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The article focuses on outlining the vision for Memory & Cognition under the new Editor-in-Chief, Bennett L. Schwartz, who emphasizes a commitment to enhancing scholarship and discovery in cognitive psychology. It highlights the importance of integrating historical research with contemporary studies and encourages innovative research approaches to advance understanding in the field. It stresses the need for good scholarship and impactful discoveries to drive future research.

Memory for truth and falsity has recently been investigated from the perspective of the dual-recollection theory, showing better context and target recollection for truth than falsity. In this paper, we examine whether these memory effects obtained for true statements are similar to the value effect, whereby true statements are given higher priority in encoding. For this purpose, we implemented value-directed remembering (VDR) into the conjoint-recognition paradigm. In our first experiment, the primary goal was to verify how VDR influences the processes defined by dual-recollection theory. At study, prioritized/important items were linked to higher numerical values (e.g., 10), while unimportant ones had lower values (e.g., 1). At test, the participants' task was to recognize whether a particular sentence was important, unimportant, or new. We found that both context and target recollection were better for important items. In the second experiment, the main goal was to study the combined effects of importance and veracity on memory. In the between-subjects design, participants were monetarily rewarded for memorizing true or false sentences. The results demonstrated differences in the ability to prioritize truth over falsity. Specifically, we found a substantial increase in context recollection for prioritized true information but not for prioritized false information. Moreover, we found higher context recollection for true than false sentences in the true-prioritized condition, but not in the false-prioritized condition. These results indicated that people are able to prioritize true information better than false, and suggested that memory for truth may be a special case of the value effect. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An important aspect of making good decisions is the ability to adapt to changes in the values of available choice options, and research suggests that we are poor at changing behavior and adapting our choices successfully. The current paper contributes to clarifying the role of memory on learning and successful adaptation to changing decision environments. We test two aspects of changing decision environments: the direction of change and the type of feedback. The direction of change refers to how options become more or less rewarding compared to other options, over time. Feedback refers to whether full or partial information about decision outcomes is received. Results from behavioral experiments revealed a robust effect of the direction of change: risk that becomes more rewarding over time is harder to detect than risk that becomes less rewarding over time; even with full feedback. We rely on three distinct computational models to interpret the role of memory on learning and adaptation. The distributions of individual model parameters were analyzed in relation to participants' ability to successfully adapt to the changing conditions of the various decision environments. Consistent across the three models and two distinct data sets, results revealed the importance of recency as an individual memory component for choice adaptation. Individuals relying more on recent experiences were more successful at adapting to change, regardless of its direction. We explain the value and limitations of these findings as well as opportunities for future research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Despite advances in digital technology that have resulted in more people accessing information via mobile devices, little is known about reading comprehension on mobile phones. This research investigated the impact of reading format by comparing sensitivity to misinformation presented either in printed texts or in digital format on mobile phones to readers of English versus Chinese. Participants read pairs of short newspaper-style articles containing a critical piece of information that was either retracted or not retracted, and were later assessed on their memory for critical and general details, as well as inferential judgements related to the retracted information. The average results replicated previous evidence that repeating the original misinformation at the time of retraction enhanced memory updating. However, reading on a mobile phone reduced the likelihood that readers noticed the retraction and updated their memory with alternative information in both language groups and reduced the extent to which inferences were modified by the alternative information in readers of Chinese but not English. Chinese readers showed significantly better general memory, but were more affected by the continued influence of the misinformation. These differences between Chinese and English-speaking participants may reflect cultural influences on the tendency to apply a dialectical rather than an analytic reasoning strategy and incorporate contradictory information into the memory representation of a discourse or event. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although access to the seemingly infinite capacity of our visual long-term memory (VLTM) can be restricted by visual working memory (VWM) capacity at encoding and retrieval, access can be improved with repeated encoding. This leads to the multiple encoding benefit (MEB), the finding that VLTM performance improves as the number of opportunities to encode the same information increases over time. However, as the number of encoding opportunities increases, so do other factors such as the number of identical encoded VWM representations and chances to engage in successful retrieval during each opportunity. Thus, across two experiments, we disentangled the contributions of each of these factors to the MEB by having participants encode a varying number of identical objects across multiple encoding opportunities. Along with behavioural data, we also examined two established EEG correlates that track the number of maintained VWM representations, namely the posterior alpha suppression and the negative slow wave. Here, we identified that the primary mechanism behind the MEB was the number of encoding opportunities. That is, recognition memory performance was higher following an increase in the number of encoding opportunities, and this could not be attributed solely to an increase in the number of encoded VWM representations or successful retrieval. Our results thus contribute to the understanding of the fundamental mechanisms behind the influence of VWM on VLTM encoding. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Limitations in one's capacity to encode information in working memory (WM) constrain later access to that information in long-term memory (LTM). The present study examined whether these WM constraints on episodic LTM are limited to specific representations of past episodes or also extend to gist representations. Across three experiments, young adult participants (n = 40 per experiment) studied objects in set sizes of two or six items, either sequentially (Experiments 1a and 1b) or simultaneously (Experiment 2). They then completed old/new recognition tests immediately after each sequence (WM tests). After a long study phase, participants completed LTM conjoint recognition tests, featuring old but untested items from the WM phase, lures that were similar to studied items at gist but not specific levels of representation, and new items unrelated to studied items at both specific and gist levels of representation. Results showed that LTM estimates of specific and gist memory representations from a multinomial-processing-tree model were reduced for items encoded under supra-capacity set sizes (six items) relative to within-capacity set sizes (two items). These results suggest that WM encoding capacity limitations constrain episodic LTM at both specific and gist levels of representation, at least for visual objects. The ability to retrieve from LTM each type of representation for a visual item is contingent on the degree to which the item could be encoded in WM. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Studies on the SPoARC effect have shown that serial information is spatially processed in working memory. However, it remains unknown whether these spatial–positional associations are durable or only temporary. This study aimed at investigating whether spatialization would persist when a sequence presented repeatedly is expected to be chunked. If chunked, the items could be unified spatially and their spatialization could vanish. Thirty-seven participants performed a spatialization task which was remotely inspired by the Hebb repetition paradigm. A sequence of four stimuli presented individually in the middle of a computer screen was repeated throughout the task. After each sequence, participants had to decide whether a probe belonged to the series using two lateralized response keys. The results showed no spatialization for these repetitive sequences, on average. Moreover, further analysis revealed that the effect was detectable at the beginning of the task, suggesting that the more the sequence was repeated, the less participants spatialized information from left to right. These findings show that associations created in working memory between items and space can vanish in repeated sequences: we discuss the idea that working memory progressively saves on spatialization once a sequence is chunked in long-term memory. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In hybrid visual search, observers must maintain multiple target templates and subsequently search for any one of those targets. If the number of potential target templates exceeds visual working memory (VWM) capacity, then the target templates are assumed to be maintained in activated long-term memory (aLTM). Observers must search the array for potential targets (visual search), as well as search through memory (target memory search). Increasing the target memory set size reduces accuracy, increases search response times (RT), and increases dwell time on distractors. However, the extent of observers' memory for distractors during hybrid search is largely unknown. In the current study, the impact of hybrid search on target memory search (measured by dwell time on distractors, false alarms, and misses) and distractor memory (measured by distractor revisits and recognition memory of recently viewed distractors) was measured. Specifically, we aimed to better understand how changes in behavior during hybrid search impacts distractor memory. Increased target memory set size led to an increase in search RTs, distractor dwell times, false alarms, and target identification misses. Increasing target memory set size increased revisits to distractors, suggesting impaired distractor location memory, but had no effect on a two-alternative forced-choice (2AFC) distractor recognition memory test presented during the search trial. The results from the current study suggest a lack of interference between memory stores maintaining target template representations (aLTM) and distractor information (VWM). Loading aLTM with more target templates does not impact VWM for distracting information. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the present research, we produce a coherent account of the storage and retrieval processes in short- and long-term event memory, and long-term knowledge, that produce response accuracy and response time in a wide variety of conditions in our studies of recognition memory. Two to nine pictures are studied sequentially followed by a target or foil test picture in four conditions used in Nosofsky et al. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition, 47, 316–342, (2021) and in our new paradigm: VM: target and foil responses to a given stimulus change from trial to trial; CM: the responses do not change from trial to trial; AN: every trial uses new stimuli; MIXED: combinations of VM, CN, and AN occur on each trial. In the new paradigm a given picture is equally often tested as old or new, but only in CM is the response key the same and learnable. Our model has components that have appeared in a variety of prior accounts, including learning and familiarity, but are given support by our demonstration that accuracy and response time data from a large variety of conditions can be predicted by these processes acting together, with parameter values that largely are unchanged. A longer version of this article, containing information not found here due to space, is available online https://doi.org/10.31234/osf.io/h8msp. The avalibility of the data (supplement materials), info and link is attached at the end section (https://psyarxiv.com/h8msp.). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Because segments in fluent speech (e.g., words and phrases) are not reliably separated by pauses, a key task when listening to an unfamiliar language is to parse the incoming speech into segments to be learned. We aim to understand how working memory contributes to that segmentation learning. One cue to segmentation occurs when a segment is repeated in varying contexts. Cowan (Acta Psychologica, 77(2), 121–135, 1991) explored a language analog to study how segmentation occurs during immediate memory of speech, and found effects of segment presentation frequency, stimulus length, and serial position. Here we ask whether those effects extend from working memory to long-term memory. Overlapping segments were presented (e.g., mah bar slo mi and slo mi geh), varying numbers of times (presentation frequencies) to determine how varying the schedule of repetition patterns would affect perception of a unified test pattern formed from the two of them (e.g., mah bar slo mi geh). These constructions provide an analogy to how segments occur in varying contexts in speech. Participants were to indicate where they heard the boundaries between syllables. In immediate memory, the perceived boundaries more often reflected the most frequently presented pattern, and often reflected both pattern boundaries (in this example, mah bar / slo mi / geh). In a long-term memory follow-up, however, the original presentation frequencies only mattered for certain short test pattern configurations. We suggest that working memory for speech, without a semantic component, may be an incomplete basis to learn longer segments in an unfamiliar language. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Judgments of learning (JOLs) are assumed to be made inferentially, based on cues. This cue-utilization approach substituted the theory that memory strength guides JOLs. The rejection of this theory ignores the existence of two memory systems: working memory (WM), which holds representations immediately accessible, and long-term memory (LTM), which is a permanent store. By manipulating and measuring WM strength, we tested a revised version of the memory-strength theory in which JOLs are guided by WM representations. In Experiment 1, participants memorized sequences of two or four colored objects, then they provided JOLs for an LTM test of these objects, and performed a WM test on the objects' colors. After learning 200 objects, the LTM test followed. Sequence-length affected WM, but not LTM performance. JOLs, however, were higher for sequences of two than for four objects and correlated higher with WM than LTM performance. We replicated these results with a simultaneous presentation of the objects (Experiment 2), in the absence of a WM test (Experiment 3), and in a word-pair task (Experiment 4). Overall, our findings are consistent with the revised memory-strength theory. WM strength should therefore be considered when examining the factors guiding JOLs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We test predictions from the language emergent perspective on verbal working memory that lexico-syntactic constraints should support both item and order memory. In natural language, long-term knowledge of lexico-syntactic patterns involving part of speech, verb biases, and noun animacy support language comprehension and production. In three experiments, participants were presented with randomly generated dative-like sentences or lists in which part of speech, verb biases, and animacy of a single word were manipulated. Participants were more likely to recall words in the correct position when presented with a verb over a noun in the verb position, a good dative verb over an intransitive verb in the verb position, and an animate noun over an inanimate noun in the subject noun position. These results demonstrate that interactions between words and their context in the form of lexico-syntactic constraints influence verbal working memory. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Previous studies have found that real-world objects' identities are better remembered than simple features like colored circles, and this effect is particularly pronounced when these stimuli are encoded one by one in a serial, item-based way. Recent work has also demonstrated that memory for simple features like color is improved if these colors are part of real-world objects, suggesting that meaningful objects can serve as a robust memory scaffold for their associated low-level features. However, it is unclear whether the improved color memory that arises from the colors appearing on real-world objects is affected by encoding format, in particular whether items are encoded sequentially or simultaneously. We test this using randomly colored silhouettes of recognizable versus unrecognizable scrambled objects that offer a uniquely controlled set of stimuli to test color working memory of meaningful versus non-meaningful objects. Participants were presented with four stimuli (silhouettes of objects or scrambled shapes) simultaneously or sequentially. After a short delay, they reported either which colors or which shapes they saw in a two-alternative forced-choice task. We replicated previous findings that meaningful stimuli boost working memory performance for colors (Exp. 1). We found that when participants remembered the colors (Exp. 2) there was no difference in performance across the two encoding formats. However, when participants remembered the shapes and thus identity of the objects (Exp. 3), sequential presentation resulted in better performance than simultaneous presentation. Overall, these results show that different encoding formats can flexibly impact visual working memory depending on what the memory-relevant feature is. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Information is easier to remember when it is recognized as structured. One explanation for this benefit is that people represent structured information in a compressed form, thus reducing memory load. However, the contribution of long-term memory and working memory to compression are not yet disentangled. Previous work has mostly produced evidence that long-term memory is the main source of compression. In the present work, we reveal two signatures of compression in working memory using a large-scale naturalistic data set from a science museum. Analyzing data from more than 32,000 memory trials, in which people attempted to recall briefly displayed sequences of colors, we examined how the estimated compressibility of each sequence predicted memory performance. Besides finding that compressibility predicted memory performance, we found that greater compressibility of early subsections of sequences predicted better memory for later subsections, and that mis-recalled sequences were simpler than the originals. These findings suggest that (1) more compressibility reduces memory load, leaving space for additional information; (2) memory errors are not random and instead reflect compression gone awry. Together, these findings suggest that compression can take place in working memory. This may enable efficient storage on the spot without direct contributions from long-term memory. However, we also discuss ways long-term memory could explain our findings. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

While abstractionist theories of visual word recognition propose that perceptual elements like font and letter case are filtered out during lexical access, instance-based theories allow for the possibility that these surface details influence this process. To disentangle these accounts, we focused on brand names embedded in logotypes. The consistent visual presentation of brand names may render them much more susceptible to perceptual factors than common words. In the present study, we compared original and modified brand logos, varying in font or letter case. In Experiment 1, participants decided whether the stimuli corresponded to existing brand names or not, regardless of graphical information. In Experiment 2, participants had to categorize existing brand names semantically – whether they corresponded to a brand in the transportation sector or not. Both experiments showed longer response times for the modified brand names, regardless of font or letter-case changes. These findings challenge the notion that only abstract units drive visual word recognition. Instead, they favor those models that assume that, under some circumstances, the traces in lexical memory may contain surface perceptual information. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The pseudocontingency framework provides a parsimonious strategy for inferring the contingency between two variables by assessing the base rates. Frequently occurring levels are associated, as are rarely occurring levels. However, this strategy can lead to different contingency inferences in different contexts, depending on how the base rates vary across contexts. Here, we examine how base-rate consistency influences base-rate learning and reliance by contrasting consistent with inconsistent base rates. We hypothesized that base-rate learning is facilitated, and that people rely more on base rates if base rates are consistent. In Experiment 1, the base rates across four contexts implied the same (consistent) or different (inconsistent) contingencies. Base rates were learned equally accurately, and participants inferred contingencies that followed the base rates but deviated from the genuine contingencies within contexts, regardless of consistency. In Experiment 2, we additionally manipulated whether the context was a plausible moderator of the contingency. While we replicated the first experiment's results when the context was a plausible moderator, base-rate inferences were stronger for consistent base rates when the context was an implausible moderator. Possibly, when a moderation-by-context was implausible, participants also relied on the base-rate correlation across contexts, which implied the same contingency when base rates were consistent but was zero when the base rates were inconsistent. Thus, our findings suggest that contingency inferences from base rates involve top-down processes in which people decide how to use base-rate information. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although long-term visual memory (LTVM) has a remarkable capacity, the fidelity of its episodic representations can be influenced by at least two intertwined interference mechanisms during the encoding of objects belonging to the same category: the capacity to hold similar episodic traces (e.g., different birds) and the conceptual similarity of the encoded traces (e.g., a sparrow shares more features with a robin than with a penguin). The precision of episodic traces can be tested by having participants discriminate lures (unseen objects) from targets (seen objects) representing different exemplars of the same concept (e.g., two visually similar penguins), which generates interference at retrieval that can be solved if efficient pattern separation happened during encoding. The present study examines the impact of within-category encoding interference on the fidelity of mnemonic object representations, by manipulating an index of cumulative conceptual interference that represents the concurrent impact of capacity and similarity. The precision of mnemonic discrimination was further assessed by measuring the impact of visual similarity between targets and lures in a recognition task. Our results show a significant decrement in the correct identification of targets for increasing interference. Correct rejections of lures were also negatively impacted by cumulative interference as well as by the visual similarity with the target. Most interestingly though, mnemonic discrimination for targets presented with a visually similar lure was more difficult when objects were encoded under lower, not higher, interference. These findings counter a simply additive impact of interference on the fidelity of object representations providing a finer-grained, multi-factorial, understanding of interference in LTVM. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Working memory (WM) capacity has been shown to influence how readers resolve syntactic ambiguities. Building on the work of Swets et al. (2007, Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 136[1], 64–81), the goal of the present study was to assess the effects of working memory and language proficiency on first language (L1) relative clause attachment decisions across three different language samples: English monolinguals, L1–L2 Spanish–English heritage bilinguals, and L1–L2 Mandarin–English bilinguals. Binomial logistic regression analyses demonstrated that low WM span is associated with a preference to attach ambiguous relative clauses higher in the syntactic structure, as reported by Swets et al. (2007), and contrary to a recency strategy. We also observed that proficiency in L1 and L2 have little effect, suggesting that relative clause attachment preferences primarily reflect the properties of the language and the working memory capacity of the comprehender. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

People are often presented with large amounts of information to remember, and in many cases, the font size of information may be indicative of its importance (such as headlines or warnings). In the present study, we examined how learners perceive the importance of information in different font sizes and how beliefs about font size influence selective memory. In Experiment 1, participants were presented with to-be-remembered words that were either unrelated or related to a goal (e.g., items for a camping trip) in either small or large font. Participants rated words in large font as more important to remember than words in small font when the words in a list were unrelated but not when the words were schematically related to a goal. In Experiments 2 and 3, we were interested in how learners' belief that font size is indicative of importance translates to their ability to selectively encode and recall valuable information. Specifically, we presented participants with words in various font sizes, and larger fonts either corresponded to greater point values or smaller point values (values counted towards participants' scores if recalled). When larger fonts corresponded with greater point values, participants were better able to selectively remember high-value words relative to low-value words. Thus, when to-be-remembered information varies in value, font size may be less diagnostic of an item's importance (the item's importance drives memory), and when the value of information is consistent with a learner's belief, learners can better engage in selective memory. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Self-prioritization is a robust phenomenon whereby judgments concerning self-representational stimuli are faster than judgments toward other stimuli. The present paper examines if and how self-prioritization causes more vivid short-term memories for self-related objects by giving geometric shapes arbitrary identities (self, mother, stranger). In Experiment 1 participants were presented with an array of the three shapes and required to retain the location and color of each in memory. Participants were then probed regarding the identity of one of the shapes and subsequently asked to indicate the color of the probed shape or an unprobed shape on a color wheel. Results indicated no benefit for self-stimuli in either response time for the identification probe or for color fidelity in memory. Yet, a cuing benefit was observed such that the cued stimulus in the identity probe did have higher fidelity within memory. Experiments 2 and 3 reduced the cognitive load by only requiring that participants process the identity and color of one shape at a time. For Experiment 2, the identity probe was memory-based, whereas the stimulus was presented alongside the identity probe for Experiment 3. Results demonstrated a robust self-prioritization effect: self-related shapes were classified faster than non-self-shapes, but this self-advantage did not lead to an increase in the fidelity of memory for self-related shapes' colors. Overall, these results suggest that self-prioritization effects may be restricted to an improvement in the ability to recognize that the self-representational stimulus is present without devoting more perceptual and short-term memory resources to such stimuli. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Central to the operation of the Atkinson and Shiffrin's (Psychology of learning and motivation, 2, 89-195, 1968) model of human memory are a variety of control processes that manage information flow. Research on metacognition reveals that provision of control in laboratory learning tasks is generally beneficial to memory. In this paper, we investigate the novel domain of attentional fluctuations during study. If learners are able to monitor attention, then control over the onset of stimuli should also improve performance. Across four experiments, we found no evidence that control over the onset of stimuli enhances learning. This result stands in notable contrast to the fact that control over stimulus offset does enhance memory (Experiment 1; Tullis & Benjamin, Journal of memory and language, 64 (2), 109-118, 2011). This null finding was replicated across laboratory and online samples of subjects, and with both words and faces as study material. Taken together, the evidence suggests that people either cannot monitor fluctuations in attention effectively or cannot precisely time their study to those fluctuations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper investigates whether, and if so how much, prior training and experience overwrite the influence of the constraints of the task environment on strategy deployment. This evidence is relevant to the theory of soft constraints that focuses on the role of constraints in the task environment (Gray, Simms, Fu, & Schoelles, Psychological Review, 113: 461-482, ). The theory explains how an increase in the cost of accessing information induces a more memory-based strategy involving more encoding and planning. Experiments 1 and 3 adopt a traditional training and transfer design using the Blocks World Task in which participants were exposed to training trials involving a 2.5-s delay in accessing goal-state information before encountering transfer trials in which there was no access delay. The effect of prior training was assessed by the degree of memory-based strategy adopted in the transfer trials. Training with an access delay had a substantial carry-over effect and increased the subsequent degree of memory-based strategy adopted in the transfer environment. However, such effects do not necessarily occur if goal-state access cost in training is less costly than in transfer trials (Experiment 2). Experiment 4 used a fine-grained intra-trial design to examine the effect of experiencing access cost on one, two, or three occasions within the same trial and found that such experience on two consecutive occasions was sufficient to induce a more memory-based strategy. This paper establishes some effects of training that are relevant to the soft constraints theory and also discusses practical implications. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Artists and laypeople differ in their ability to create drawings. Previous research has shown that artists have improved memory performance during drawing; however, it is unclear whether they have better visual memory after the drawing is finished. In this paper, we focused on the question of differences in visual memory between art students and the general population in two studies. In Study 1, both groups studied a set of images and later drew them in a surprise visual recall test. In Study 2, the drawings from Study 1 were evaluated by a different set of raters based on their drawing quality and similarity to the original image to link drawing evaluations with memory performance for both groups. We found that both groups showed comparable visual recognition memory performance; however, the artist group showed increased recall memory performance. Moreover, they produced drawings that were both better quality and more similar to the original image. Individually, participants whose drawings were rated as better showed higher recognition accuracy. Results from Study 2 also have practical implications for the usage of drawing as a tool for measuring free recall – the majority of the drawings were recognizable, and raters showed a high level of consistency during their evaluation of the drawings. Taken together, we found that artists have better visual recall memory than laypeople. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The prevailing model of landmark integration in location memory is Maximum Likelihood Estimation, which assumes that each landmark implies a target location distribution that is narrower for more reliable landmarks. This model assumes weighted linear combination of landmarks and predicts that, given optimal integration, the reliability with multiple landmarks is the sum of the reliabilities with the individual landmarks. Super-optimality is reliability with multiple landmarks exceeding optimal reliability given the reliability with each landmark alone; this is shown when performance exceeds predicted optimal performance, found by aggregating reliability values with single landmarks. Past studies claiming super-optimality have provided arguably impure measures of performance with single landmarks given that multiple landmarks were presented at study in conditions with a single landmark at test, disrupting encoding specificity and thereby leading to underestimation in predicted optimal performance. This study, unlike those prior studies, only presented a single landmark at study and the same landmark at test in single landmark trials, showing super-optimality conclusively. Given that super-optimal information integration occurs, emergent information, that is, information only available with multiple landmarks, must be used. With the target and landmarks all in a line, as throughout this study, relative distance is the only emergent information available. Use of relative distance was confirmed here by finding that, when both landmarks are left of the target at study, the target is remembered further right of its true location the further left the left landmark is moved from study to test. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Drawing a referent of a to-be-remembered word often results in better recognition and recall of this word relative to a control task in which the word is written, a pattern dubbed the drawing effect. Although this effect is not always found in pure lists, we report three experiments in which the drawing effect emerged in both pure- and mixed-lists on recognition and recall tests, though the effect was larger in mixed lists. Our experiments then compared drawing effects on memory between pure- and mixed-list contexts to determine whether the larger mixed-list drawing effect reflected a benefit to draw items, a cost to write items, or a combination. In delayed recognition and free-recall tests, a mixed-list benefit emerged for draw items in which memory for mixed-list draw items was greater than pure-list draw items. This mixed-list drawing benefit was accompanied by a mixed-list writing cost compared to pure-list write items, indicating that the mixed-list drawing effect does not operate cost-free. Our findings of a pure-list drawing effect are consistent with a memory strength account, however, the larger drawing effect in mixed lists suggest that participants may also deploy a distinctiveness heuristic to aid retrieval of drawn items. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Saving one list of words, such as on a computer or by writing them down, can improve a person's ability to learn and remember a second list of words that are not saved. This phenomenon, known as the saving enhanced memory effect, is typically observed by comparing the recall of nonsaved items when other items are saved versus when they are not saved. In past research, the effect has been shown to occur when participants save an entire list before learning a new list. In the current research, we examined whether the effect can be observed when participants save a subset of items within a single list. The results of two experiments confirmed that partial saving can lead to a saving enhanced memory effect, with the effect observed regardless of whether participants saved items by clicking a button on the computer or writing them out by hand. The effect was observed on an item-specific cued-recall test (Experiment 1) as well as a free recall test that did not control the order of output (Experiment 2). However, the effect size did vary as a function of how participants attempted to recall the items on the final test. Specifically, participants who initiated their output by recalling nonsaved items exhibited a significantly larger saving enhanced memory effect than those who initiated their output by reproducing saved items. Together, these findings expand our understanding of the saving enhanced memory effect and shine new light on the impacts of cognitive offloading on human memory. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Despite research showing that perceptually fluent stimuli (i.e., stimuli that are easier to process) are given higher judgment of learning (JOL) ratings than perceptually disfluent stimuli, it remains unknown whether the influence of perceptual fluency on JOLs is driven by the fluent or disfluent items. Moreover, it is unclear whether this difference hinges on relative differences in fluency. The current study addressed these unanswered questions by employing (Fiacconi et al., Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition 46:926–944, 2020), Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition, 46[5], 926–944) letter set priming procedure. In this procedure, participants are first exposed to words containing only a subset of letters. Following this exposure, JOLs to new words composed of the same letters (i.e., fluent), and new words composed of nonexposed letters (i.e., disfluent) are compared with isolate the contribution of perceptual fluency. Because this procedure does not rely on parametric variations in perceptual features, we can directly assess the potential benefit and/or cost of fluent and disfluent items, respectively, by including neutral baseline conditions. Moreover, implementing both a mixed- and pure-list design allowed us to assess the comparative nature of perceptual fluency on JOLs. Counter to previous assumptions, our results are the first to demonstrate that perceptual disfluency decreases JOLs. Moreover, we found that the influence of perceptual disfluency on JOLs hinges on the relative differences in fluency between items even in the absence of a belief about the mnemonic impact of the fluency manipulation. These findings have important implications as they provide evidence that the difficulty, rather than ease, of information form the basis of individuals metacognitive judgments. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Investigations of information-seeking often highlight people's tendency to forgo financial reward in return for advance information about future outcomes. Most of these experiments use tasks in which reward contingencies are described to participants. The use of such descriptions leaves open the question of whether the opportunity to obtain such noninstrumental information influences people's ability to learn and represent the underlying reward structure of an experimental environment. In two experiments, participants completed a two-armed bandit task with monetary incentives where reward contingencies were learned via trial-by-trial experience. We find, akin to description-based tasks, that participants are willing to forgo financial reward to receive information about a delayed, unchangeable outcome. Crucially, however, there is little evidence this willingness to pay for information is driven by an inaccurate representation of the reward structure: participants' representations approximated the underlying reward structure regardless of the presence of advance noninstrumental information. The results extend previous conclusions regarding the intrinsic value of information to an experience-based domain and highlight challenges of probing participants' memories for experienced rewards. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Intention offloading refers to the use of external reminders to help remember delayed intentions (e.g., setting an alert to help you remember when you need to take your medication). Research has found that metacognitive processes influence offloading such that individual differences in confidence predict individual differences in offloading regardless of objective cognitive ability. The current study investigated the cross-domain organization of this relationship. Participants performed two perceptual discrimination tasks where objective accuracy was equalized using a staircase procedure. In a memory task, two measures of intention offloading were collected, (1) the overall likelihood of setting reminders, and (2) the bias in reminder-setting compared to the optimal strategy. It was found that perceptual confidence was associated with the first measure but not the second. It is shown that this is because individual differences in perceptual confidence capture meaningful differences in objective ability despite the staircase procedure. These findings indicate that intention offloading is influenced by both domain-general and task-specific metacognitive signals. They also show that even when task performance is equalized via staircasing, individual differences in confidence cannot be considered a pure measure of metacognitive bias. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Previous research has shown that prior knowledge structures or schemas affect recognition memory. However, since the acquisition of schemas occurs over prolonged periods of time, few paradigms allow the direct manipulation of schema acquisition to study their effect on memory performance. Recently, a number of parallelisms in recognition memory between studies involving schemas and studies involving category learning have been identified. The current paper capitalizes on these findings and offers a novel experimental paradigm that allows manipulation of category learning between individuals to study the effects of schema acquisition on recognition. First, participants learn to categorize computer-generated items whose category-inclusion criteria differ between participants. Next, participants study items that belong to either the learned category, the non-learned category, both, or neither. Finally, participants receive a recognition test that includes old and new items, either from the learned, the non-learned, or neither category. Using variations on this paradigm, four experiments were conducted. The results from the first three studies suggest that learning a category increases hit rates for old category-consistent items and false alarm rates for new category-consistent lures. Absent the category learning, no such effects are evident, even when participants are exposed to the same learning trials as those who learned the categories. The results from the fourth experiment suggest that, at least for false alarm rates, the effects of category learning are not solely attributable to frequency of occurrence of category-consistent items during learning. Implications for recognition memory as well as advantages of the proposed paradigm are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Mind wandering is a common occurrence that can have serious consequences, but estimating when mind wandering occurs is a challenging research question. Previous research has shown that during meditation, people may spontaneously alternate between task-oriented and mind-wandering states without awareness (Zukosky & Wang, 2021, Cognition, 212, Article 104689). However, under what conditions such alternations occur is not clear. The present study examined the effects of task type on spontaneous alternations between task focus and mind wandering. In addition to a meditation task, participants performed either a scene-categorization-based CPT or a visual detection task while attentional orientation was assessed via self-monitoring and intermittent probes. The three tasks differ in the extent of their reliance on continuous monitoring (less required in the detection than meditation and CPT tasks) and attentional orientation (oriented internally in meditation task and externally in CPT and detection tasks). To overcome prior methodological challenges, we applied a technique designed to detect spontaneous alternations between focused and mind-wandering states without awareness, based on how the proportion of "focused" responses/ratings to intermittent probes changes during a focus-to-mind-wandering interval (i.e., the period from one self-report of mind wandering to the subsequent self-report). Our results showed that the proportion of "focused" responses to intermittent probes remained constant with increasing interprobe interval during meditation (consistent with previous work), but declined significantly in the CPT and detection tasks. These findings support the hypothesis that spontaneous alternations of attentional states without self-awareness occur during tasks emphasizing internally but not externally oriented attention. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study aimed to systematically examine whether actively maintaining a visual location in working memory can influence the processing of spatially related words. In five experiments, we asked participants to maintain either the location or the shape of a visually presented stimulus in working memory so that it could later be compared with a test stimulus concerning the relevant target features. In between, we presented participants with words that refer to objects typically encountered in the upper or lower vertical space (roof vs. root, respectively). The task participants performed as a response to these words differed between experiments. In Experiments 1–3, participants performed a lexical decision task, in Experiment 4 they performed a semantic task (deciding whether the word refers to an occupation), and in Experiment 5 they performed a spatial task (deciding whether the word refers to something in the upper or lower visual field.) Only in Experiment 5 did we observe an interaction between the position of the visual stimulus held in working memory (up vs. down) and the meaning of the spatial words (associated with up vs. down). Our results therefore suggest that actively maintaining a stimulus location in working memory does not automatically affect the processing of spatially related words, but does so if the relevant spatial dimension is made highly salient by the task. The results are thus in line with studies showing a strong context-dependency of embodiment effects and thus allow the conclusion that language processing proper is not operating on a sensorimotor representational format. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

When asked to estimate how much their state or nation has contributed to history, people typically provide unreasonably large estimates, claiming that their group has contributed much more to history than nongroup members would estimate, demonstrating collective overclaiming. Why does such overclaiming occur? In the current study we examined factors that might predict collective overclaiming. Participants from 12 U.S. states estimated how much their home state contributed to U.S. history, completed measures of collective narcissism and numeracy, and rated the importance of 60 specific historical events. There was a positive relationship between collective overclaiming and collective narcissism, a negative relationship between collective overclaiming and numeracy, and a positive relationship between collective overclaiming and the importance ratings of the specific events. Together, these results indicate that overclaiming is partially and positively related to collective narcissism and negatively related to people's ability to work with numbers. We conclude that collective overclaiming is likely determined by several factors, including the availability heuristic and ego protection mechanisms, in addition to collective narcissism and relative innumeracy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although effective in reducing virus transmission, face masks might compromise face recognition and trait judgments. With this study, we aimed to observe the influence of masks on face recognition and trait judgments—more specifically, in trustworthiness, dominance, and distinctiveness judgments. Also, we wanted to observe the possible influence of trait judgments on facial recognition for masked and unmasked faces, which has never been done before. For that, we conducted an online study where 140 participants observed and made trait judgments of masked and unmasked faces in a within-subjects design. After a distractive task, participants performed a recognition memory test. As expected, we observed a better recognition of faces shown without a mask during the study phase, which allowed the holistic processing of the faces. The worst performance was found for faces encoded with a mask but tested without it, occurring simultaneity disruption in holistic face processing and the violation of the encoding specificity principle. Regarding the trait judgments, unmasked faces were considered more distinctive, and masked faces were considered more trustworthy. More interestingly, we can conclude that facial distinctiveness predicts face recognition, regardless of mask use. In contrast, dominance judgments only predicted face recognition when faces were presented without a mask. When faces were exposed with masks, trustworthiness overrides dominance, becoming more critical to recognizing faces. We can interpret these results from an evolutionary perspective. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Research on human language converges on a view in which a grammatical "subject" is the most saliently encoded entity in mental representation. However, subjecthood is not a syntactically uniform phenomenon. Notably, many languages encode morphological distinctions between subjects of transitive verbs (i.e., verbs that require an object) and subjects of intransitive verbs. We ask how this typological pattern manifests in a language like English (which does not morphologically signal it) by examining the "distinctiveness" of transitive versus intransitive subjects in memory during online sentence processing. We conducted a self-paced reading experiment that tested for "attraction" effects (Dillon et al., Journal of Memory and Language, 69(2), 85–103, 2013; Wagers et al., Journal of Memory and Language, 61, 206–237, 2009) in the processing of subject-verb number agreement. We find that transitive subjects trigger attraction effects, but that these effects are mitigated for intransitive subject attractors (independently of the number of other noun phrases present in the intervening clause). We interpret this as indicating that transitive subjects are less distinctive and therefore less representationally salient than intransitive subjects: This is because a transitive subject must compete with another clause-mate core argument (i.e., a direct object), which draws on resources from the same pool of memory resources. On the other hand, an intransitive subject minimally only competes with a non-core argument (i.e., an oblique noun phrase); this consumes fewer memory resources, leaving the subject to enjoy greater spoils. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

During text comprehension, readers create mental representations of the described events, called situation models. When new information is encountered, these models must be updated or new ones created. Consistent with the event indexing model, previous studies have shown that when readers encounter an event shift, reading times often increase. However, such increases are not consistently observed. This paper addresses this inconsistency by examining the extent to which reading-time differences observed at event shifts reflect an unexpectedness in the narrative rather than processes involved in model updating. In two reassessments of prior work, event shifts known to increase reading time were rated as less expected, and expectedness ratings significantly predicted reading time. In three new experiments, participants read stories in which an event shift was or was not foreshadowed, thereby influencing expectedness of the shift. Experiment 1 revealed that readers do not expect event shifts, but foreshadowing eliminates this. Experiment 2 showed that foreshadowing does not affect identification of event shifts. Finally, Experiment 3 found that, although reading times increased when an event shift was not foreshadowed, they were not different from controls when it was. Moreover, responses to memory probes were slower following an event shift regardless of foreshadowing, suggesting that situation model updating had taken place. Overall, the results support the idea that previously observed reading time increases at event shifts reflect, at least in part, a reader's unexpected encounter with a shift rather than an increase in processing effort required to update a situation model. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]