Statistical Analysis with Missing Data

(1998). Human cognitive abilities: A survey of factor analytic studies. Gifted and Talented International: Vol. 13, No. 2, pp. 97-98.

Human cognitive abilities: A survey of factor analytic studies

In this provocative book, Barwise and Perry tackle the slippery subject of \"meaning, \" a subject that has long vexed linguists, language philosophers, and logicians.

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Situations and Attitudes.

Taking notes on laptops rather than in longhand is increasingly common. Many researchers have suggested that laptop note taking is less effective than longhand note taking for learning. Prior studies have primarily focused on students' capacity for multitasking and distraction when using laptops. The present research suggests that even when laptops are used solely to take notes, they may still be impairing learning because their use results in shallower processing. In three studies, we found that students who took notes on laptops performed worse on conceptual questions than students who took notes longhand. We show that whereas taking more notes can be beneficial, laptop note takers' tendency to transcribe lectures verbatim rather than processing information and reframing it in their own words is detrimental to learning.

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The Pen Is Mightier Than the Keyboard Advantages of Longhand Over Laptop Note Taking

The quarterly journal of experimental psychology

Previous research using virtual environments has revealed a location-updating effect in which there is a decline in memory when people move from one location to another. Here we assess whether this effect reflects the influence of the experienced context, in terms of the degree of immersion of a person in an environment, as suggested by some work in spatial cognition, or by a shift in context. In Experiment 1, the degree of immersion was reduced by using smaller displays. In comparison, in Experiment 2 an actual, rather than a virtual, environment was used, to maximize immersion. Location-updating effects were observed under both of these conditions. In Experiment 3, the original encoding context was reinstated by having a person return to the original room in which objects were first encoded. However, inconsistent with an encoding specificity account, memory did not improve by reinstating this context. Finally, we did a further analysis of the results of this and previous experiments to assess the differential influence of foregrounding and retrieval interference. Overall, these data are interpreted in terms of the event horizon model of event cognition and memory.

https://www.freakonomics.com/media/Radvansky%20Krawietz%20%26%20Tamplin%202011%20(QJEP)%20(1).pdf

Walking through Doorways Causes Forgetting: Further Explorations:

Mind wandering occurs when a person's stream of thought moves from the primary task to task-unrelated matters. Some theories of mind wandering suggest that it is caused by decreased attentional control associated with lower working memory (WM) capacity. Others suggest that it is caused by attention being directed toward internally generated thoughts and that it is associated with higher WM capacity. These ideas were assessed testing older adults because they have been argued to have reduced attentional control and lower WM capacity. The first account predicts that mind wandering should increase in older adults, while the second account predicts the opposite. Two experiments show that older adults exhibited a lower rate of mind wandering than younger adults. However, when using text interest as a covariate, the age difference in mind wandering disappeared. These results are further addressed in light of participants' current concerns and preserved situation model processing in cognitive aging. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2013 APA, all rights reserved). Language: en

Aging and mind wandering during text comprehension.

Multitasking has become increasingly prevalent in people’s personal and professional lives. Considerable research has attempted to identify the characteristics of people (i.e., individual differences) that predict multitasking ability, and more importantly, the ability to rapidly cope with changing task demands (adaptability). This question was assessed in an experiment wherein participants first completed a battery of individual differences tests of cognitive abilities, then multitasked in a flight simulator in which task difficulty was incrementally increased via three experimental manipulations. The results indicated that general aptitude and working memory predicted general multitasking ability, but spatial ability was the dominant factor for adapting to increasing difficulty in this flight simulator task. We conclude by discussing the implications and applied aspects of these findings.

Individual differences in multitasking ability and adaptability.

Memory for objects declines when people move from one location to another (the location updating effect). However, it is unclear whether this is attributable to event model updating or to task demands. The focus here was on the degree of integration for probed-for information with the experienced environment. In prior research, the probes were verbal labels of visual objects. Experiment 1 assessed whether this was a consequence of an item-probe mismatch, as with transfer-appropriate processing. Visual probes were used to better coordinate what was seen with the nature of the memory probe. In Experiment 2, people received additional word pairs to remember, which were less well integrated with the environment, to assess whether the probed-for information needed to be well integrated. The results showed location updating effects in both cases. These data are consistent with an event cognition view that mental updating of a dynamic event disrupts memory.

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Andrea K. Tamplin

Papers

Walking through Doorways Causes Forgetting: Further Explorations:

Aging and mind wandering during text comprehension.

Individual differences in multitasking ability and adaptability.

Walking through doorways causes forgetting: environmental integration.

Event boundaries and memory improvement.