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We investigated whether older adults could successfully monitor age-related declines in recollection that are typically found on episodic memory tests. In two experiments, we elicited prospective metamemory judgments based on the remember-know procedure, called Judgments of Remembering and Knowing (JORKs). That is, participants predicted whether word pairs would be remembered (i.e., accompanied by recollective details), known (i.e., have a sense of familiarity devoid of recollective details), or forgotten, on a later test. Compared with actual test performance, older adults were highly overconfident in predicting remembering, whereas younger adults' predictions more closely corresponded with actual remembering. These data suggest that older adults have difficulties monitoring age-related declines in recollection.

Two experiments are reported examining how value and relatedness interact to influence metacognitive monitoring and control processes. Participants studied unrelated and related word pairs, each accompanied by point values denoting how important the items were to remember. These values were presented either before or after each pair in a between-subjects design, and participants made item-by-item judgments of learning (JOLs) predicting the likelihood that each item would be remembered later. Results from Experiment 1 showed that participants used value and relatedness as cues to inform their JOLs. Interestingly, JOLs increased as a function of value even in the after condition in which value had no impact on cued recall. Participants in Experiment 2 were permitted to control study time for each item. Results showed that value and relatedness were simultaneously considered when allocating study time. These results support a cue-weighting process in which JOLs and study time allocation are based on multiple cues, which may or may not be predictive of future memory performance, and complements the agenda-based regulation model of study time (Ariel, Dunlosky, & Bailey, 2009) by providing evidence for agenda-based monitoring.

Participants between the ages of 18 and 80 were tested on a complex working memory span task that was administered either using a typical experimenter-paced method or using a method in which the processing component was presented at a fixed, limited-pace presentation rate. Path analyses revealed that even after controlling for individual differences in general processing speed, the limited-pace task predicted unique variance in episodic memory, executive functioning, and fluid intelligence, whereas the experimenter-paced task did not. For the experimenter-paced task, slower responses on the processing component of the task were associated with better recall, but only when individual differences in processing speed were controlled. These findings suggest that metacognitive control of response times affects recall from working memory span tasks, as well as the relationship between span task recall and high-level cognition. These results support resource-sharing explanations of working memory and suggest that limiting processing times using computer pacing of complex span tasks can be an effective way to efficiently measure working memory capacity.

The characteristics of response time (RT) distributions beyond measures of central tendency were explored in 3 attention tasks across groups of young adults, healthy older adults, and individuals with very mild dementia of the Alzheimer's type (DAT).Participants were administered computerized Stroop, Simon, and switching tasks, along with psychometric tasks that tap various cognitive abilities and a standard personality inventory (NEO-FFI). Ex-Gaussian (and Vincentile) analyses were used to capture the characteristics of the RT distributions for each participant across the 3 tasks, which afforded 3 components: mu and sigma (mean and standard deviation of the modal portion of the distribution) and tau (the positive tail of the distribution).The results indicated that across all 3 attention tasks, healthy aging produced large changes in the central tendency mu parameter of the distribution along with some change in sigma and tau (mean etap(2) = .17, .08, and .04, respectively). In contrast, early stage DAT primarily produced an increase in the tau component (mean etap(2) = .06). tau was also correlated with the psychometric measures of episodic/semantic memory, working memory, and processing speed, and with the personality traits of neuroticism and conscientiousness. Structural equation modeling indicated a unique relation between a latent tau construct (-.90), as opposed to sigma (-.09) and mu constructs (.24), with working memory measures.The results suggest a critical role of attentional control systems in discriminating healthy aging from early stage DAT and the utility of RT distribution analyses to better specify the nature of such change.

Attentional control has been conceptualized as executive functioning by neuropsychologists and as working memory capacity by experimental psychologists. We examined the relationship between these constructs using a factor analytic approach in an adult life span sample. Several tests of working memory capacity and executive function were administered to more than 200 subjects between 18 and 90 years of age, along with tests of processing speed and episodic memory. The correlation between working memory capacity and executive functioning constructs was very strong (r = .97), but correlations between these constructs and processing speed were considerably weaker (rs approximately .79). Controlling for working memory capacity and executive function eliminated age effects on episodic memory, and working memory capacity and executive function accounted for variance in episodic memory beyond that accounted for by processing speed. We conclude that tests of working memory capacity and executive function share a common underlying executive attention component that is strongly predictive of higher level cognition.

Selecting what is important to remember, attending to this information, and then later recalling it can be thought of in terms of the strategic control of attention and the efficient use of memory. In order to examine whether aging and Alzheimer's disease (AD) influenced this ability, the present study used a selectivity task, where studied items were worth various point values and participants were asked to maximize the value of the items they recalled. Relative to younger adults (N=35) and healthy older adults (N=109), individuals with very mild AD (N=41) and mild AD (N=13) showed impairments in the strategic and efficient encoding and recall of high value items. Although individuals with AD recalled more high value items than low value items, they did not efficiently maximize memory performance (as measured by a selectivity index) relative to healthy older adults. Performance on complex working memory span tasks was related to the recall of the high value items but not low value items. This pattern suggests that relative to healthy aging, AD leads to impairments in strategic control at encoding and value-directed remembering.

In the present experiments , we examined adult age differences in the ability to suppress false memories, using the Deese-Roediger-McDermott (DRM) paradigm (Deese, 1959; Roediger & McDermott, 1995). Participants studied lists of words (e.g.,bed, rest, awake, etc.), each related to a nonpresented critical lure word (e.g.,sleep). Typically, recognition tests reveal false alarms to critical lures at rates comparable to those for hits for studied words. In two experiments, separate groups of young and older adults were unwarned about the false memory effect, warned before studying the lists, or warned after study and before test. Lists were presented at either a slow rate (4 sec/word) or a faster rate (2 sec/word). Young adults were better able to discriminate between studied words and critical lures when warned about the DRM effect either before study or after study but before retrieval, and their performance improved with a slower presentation rate. Older adults were able to discriminate between studied words and critical lures when given warnings before study, but not when given warnings after study but before retrieval. Performance on a working memory capacity measure predicted false recognition following study and retrieval warnings. The results suggest that effective use of warnings to reduce false memories is contingent on the quality and type of encoded information, as well as on whether that information is accessed at retrieval. Furthermore, discriminating between similar sources of activation is dependent on working memory capacity, which declines with advancing age.

Three experiments are reported that addressed the nature of processing in working memory by investigating patterns of delayed cued recall and free recall of items initially studied during complex and simple span tasks. In Experiment 1, items initially studied during a complex span task (i.e., operation span) were more likely to be recalled after a delay in response to temporal-contextual cues, relative to items from subspan and supraspan list lengths in a simple span task (i.e., word span). In Experiment 2, items initially studied during operation span were more likely to be recalled from neighboring serial positions during delayed free recall than were items studied during word span trials. Experiment 3 demonstrated that the number of attentional refreshing opportunities strongly predicts episodic memory performance, regardless of whether the information is presented in a spaced or massed format in a modified operation span task. The results indicate that the content-context bindings created during complex span trials reflect attentional refreshing opportunities that are used to maintain items in working memory.

Although attentional control and memory change considerably across the life span, no research has examined how the ability to strategically remember important information (i.e., value-directed remembering) changes from childhood to old age. The present study examined this in different age groups across the life span (N = 320, 5-96 years old). A selectivity task was used in which participants were asked to study and recall items worth different point values in order to maximize their point score. This procedure allowed for measures of memory quantity/capacity (number of words recalled) and memory efficiency/selectivity (the recall of high-value items relative to low-value items). Age-related differences were found for memory capacity, as young adults recalled more words than the other groups. However, in terms of selectivity, younger and older adults were more selective than adolescents and children. The dissociation between these measures across the life span illustrates important age-related differences in terms of memory capacity and the ability to selectively remember high-value information.

Recent research has suggested that our memory systems are especially tuned to process information according to its survival relevance, and that inducing problems of "ancestral priorities" faced by our ancestors should lead to optimal recall performance (Nairne & Pandeirada, Cognitive Psychology, 2010). The present study investigated the specificity of this idea by comparing an ancestor-consistent scenario and a modern survival scenario that involved threats that were encountered by human ancestors (e.g., predators) or threats from fictitious creatures (i.e., zombies). Participants read one of four survival scenarios in which the environment and the explicit threat were either consistent or inconsistent with ancestrally based problems (i.e., grasslands-predators, grasslands-zombies, city-attackers, city-zombies), or they rated words for pleasantness. After rating words based on their survival relevance (or pleasantness), the participants performed a free recall task. All survival scenarios led to better recall than did pleasantness ratings, but recall was greater when zombies were the threat, as compared to predators or attackers. Recall did not differ for the modern (i.e., city) and ancestral (i.e., grasslands) scenarios. These recall differences persisted when valence and arousal ratings for the scenarios were statistically controlled as well. These data challenge the specificity of ancestral priorities in survival-processing advantages in memory.

In the current study the influence of proactive interference (PI) and practice on recall from a visuospatial working memory (WM) task was examined. Participants completed a visuospatial WM span task under either high-PI conditions (a traditional span task) or low-PI conditions (a span task with breaks between trials). Trials of each length (i.e., two to five to-be-remembered items) were equally distributed across three blocks in order to examine practice effects. Recall increased across blocks to a greater extent in the low-PI condition than in the high-PI condition, indicating that reducing PI increased recall from WM. Additionally, in the final block the correlation between fluid intelligence and WM recall was stronger for the high-PI condition than the low-PI condition, indicating that practice reduced the strength of the correlation between span task recall and fluid intelligence, but only in the low-PI condition. These results support current theories that propose that one source of variability in recall from WM span task is the build-up of PI, and that PI build-up is an important contributing factor to the relation between visuospatial WM span task recall and higher-level cognition.

In the current study, we report on an experiment examining whether functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) lie detection evidence would influence potential jurors' assessment of guilt in a criminal trial. Potential jurors (N = 330) read a vignette summarizing a trial, with some versions of the vignette including lie detection evidence indicating that the defendant was lying about having committed the crime. Lie detector evidence was based on evidence from the polygraph, fMRI (functional brain imaging), or thermal facial imaging. Results showed that fMRI lie detection evidence led to more guilty verdicts than lie detection evidence based on polygraph evidence, thermal facial imaging, or a control condition that did not include lie detection evidence. However, when the validity of the fMRI lie detection evidence was called into question on cross-examination, guilty verdicts were reduced to the level of the control condition. These results provide important information about the influence of lie detection evidence in legal settings.

Experts often appear to perceive time differently from novices. The current study thus examined perceptions of time as a function of domain expertise. Specifically, individuals with high or low levels of knowledge of American football made judgements of duration for briefly presented words that were unrelated to football (e.g., rooster), football specific (e.g., touchdown), or ambiguous (e.g., huddle). Results showed that high-knowledge individuals judged football-specific words as having been presented for a longer duration than unrelated or ambiguous words. In contrast, low-knowledge participants exhibited no systematic differences in judgements of duration based on the type of word presented. These findings are discussed within a fluency attribution framework, which suggests that experts’ fluent perception of domain-relevant stimuli leads to the subjective impression that time slows down in one's domain of expertise.

The finding that new items are judged as remembered in the remember-know paradigm presents a challenge to traditional process and systems accounts of memory. In three experiments, we demonstrated that false remember responses can be caused by misattributing recollection to a context other than the study list. In Experiments 1 and 2, false remember responses to distractors that were unrelated to studied words increased if they were encountered in a "preexposure" phase a few minutes or even a few days prior to the studied list. A third experiment demonstrated that remember responses to preexposed distractors increased when they were encoded in a manner similar to studied items, despite the more similar items being of weaker overall memory strength. We propose a source misattribution account of false remembering to explain these data, suggesting that all remember judgments reflect conscious recollection of contextual details, but false remember judgments are partly the result of recollection of details from an extralist context (i.e., from a source other than the study list).

In 1985 Tulving introduced the remember–know procedure, whereby subjects are asked to distinguish between memories that involve retrieval of contextual details (remembering) and memories that do not (knowing). Several studies have been reported showing age-related declines in remember hits, which has typically been interpreted as supporting dual-process theories of cognitive aging that align remembering with a recollection process and knowing with a familiarity process. Less attention has been paid to remember false alarms, or their relation to age. We reviewed the literature examining aging and remember/know judgments and show that age-related increases in remember false alarms, i.e., false remembering, are as reliable as age-related decreases in remember hits, i.e., veridical remembering. Moreover, a meta-analysis showed that the age effect size for remember hits and false alarms are similar, and larger than age effects on know hits and false alarms. We also show that the neuropsychological correlates of remember hits and false alarms differ. Neuropsychological tests of medial-temporal lobe functioning were related to remember hits, but tests of frontal-lobe functioning and age were not. By contrast, age and frontal-lobe functioning predicted unique variance in remember false alarms, but MTL functioning did not. We discuss various explanations for these findings and conclude that any comprehensive explanation of recollective experience will need to account for the processes underlying both remember hits and false alarms.

Strongly right (SR)-handedness is associated with poorer memory performance than nonstrongly right (nSR)-handedness (e.g., Propper, Christman, & Phaneuf, 2005). The hemispheric interaction theory states that the nSR memory advantage occurs because nSR handedness, compared with SR, is a behavioral marker for greater interaction of the cerebral hemispheres. The hemispheric interaction theory predicts that the nSR advantage should be observed exclusively on memory tasks that require hemispheric interaction. The authors tested that prediction by comparing middle-aged and older adults on two memory tasks thought to depend on hemispheric interaction (paired associate recall, source memory) and two thought not to (face recognition, forward digit span). An nSR advantage was more robust for middle-aged than older subjects and, consistent with the hemispheric interaction theory, was found only on the tasks that depend on hemispheric interaction.

Two experiments examined inadvertent plagiarism in young and older adults. Young and older adults took turns generating category exemplars in small groups, and after a short retention interval recall was tested and subjects were asked to generate new exemplars (i.e., exemplars not initially generated). When asked to generate new exemplars, older adults were more likely to repeat exemplars that had been generated earlier by others (i.e., generate-new plagiarism). When asked to recall the exemplars they had generated earlier, older adults were more likely to claim that they had generated exemplars that had been generated by others (i.e., recall-own plagiarism), and were also more likely to falsely recall exemplars that had not been generated at all. There were no age differences in confidence for items that were plagiarized on the generate-new task. Hierarchical regression analyses indicated that age differences in generate-new plagiarism and false recall were entirely mediated by measures of episodic recall and working memory capacity. We conclude that inadvertent plagiarism errors result from the failure of systematic decision processes, and that controlled attention is important for avoiding memory errors.

Three experiments are reported examining the effect of context on remember-know judgments. In Experiments 1 and 2, medium-frequency words were intermixed with high-frequency or low-frequency words at study or at test, respectively. Remember responses were greater for medium-frequency targets when they were studied or tested among high-frequency, as compared with low-frequency, words. The authors proposed a decision-based mechanism called "the expectancy heuristic" to explain why remember responses were more likely when items were studied or tested in the context of words that were relatively less distinct. According to the expectancy heuristic, when items on a recognition test exceed an expected level of memorability they will be given a remember judgment but when they do not, but are still more familiar than new words, they will be given a know judgment. Experiment 3, which varied expectancies about the strength of tested targets, demonstrated the use of the expectancy heuristic, indicating that it operates by selectively influencing the remember criterion rather than by influencing recollection of studied items.

Working memory capacity can be conceptualized as the ability to use controlled attention in short term memory (Engle, Tuholski, Laughlin, & Conway, 1999). We tested this idea in young and older adults by combining the task demands of two neuropsychological tests, word span, and Stroop color-naming. Young and older adults were asked to name the colors of a series of congruent and incongruent color-words (between 2 and 6 words/trial). After all the color-words were presented participants attempted to recall the colors in their serial order. This task required inhibition of the prepotent word reading response (i.e., color naming), with a concurrent memory load (caused by the need to maintain already named colors in short-term memory). Older adults showed greater interference effects, and these interference effects increased as a function of memory load. Regression analyses showed that measures of working memory capacity and executive function accounted for unique variance in incongruent color-word errors for older adults. Defining working memory capacity as the ability to use controlled attention in short-term memory may be a fruitful way to think about this concept in studies of executive function.