In prospective memory (PM) research, costs (slowed responding to the ongoing task when a PM task is present relative to when it is not) have typically been interpreted as implicating an attentionally demanding monitoring process. To inform this interpretation, Heathcote, Loft, and Remington (2015), using an accumulator model, found that PM-related…

An important yet unresolved question regarding visual working memory (VWM) relates to whether or not binding processes within VWM require additional attentional resources compared with processing solely the individual components comprising these bindings. Previous findings indicate that binding of surface features (e.g., colored shapes) within VWM…

Successful completion of any cognitive task requires selecting a particular action and the object the action is applied to. Oberauer (2009) suggested a working memory (WM) model comprising a declarative and a procedural part with analogous structures. One important assumption of this model is that both parts work independently of each other, and…

This study contrasted the effects of tutoring, multiple try and no feedback on children's progression in analogy solving and examined individual differences herein. Feedback that includes additional hints or explanations leads to the greatest learning gains in adults. However, children process feedback differently from adults and effective…

While making a decision facing a moral conflict, does your answer vary depending on whether you use your first language or later learned second language? A previous study conducted by Costa, Albert, Alice Foucart, Sayuri Hayakawa, Melina Aparici, Jose Apesteguia, Joy Heafner, Boaz Keysar, and Mariano Sigman [2014. "Your Morals Depend on…

When participants are asked to recall a short list of words in any order that they like, they tend to initiate recall with the first list item and proceed in forward order, even when this is not a task requirement. The current research examined whether this tendency might be influenced by varying the number of items that are to be recalled. In 3…

Historically, the manner in which translation ambiguity and emotional content are represented in bilingual memory have often been ignored in many theoretical and empirical investigations, resulting in these linguistic factors related to bilingualism being absent from even the most promising models of bilingual memory representation. However, in…

Our goal in the present study was to examine the effects of maternal smoking during pregnancy on infant self-regulation, exploring birth weight as a mediator and sex as a moderator of risk. A prospective sample of 218 infants was assessed at 6 months of age. Infants completed a battery of tasks assessing working memory/inhibition, attention, and…

The dual mechanisms of control framework postulates that cognitive control can operate in 2 distinct modes: a "proactive" preparatory mode and a "reactive" wait-and-see mode. Importantly, the 2 modes are associated with both costs and benefits in cognitive performance. Here we explore this framework, in terms of its…

Vocabulary knowledge is central to the process of reading comprehension (Cromely & Azevedo, 2007; Stahl & Nagy, 2005; Stanovich, 1986). The majority of our vocabulary knowledge is postulated to come from the process of incidental vocabulary acquisition (IVA) while reading (Nagy & Anderson, 1984). Prior studies have estimated an average…

Development of reading skills has been shown to be tightly linked to phonological processing skills and to some extent to speech perception abilities. Although speech perception is also known to play a role in reading development, it is not clear which processes underlie this connection. Using event-related potentials (ERPs) we investigated the…

Previous research has clearly demonstrated that autism spectrum disorder (ASD) involves deficits in multiple neuropsychological functions, such as executive function (EF) and theory of mind (ToM). A conceptual distinction is commonly made between cool and hot EF. In ASD, continued attention has been paid to the cool areas of executive dysfunction.…

Humans are characterized by an especially highly developed ability to use instructions to prepare toward upcoming events; yet, it is unclear just how powerful instructions can be. Although prior work provides evidence that instructions can be sufficiently powerful to proactively program working memory to execute stimulus-response (S-R)…

We investigated effects of listening to single or multiple storybook readings versus testing with and without feedback on children's breadth (i.e., the number of words) and depth (i.e., the quality of word knowledge) of vocabulary learning. Kindergartners (n = 125) were divided into 3 intervention and 1 control conditions. Children in the control…

The current study aimed at addressing two issues concerning children's estimation performance: (1) to investigate whether the log-to-linear framework or the proportional judgment framework provided a better explanation of children's estimation patterns, and (2) to examine the consistency of response patterns in different estimation tasks. A sample…