32 found
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  1. The magical number 4 in short-term memory: A reconsideration of mental storage capacity.Nelson Cowan - 2001 - Behavioral and Brain Sciences 24 (1):87-114.
    Miller (1956) summarized evidence that people can remember about seven chunks in short-term memory (STM) tasks. However, that number was meant more as a rough estimate and a rhetorical device than as a real capacity limit. Others have since suggested that there is a more precise capacity limit, but that it is only three to five chunks. The present target article brings together a wide variety of data on capacity limits suggesting that the smaller capacity limit is real. Capacity limits (...)
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  2. Attention and Memory: An Integrated Framework.Nelson Cowan - 1998 - Oxford University Press USA.
  3.  43
    Chunk formation in immediate memory and how it relates to data compression.Mustapha Chekaf, Nelson Cowan & Fabien Mathy - 2016 - Cognition 155 (C):96-107.
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  4. Metatheory of storage capacity limits.Nelson Cowan - 2001 - Behavioral and Brain Sciences 24 (1):154-176.
    Commentators expressed a wide variety of views on whether there is a basic capacity limit of 3 to 5 chunks and, among those who believe in it, about why it occurs. In this response, I conclude that the capacity limit is real and that the concept is strengthened by additional evidence offered by a number of commentators. I consider various arguments why the limit occurs and try to organize these arguments into a conceptual framework or “metatheory” of storage capacity limits (...)
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  5.  49
    The cocktail party phenomenon revisited: attention and memory in the classic selective listening procedure of Cherry (1953).Noelle L. Wood & Nelson Cowan - 1995 - Journal of Experimental Psychology: General 124 (3):243.
  6.  24
    George Miller’s magical number of immediate memory in retrospect: Observations on the faltering progression of science.Nelson Cowan - 2015 - Psychological Review 122 (3):536-541.
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  7.  30
    Children's working-memory processes: A response-timing analysis.Nelson Cowan, John N. Towse, Zoë Hamilton, J. Scott Saults, Emily M. Elliott, Jebby F. Lacey, Matthew V. Moreno & Graham J. Hitch - 2003 - Journal of Experimental Psychology: General 132 (1):113.
  8.  26
    A generalized signal detection model to predict rational variation in base rate use.Peter R. Mueser, Nelson Cowan & Kim T. Mueser - 1999 - Cognition 69 (3):267-312.
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  9.  42
    Visual working memory depends on attentional filtering.Nelson Cowan & Candice C. Morey - 2006 - Trends in Cognitive Sciences 10 (4):139-141.
  10. Forgetting due to retroactive interference in amnesia: Findings and implications.Michaela Dewar, Nelson Cowan & Sergio Della Sala - 2010 - In Sergio Della Sala (ed.), Forgetting. Psychology Press.
  11. What do estimates of working memory capacity tell us.Nelson Cowan, Candice C. Morey, Zhijian Chen & Michael Bunting - 2007 - In Naoyuki Osaka, Robert H. Logie & Mark D'Esposito (eds.), The Cognitive Neuroscience of Working Memory. Oxford University Press.
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  12. Focused and divided attention to the eyes and ears : a research journey.Nelson Cowan - 2012 - In Jeremy Wolfe & Lynn Robertson (eds.), From Perception to Consciousness: Searching with Anne Treisman. Oxford University Press. pp. 32.
  13.  24
    Editorial: Representational states in memory: where do we stand?Ilke Öztekin & Nelson Cowan - 2015 - Frontiers in Human Neuroscience 9.
  14.  22
    Applying how adults rehearse to understand how rehearsal may develop.Nelson Cowan & Evie Vergauwe - 2014 - Frontiers in Psychology 5.
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  15.  40
    Working memory development: A 50-year assessment of research and underlying theories.Nelson Cowan - 2022 - Cognition 224 (C):105075.
  16.  59
    Models of verbal working memory capacity: What does it take to make them work?Nelson Cowan, Jeffrey N. Rouder, Christopher L. Blume & J. Scott Saults - 2012 - Psychological Review 119 (3):480-499.
  17.  17
    Unconsciously registered items reduce working memory capacity.Amy U. Barton, Fernando Valle-Inclán, Nelson Cowan & Steven A. Hackley - 2022 - Consciousness and Cognition 105 (C):103399.
  18.  22
    On the Use of Response Chunking as a Tool to Investigate Strategies.Christopher L. Blume, Alexander P. Boone & Nelson Cowan - 2015 - Frontiers in Psychology 6.
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  19.  53
    Working memory and flexibility in awareness and attention.Michael F. Bunting & Nelson Cowan - 2005 - Psychological Research/Psychologische Forschung 69 (5):412-419.
  20.  23
    Converging evidence about information processing.Nelson Cowan - 1990 - Behavioral and Brain Sciences 13 (2):237-238.
  21.  46
    Constraints on awareness, attention, processing, and memory: Some recent investigations with ignored speech.Nelson Cowan & Noelle L. Wood - 1997 - Consciousness and Cognition 6 (2-3):182-203.
    We discuss potential benefits of research in which attention is directed toward or away from a spoken channel and measures of the allocation of attention are used. This type of research is relevant to at least two basic, still-unresolved issues in cognitive psychology: the extent to which unattended information is processed and the extent to which unattended information that is processed can later be remembered. Four recent studies of this type that address these questions in various ways are reviewed as (...)
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  22.  32
    Can We Resolve Contradictions between Process Dissociation Models?Nelson Cowan - 1995 - Consciousness and Cognition 5 (1-2):255-259.
    Wainwright and Reingold presented equations for various versions of the process dissociation procedure that has been used to separate conscious and unconscious memory processes. In the present reply it is suggested that these equations, though helpful, may not capture some of the key theoretical possibilities that could help to resolve apparent contradictions and paradoxes in the empirical literature. Specifically, there could be an independence ofprocessesthat might be estimated to a sufficient degree of accuracy for some theoretical purposes despite a violation (...)
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  23.  28
    "Models of verbal working memory capacity: What does it take to make them work?": Correction to Cowan et al. (2012).Nelson Cowan, Jeffrey N. Rouder, Christopher L. Blume & J. Scott Saults - 2012 - Psychological Review 119 (3):499-499.
  24.  15
    Merging with the path not taken: Wilhelm Wundt’s work as a precursor to the embedded-processes approach to memory, attention, and consciousness.Nelson Cowan & Nikolay R. Rachev - 2018 - Consciousness and Cognition 63:228-238.
  25.  35
    Neuropsychology and mental structure: Where do we go from here?Nelson Cowan - 1991 - Behavioral and Brain Sciences 14 (3):445-446.
  26.  17
    Speech perception by ear, eye, hand, and mind.Nelson Cowan - 1989 - Behavioral and Brain Sciences 12 (4):759-760.
  27. The legend of the magical number seven.Nelson Cowan, Candice C. Morey & Chen & Zhijian - 2007 - In Sergio Della Sala (ed.), Tall Tales About the Mind and Brain: Separating Fact From Fiction. Oxford University Press.
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  28.  37
    Varieties of procedural accounts of working memory retention systems.Nelson Cowan - 2003 - Behavioral and Brain Sciences 26 (6):731-732.
    The present commentary agrees with many of the points made by Ruchkin et al., but brings up several important differences in assumptions. These assumptions have to do with the nature of the capacity limit in working memory and the possible bases of working-memory activation.
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  29.  30
    When does a good working memory counteract proactive interference? Surprising evidence from a probe recognition task.Nelson Cowan & J. Scott Saults - 2013 - Journal of Experimental Psychology: General 142 (1):12.
  30. What do estimates of working memory capacity tell us?Nelson Cowan, Candice C. Morey, Zhijian Chen & Bunting & Michael - 2007 - In Naoyuki Osaka, Robert H. Logie & Mark D'Esposito (eds.), The Cognitive Neuroscience of Working Memory. Oxford University Press.
     
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  31.  54
    Within fluid cognition: Fluid processing and fluid storage?Nelson Cowan - 2006 - Behavioral and Brain Sciences 29 (2):129-130.
    Blair describes fluid cognition as highly related to working memory and executive processes, and dependent on the integrity of frontal-lobe functioning. However, the literature review appears to neglect potential contributions to fluid cognition of the focus of attention as an important information-storage device, and the role of posterior brain regions in that kind of storage. Relevant cognitive and imaging studies are discussed. (Published Online April 5 2006).
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  32.  56
    What is more explanatory, processing capacity or processing speed?Nelson Cowan - 1998 - Behavioral and Brain Sciences 21 (6):835-836.
    Halford et al. have sharpened the concept of processing capacity as applied to various complex tasks. This commentary examines the apparent contradiction between capacity theories and theories in which it is processing speed, rather than capacity, that presumably limits cognitive performance. It explains how capacity and speed often are interrelated and suggests how one might examine whether capacity or speed is the more elementary in processing.
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