The authors examined how information relevance affects readers' understanding of conflicting information in multiple documents and how relevance affects the processing of conflicting information on a moment-by-moment level. Sixty-four undergraduate students read a set of documents about a medical topic containing three intertextual conflicts…

We removed a key uncertainty in the Deese/Roediger/McDermott (DRM) illusion. The mean backward associative strength (MBAS) of DRM lists is the best-known predictor of this illusion, but it is confounded with semantic relations between lists and critical distractors. Thus, it is unclear whether associative relations, semantic relations, or both…

This study (a) examines the role of cognitive abilities, age and vocabulary in the development of definitions and (b) compares the development of definitions (in content and form) in children with and without Developmental Language Disorder (DLD). Definitions have been extensively studied in (non-)impaired populations. So far, no studies have…

The present study aimed to examine the potential importance of orthographic flexibility for Chinese reading acquisition. Orthographic flexibility is a novel concept that represents the ability to manage and switch attention among multiple aspects of orthographic information. A total of 92 Chinese kindergarten children at age 6 were assessed on…

We have limited knowledge as to whether the phenomenological differences between episodic memories, counterfactuals, and future projections show the same pattern across age groups and diverse samples. Here we compared the characteristics of these mental events, reported by younger and older participants in a Turkish (Study 1) and in an American…

Purpose: The purpose of this study was to investigate executive control in adults who stutter (AWS) and adults who do not stutter (AWNS) via a nonspeech paradigm, wherein eye movements were monitored (i.e., antisaccade task). Processes involved in an antisaccade task include working memory, attention, and voluntary motor control, but the task…

The research studies presented in this special issue rest on two assumptions: firstly, that limitations in verbal short-term memory and verbal working memory (vSTM/WM) capacity are likely to be related to impairments in syntax, and secondly that this relationship is likely to be causal, with impairments in vSTM/WM causing impairments in syntax. In…

The deficit in verbal working memory (vWM) skills has been frequently reported in children with developmental language disorder (DLD) and may contribute to their problems in language. This study aimed to compare the phonological short-term memory (pSTM) and linguistic skills between Persian-speaking children with DLD and typical language…

Reports on differences between remembering the past and imagining the future have led to the hypothesis that constructing future events is a more cognitively demanding process. However, factors that influence these increased demands, such as whether the event has been previously constructed and the types of details comprising the event, have…

The delayed match-to-sample task (DMS) is used to probe working memory (WM) across species. While the involvement of the PFC in this task has been established, limited information exists regarding the recruitment of broader circuitry, especially under the low- versus high-WM load. We sought to address this question by using a variable-delay…

This research pursued a fine-grained analysis of the acquisition of a procedural skill. In two experiments (n = 29 and n = 27), adults practiced 12 alphabet arithmetic problems (e.g., C + 3 = C D E F) in two sessions with 20 practice blocks in each. If learning reflected speed up of a counting algorithm, response time (RT) speed up should be…

Although growing up in stressful conditions can undermine mental abilities, people in harsh environments may develop intact, or even "enhanced," social and cognitive abilities for solving problems in high-adversity contexts (i.e. 'hidden talents'). We examine whether childhood and current exposure to violence are associated with memory…

Behavioral flexibility is important in a changing environment. Previous research suggests that systems consolidation, a long-term poststorage process that alters memory traces, may reduce behavioral flexibility. However, exactly how systems consolidation affects flexibility is unknown. Here, we tested how systems consolidation affects: (1)…

Experimental measures of working memory that minimize rehearsal and maximize attentional control best predict higher-order cognitive abilities. These tasks fundamentally differ from clinically administered span tasks, which do not control strategy use. Participants engaged in concurrent articulation (to limit rehearsal) or concurrent tapping (to…

There has long been a hypothesized link between pretend play and self-regulation in childhood, and several recent studies have confirmed a positive relation between the two in children as young as preschool-age. However, no research to date has investigated whether this relation is present in toddlerhood. The purpose of the present study is to…