxiety. Results showed attentional bias was associated with anxiety only when indexed based on sadness- (mild threat) but not fear-related (high threat) scenes. However, this selective association was apparent only in online data. As further contraindication against pursuing mediation analyses, laboratory-based neurocognitive performance did not correlate with anxiety. Implications for the measurement of anxiety-related cognitive processes are discussed. Keywords: anxiety, attentional bias for threat, CogState, dot probe, cognitive assessment, Introduction There are two broadly identifiable areas of work within existing research on cognitive processes associated with anxiety: 'hot' cognitive processes (emotional informational processing) and 'cold' cognitive processes (non-emotional information [...]

A growing number of studies have shown that on serial recall tests, words with more orthographic/phonological neighbours are better recalled than otherwise comparable words with fewer neighbours, the so-called neighbourhood size effect. Greeno et al. replicated this result when using a large stimulus pool but found a reverse neighbourhood size effect—better recall of words with fewer rather than more neighbours—when using a small stimulus pool. We report three registered experiments that further examine the role of set size in the neighbourhood size effect. Experiment 1 used the large pool from Greeno et al. and replicated their finding of a large-neighbourhood advantage. Experiment 2 used the small pool from Greeno et al. but found no difference in recall between the large and small neighbourhood conditions. Experiment 3 also used a small pool but the small pool was randomly generated for each subject from the large pool used in Experiment 1. This resulted in a typical large neighbourhood advantage. We suggest that set size is not critical to the direction of the neighbourhood size effect, with a large neighbourhood advantage appearing with both small and large pools. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Studies of the effect of word frequency in the serial recall task show that lists of high-frequency words are better recalled than lists of low-frequency words; however, when high- and low-frequency words are alternated within a list, there is no difference in the level of recall for the two types of words, and recall is intermediate between lists of pure frequency. This pattern has been argued to arise from the development of a network of activated long-term representations of list items that support the redintegration of all list items in a nondirectional and nonspecific way. More recently, it has been proposed that the frequency effect might be a product of the coarticulation of items at word boundaries and their influence on rehearsal rather than a consequence of memory representations. The current work examines recall performance in mixed lists of an equal number of high- and low-frequency items arranged in contiguous segments (i.e., HHHLLL and LLLHHH), under quiet and articulatory suppression conditions, to test whether the effect is (a) nondirectional and (b) dependent on articulatory processes. These experiments demonstrate that neither explanation is satisfactory, although the results suggest that the effect is mnemonic. A language-based approach to short-term memory is favored with emphasis on the role of speech production processes at output. (Contains 3 tables, 2 figures and 2 footnotes.)

Complex networks describe how entities in systems interact; the structure of such networks is argued to influence processing. One measure of network structure, clustering coefficient, C, measures the extent to which neighbors of a node are also neighbors of each other. Previous psycholinguistic experiments found that the C of phonological word-forms influenced retrieval from the mental lexicon (that portion of long-term memory dedicated to language) during the on-line recognition and production of spoken words. In the present study we examined how network structure influences other retrieval processes in long- and short-term memory. In a false-memory task--examining long-term memory--participants falsely recognized more words with low- than high-"C". In a recognition memory task--examining veridical memories in long-term memory--participants correctly recognized more words with low- than high-"C". However, participants in a serial recall task--examining reintegration in short-term memory--recalled lists comprised of high-"C" words more accurately than lists comprised of low-C words. These results demonstrate that network structure influences cognitive processes associated with several forms of memory including lexical, long-term, and short-term. (Contains 4 tables and 4 figures.)

Children with dyslexia have consistently been found to have a variety of deficits in motor, cognitive, and sensory processes; however, the few studies that have been reported of the implicit learning ability of these children have produced conflicting results. The present study aimed to investigate the implicit learning abilities of children with developmental dyslexia using a simple cued reaction time task which has not been studied with this group previously. Twenty-three children with developmental dyslexia and 37 normally developing children, between the ages of 8 and 10 years, participated in the task. The results were consistent with the hypothesis in demonstrating that, despite an overall slowing in response times, dyslexic children show the same degree of implicit learning as normal readers, thus, providing evidence for an unimpaired implicit learning mechanism in dyslexic individuals. These results hold implications for the underlying mechanisms of learning, as dyslexic individuals who are impaired on explicit learning tasks, such as reading, spelling and writing, are unimpaired on implicit learning tasks. They suggest the existence of two separate systems of learning, each possessing distinct mechanisms. (Contains 1 figure and 1 table.)

The aim of the present research was to determine whether the effect that phonological similarity has on immediate serial recall is influenced by the consistency and position of phonemes within words. In comparison to phonologically dissimilar lists, when the stimulus lists rhyme there is a facilitative effect on the recall of item information and a detrimental effect on order memory (Experiment 1). When stimuli share the initial consonant and vowel (Experiment 2) or the same initial and final consonant (Experiment 3), there is no beneficial effect of similarity for item information, coupled with a detrimental effect on order memory. Contrary to the predictions made by non-linguistic models of STM, the influence that similarity has on both the recall of item information and memory for the position of items in a list is dependent on which components of the items are shared within a list.

Suggests that phonological short-term memory (STM) tasks are influenced by both lexical and sublexical factors inherent in the selection and construction of the stimuli to be recalled. Examined whether long-term memory influences STM at a sublexical level by investigating whether the frequency with which one-syllable nonwords occur in polysyllabic words influences recall accuracy on two phonological STM tasks, nonword repetition and serial recall. (Author/VWL)

Examines the performance on verbal short-term memory tasks of specifically reading disabled children relative to reading-age matched and chronological-age matched control groups. Examines memory span for words, highly wordlike nonwords and less wordlike nonwords, speech rates for these items, and nonword repetition. Suggests that there is a long-term memory contribution to memory span which is related to reading ability. (SG)