Young normal-hearing listeners and young-elderly listeners between 55 and 65 years of age, ranging from near-normal hearing to moderate hearing loss, were compared using different speech recognition tasks (consonant recognition in quiet and in noise, and time-compressed sentences) and working memory tasks (serial word recall and digit ordering). The results showed that the group of young-elderly listeners performed worse on both the speech recognition and working memory tasks than the young listeners. However, when pure-tone audiometric thresholds were used as a covariate variable, the significant differences between groups disappeared. These results support the hypothesis that sensory decline in young-elderly listeners seems to be an important factor in explaining the decrease in speech processing and working memory capacity observed at these ages.

No abstract

In this article, normative data on the familiarity and difficulty of 196 single-solution Spanish word fragments are presented. The database includes the following indices: difficulty, familiarity, frequency, number of meanings, number of letters given in the fragment, first and/or last letters given, and ratio of letters to blanks. A factor analysis was performed on difficulty, and two factors were obtained. Frequency, familiarity, and number of meanings loaded highly on the first factor, which we consider to measure lexical processes, whereas number of letters in the fragment, first and/or last letters given, and ratio of letters to blanks loaded highly on the second factor, which we judge to be determined by perceptual information. Regression analyses using factor scores as predictors showed that both factors accounted for a significant part of the completion probability scores. The full set of these norms may be downloaded from the Psychonomic Society Web archive at www.psychonomic.org/archive/.

The objective of the current study was to compare the performance of schizophrenic patients and normal controls on implicit memory tests. Two neuropsychological tasks were administered to 29 patients and normal participant samples. The implicit tests were: Word fragment completion and Word production from semantic categories. The priming score was the variable of interest. Priming effects are obtained in normal subjects and schizophrenia patients, regardless of the implicit test used. However, a dissociation in priming between normal and patient groups was observed, depending on the test used. For word fragment test, priming was identical between the two groups. However, for word production, priming obtained in schizophrenics was lower than priming in normal controls. Results confirm a dissociation effect in implicit memory tests. These results could be explained in the context of the Roediger and Blaxton (1987) distinction between data-driven and conceptually-driven processing. This evidence suggests that a complete neuropsychological assessment of memory in schizophrenia should include different kinds of implicit memory tests (procedural, perceptual, and conceptual tasks). Keywords: priming, implicit memory, schizophrenia, memory impairmentEl objetivo de este estudio fue comparar la ejecución de pacientes esquizofrénicos y controles no clínicos en tests de memoria implícita. Se administraron dos pruebas neuropsicológicas a una muestra de 29 pacientes y a dos muestras de participantes no clínicos. Los tests implícitos fueron: Completar fragmentos de palabras y Generación de ejemplares de categorías semánticas. La variable de interés fue la facilitación. Los efectos de facilitación se obtienen en sujetos no clínicos y en pacientes esquizofrénicos, independientemente del test implícito que se utilice. Sin embargo, se ha observado una disociación en la facilitación entre grupos de controles y pacientes, dependiendo del test utilizado. En tests de fragmentos de palabras la facilitación es idéntica en los dos grupos. Sin embargo, en producción de palabras, la facilitación obtenida en esquizofrénicos es menor que la facilitación en controles. Los resultados confirman la existencia de un efecto disociativo en tests de memoria implícita. Estos resultados podrían explicarse en el contexto de la distinción de Roediger y Blaxton (1987) entre procesamiento guiado por los datos y procesamiento guiado conceptualmente. Esta evidencia sugiere que la evaluación neuropsicológica de la memoria en la esquizofrenia debería incluir distintos tipos de pruebas de memoria implícita (procedimentales, perceptuales, y conceptuales). Palabras clave: facilitación, memoria implícita, esquizofrenia, daños en memoria

Three groups of students in different educational levels: 8th–9th grade students (average age 15); 10th–11th grade students (average age 16); and college students (average age 21), completed a metamemory questionnaire on the use of external, general, and formal memory aids in everyday life and study situations. Short‐term repetition, mental rehearsing, and summary elaboration were the most frequent aids. The least frequently used were those that require a special training to be used effectively (e.g. Digit‐letters and method of loci). There were differences in the use of general memory aids due to education level, but not in the case of external and formal memory aids. Results showed also that women used memory aids more frequently than men.

No abstract

This study investigates priming in an implicit word stem completion (WSC) task by analyzing the effect of linguistic stimuli characteristics on said task. A total of 305 participants performed a WSC task in two phases (study and test). The test phase included 63 unique-solution stems and 63 multiple-solution stems. Analysis revealed that priming (mean = 0.22) was stronger in the case of multiple-solution stems, indicating that they were not a homogeneous group of stimuli. Thus, further analyses were performed only for the data of the unique-solution stems. Correlations between priming and familiarity, frequency of use, and baseline completion were significant. The less familiar words, which were less frequent, had higher priming values. At the same time, the stems with lower baseline completion generated more priming. A regression analysis showed that baseline completion was the only significant predictor of priming, suggesting that the previous processing of the stimuli had a greater impact on the stimuli with low baseline performance. At the same time, baseline completion showed significant positive correlations with familiarity and frequency of use, and a negative correlation with length. When baseline completion was the dependent variable in the regression analysis, the significant variables in the regression were familiarity and length. These results were compared with those obtained in a study using word fragment completion (WFC) by Soler et al. (2009), in which the same words and procedure were employed. Analysis showed that the variables that correlated with priming were the same as in the WSC task, and that completion baseline was the variable that showed the greatest predictive power of priming. This coincidence of results obtained with WFC and WSC tasks highlights the importance of controlling the characteristics of the stimuli used when exploring the nature of priming.

This study investigated the relation between phonological loop functioning and age. Phonological loop is a time-based subsystem of the Working Memory Model of Baddeley and Wilson, which uses rehearsal of information as an active process to avoid phonological decay. Performance differences were examined between young and older adults in two speech-based memory tasks, such as the immediate serial recall of words and the Digit Ordering Task. Analysis showed that performance on both tasks was lower for the older group. Articulation rate was also measured to test the hypothesis that the impairment of some cognitive functions in adults can be associated to their slowness or the greater time needed by older adults for the rehearsal process. A significant negative correlation was found for articulation rate with age. When the effect of articulation rate on Serial Recall and Digit Ordering Tasks was partialled out, the difference between the two groups was eliminated.