We examined 3 different network models of representing semantic knowledge (5,018-word directed and undirected step distance networks, and an association-correlation network) to predict lexical priming effects. In Experiment 1, participants made semantic relatedness judgments for word pairs with varying path lengths. Response latencies for…

A large body of research has explored how the time between two events affects judgments of causal strength between them. In this article, we extend this work in 4 experiments that explore the role of temporal information in causal structure induction with multiple variables. We distinguish two qualitatively different types of information: The…

Stimuli encoded shortly before an aversive event are typically well remembered. Traditionally, this emotional memory enhancement has been attributed to beneficial effects of physiological arousal on memory formation. Here, we proposed an additional mechanism and tested whether memory formation is driven by the unpredictable nature of aversive…

Two main mechanisms, articulatory rehearsal and attentional refreshing, are argued to be involved in the maintenance of verbal information in working memory (WM). Whereas converging research has suggested that rehearsal promotes the phonological representations of memoranda in working memory, little is known about the representations that…

A focus of early mathematics education is to build fluency through practice. Several models of skill acquisition have sought to explain the increase in fluency because of practice by modeling both the learning mechanisms driving this speedup and the changes in cognitive processes involved in executing the skill (such as transitioning from…

In this study, we present 3 picture-word interference (PWI) experiments designed to investigate whether lexical selection processes are competitive. We focus on semantic associative relations, which should interfere according to competitive models but not according to certain noncompetitive models. In a modified version of the PWI paradigm,…

Several recent studies have explored the applicability of the preferential attachment principle to account for vocabulary growth. According to this principle, network growth can be described by a process in which existing nodes recruit new nodes with a probability that is an increasing function of their connectivity within the existing network.…

Monkeys will selectively and adaptively learn to avoid the most difficult trials of a perceptual discrimination learning task. Couchman, Coutinho, Beran, and Smith (2010) have recently demonstrated that this pattern of responding does not depend on animals receiving trial-by-trial feedback for their responses; it also obtains if experience of the…

Attentional theories of associative learning and categorization propose that learning about the predictiveness of a stimulus influences the amount of attention that is paid to that stimulus. Three experiments tested this idea by looking at the extent to which stimuli that had previously been experienced as predictive or nonpredictive in a…

According to the retrieved context theory of episodic memory, the cue for recall of an item is a weighted sum of recently activated cognitive states, including previously recalled and studied items as well as their associations. We show that this theory predicts there should be compound cuing in free recall. Specifically, the temporal contiguity…

The present research demonstrates that very brief variations in affect, being around 1 s in length and changing from trial to trial independently from semantic relatedness of primes and targets, modulate the amount of semantic priming. Implementing consonant and dissonant chords (Experiments 1 and 5), naturalistic sounds (Experiment 2), and visual…

Participants studied naturalistic pictures presented for varying brief durations and then received a recognition test on which they indicated whether each picture was old or new and rated their confidence. In 1 experiment they indicated whether each "old"/"new" response was based on memory for a specific feature in the picture…

The authors tested source memory across three conditions, one in which 3 strongly associated primes of a target word were presented in the same source as the target, one in which primes were presented in a different source than the target, and one in which no associates of targets were encoded. In the first 2 experiments, target source memory…

This article addresses the relation between item recognition and associative (cued) recall. Going beyond measures of performance on each task, the analysis focuses on the degree to which the contingency between successful recognition and successful recall of a studied item reflects the commonality of memory processes underlying the recognition and…

In 3 experiments, young and older adults studied lists of unrelated word pairs and were given confidence-rated item and associative recognition tests. Several different models of recognition were fit to the confidence-rating data using techniques described by S. Macho (2002, 2004). Concordant with previous findings, item recognition data were best…