When we memorize multiple words simultaneously, semantic relatedness among those words assists memory. For example, the information about "apple", "banana," and "orange" will be connected via a common concept of "fruits" and become easy to retain and recall. Neural mechanisms underlying this semantic…

The forgetting curve is one of the most well known and established findings in memory research. Knowing the pattern of memory change over time can provide insight into underlying cognitive mechanisms. The default understanding is that forgetting follows a continuous, negatively accelerating function, such as a power function. We show that this…

Background: Understanding memory retention in children with developmental language disorder (DLD) compared with their typically developing (TD) peers enhances our knowledge of memory processes. Aims: To examine long-term memory consolidation of a declarative object-location task and a procedural symbol-writing task, along with grammatical and…

New information that is compatible with pre-existing knowledge can be learned faster. Such schema memory effect has been reported in declarative memory and in explicit motor sequence learning (MSL). Here, we investigated if sequences of key presses that were compatible to previously trained ones, could be learned faster in an implicit MSL task.…

The purpose of this study was to examine the memory abilities of bilingual children with and without developmental language disorder (DLD). We compare groups across short-term, working memory, and declarative long-term systems in the verbal and nonverbal domains. The study also analyzes how memory abilities are related to children's expressive and…

Successful language comprehension requires the rapid deployment of working memory resources alongside the capacity to predict upcoming linguistic input. While previous research views these as competing factors, this dissertation explores a unified theory of processing complexity and evaluates the interaction between memory and prediction. The…

Prospective memory (PM) refers to the ability to remember and complete planned tasks in the future, which relies on working memory (WM) for encoding and maintaining the intention. Implementation intention is a useful strategy for improving PM function in adults. Yet the effect of implementation intentions in children, and whether factors such as…

Prospective memory (PM) tasks require remembering to perform a deferred action and can be associated with predictable contexts. We present a theory and computational model, prospective memory decision control (PMDC), of the cognitive processes by which context supports PM. Under control conditions, participants completed lexical decisions. Under…

Searching for missing or wanted people is a crucial task in our society. Previous work on prospective person memory (PPM) has demonstrated that performance on this type of search task is worse relative to standard prospective memory tasks. Importantly, this process may be further affected by the race of the missing person, yet this has never been…

Being able to notice that a cause-effect relation is getting stronger or weaker is important for adapting to one's environment and deciding how to use the cause in the future. We conducted an experiment in which participants learned about a cause-effect relation that either got stronger or weaker over time. The experiment was conducted with a…

Societal structures and memory organization models share network-like features, offering insights into how information spreads and shapes collective memories. In this study, we manipulated the structure of lab-created community networks during a computer-mediated recall task using the Deese-Roediger-McDermott paradigm to test the spreading…

Autobiographical remembering may undergo significant transformations in the digital age, in which the omnipresence of digital tools has led to an increased density of recorded life episodes. To gain deeper insights into these processes, we conducted an experimental think-aloud study in which participants (N = 41) had to remember an important day…

This study investigated the role of offline consolidation, specifically sleep, in transforming memories strengthened by retrieval practice into stable long-term representations. Forty-eight participants learned weakly associated Chinese word pairs via restudy(RS), retrieval practice with feedback (RP), and retrieval practice without feedback…

People often change their evaluations upon learning about their peers' evaluations, i.e., social learning. Given sleep's vital role in consolidating daytime experiences, sleep may facilitate social learning, thereby further changing people's evaluations. Combining a social learning task and the sleep-based targeted memory reactivation technique,…

Crises and emergencies are a common occurrence in higher education. In 2024 alone, college and university communities faced increased bomb threats and school shootings, protests and police violence, climate disasters, and more. These incidents, and countless others, have changed the fabric of higher education, including the very people and…