We explored the causal role of individual and age-related differences in working memory (WM) capacity in long-term memory (LTM) retrieval. Our sample of 160 participants included 120 children (6-13-years old) and 40 young adults (18-24 years). Participants performed a WM task with images of unique everyday items, presented at varying set sizes.…

Previous research has linked working memory capacity (WMC) with enhanced proactive control. However, it remains unclear the extent to which this relationship reflects the influence of WMC on the tendency to engage proactive control, or rather, the ability to implement it. The current study sought to clarify this ambiguity by leveraging the Dual…

This Perspective article expands on a working memory-dependent dual-process model, originally proposed by Zheng et al., to elucidate individual differences in the testing effect. This model posits that the testing effect comprises two processes: retrieval-attempt and post-retrieval re-encoding. We substantiate this model with empirical evidence…

Background: Previous research has demonstrated that quizzing can improve self-regulation processes and learning performances. However, it remains unclear whether quizzes in multimedia material bring similar benefits, and whether interindividual differences such as working memory capacity (WMC) modulate quizzing effects. Aims: This study aimed to…

Recent evidence suggests that constraints can facilitate creative thinking rather than hinder it. This research tested how individual differences in working memory capacity (WMC) affect the creativity of ideas generated under conditions of low and high constraint. Participants generated short sentences with either low or high constraints placed on…

Information can be conveyed via multiple channels such as verbal and gestural (visual) channels during communication. Sometimes the information from different channels does not match (e.g., saying right while pointing to the left). How do addressees choose which information to act upon in such cases? In two experiments, we investigated this issue…

Retrieval practice is a learning technique that is known to produce enhanced long-term memory retention when compared to several other techniques. This difference in learning outcome is commonly called "the testing effect". Yet there is little research on how individual differences in personality traits and working memory capacity…

Background: Immersive virtual reality (IVR) is a new technology that could motivate learners, but also could contain distracting elements that increase cognitive demands on learners. In contrast, learning with conventional media, such as a narrated slideshow could be less motivating, but also less distracting. Objectives: This experiment…

In existing studies of investigative interviewing, the effects of interviewing contexts have often been measured with little consideration of the reciprocal interviewee's stable characteristics. To clarify the factors and conditions under which adults are likely to retain accurate information and be resistant (or vulnerable) to suggestions during…

People vary in their performance on visual working memory tasks, and these individual differences covary with a wide range of higher-level cognitive processes including fluid intelligence. Performance also varies across study displays, purportedly driven by both low- and higher-level processes. Understanding what causes these sources of systematic…

Earliest autobiographical memories mark a potential beginning of our life story. However, their meaning has hardly been investigated. Against this background, participants (N = 182) were asked to think about two kinds of meaning: the meaning that the remembered event might have had in the moment of experience and the meaning that the memory of the…

People perform poorly at sighting missing and wanted persons in simulated searches due to attention and face recognition failures. We manipulated participants' expectations of encountering a target person and the within-person variability of the targets' photographs studied in a laboratory-based and a field-based prospective person memory task. We…

Eyetracking studies have shown that readers reread ironic phrases when resolving their meaning. Moreover, it has been shown that the timecourse of processing ironic meaning is affected by reader's working memory capacity (WMC). Irony is a context-dependent phenomenon but using traditional eye-movement measures it is difficult to analyze processing…

In multimedia learning, there is a lot of new information that learners are exposed to, making it a cognitively intensive process. Poorly-designed multimedia lessons can introduce distractions that must be dealt with by the learner. However, learners do not all share the same skill at managing incoming information or holding capacity, which could…

In several applied contexts (e.g., earwitness testimony), the accurate recognition of unfamiliar voices can be a critical part of the person identification process. However, recognising unfamiliar voices is prone to error. While such errors could be reduced by testing the proficiency of listeners, the established tests of unfamiliar voice matching…