Can we use attentional control to ignore known distractor features? Providing cues before a visual search trial about an upcoming distractor color (negative cue) can lead to reaction time benefits compared with no cue trials. This suggests top-down control may use negative templates to actively suppress distractor features, a notion that…

Working memory allows us to hold specific pieces of information in an active and easily retrieved state, but what happens to that information during an unexpected interruption between study and test? To answer this question, we used a surprise trial paradigm in which an unexpected event precedes a probe of the observer's memory for a search…

Purpose: The aim of the current study was to investigate whether dual language experience modulates processing speed in typically developing (TD) children and in children with developmental language disorder (DLD). We also examined whether processing speed predicted vocabulary and sentence-level abilities in receptive and expressive modalities.…

Two experiments examined processes underlying cognitive inflexibility in set-shifting tasks typically used to assess the development of executive function in children. Adult participants performed a Flexible Item Selection Task (FIST) that requires shifting from categorizing by one dimension (e.g., color) to categorizing by a second orthogonal…

Variations in perceptual and cognitive demands (load) play a major role in determining the efficiency of selective attention. According to load theory (Lavie, Hirst, Fockert, & Viding, 2004) these factors (a) improve or hamper selectivity by altering the way resources (e.g., processing capacity) are allocated, and (b) tap resources rather than…

The IADIS CELDA 2012 Conference intention was to address the main issues concerned with evolving learning processes and supporting pedagogies and applications in the digital age. There had been advances in both cognitive psychology and computing that have affected the educational arena. The convergence of these two disciplines is increasing at a…