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…

We performed a meta-analysis of dual-task experiments to assess the robustness of the effects of conducting working memory secondary tasks on arithmetic performance. Four hundred effect sizes from 21 studies from 1,049 participants were analyzed across a variety of specifications. Results revealed that increases in working memory load resulted in…

The hypothesis that reduced accessibility to relevant information can negatively affect problem solving in a remote associate test (RAT) was tested by using, immediately before the RAT, a retrieval practice procedure to hinder access to target solutions. The results of 2 experiments clearly showed that, relative to baseline, target words that had…

Chuderski and Jastrzêbski (2017) found a positive relationship between working memory capacity and insight problem solving, and concluded that "people with less effective cognition" are therefore "less creative" (p. 2003). This interpretation discounts substantial evidence that devoting less executive control facilitates…

A great deal of prior research has examined the relation between working memory capacity (WMC) and attention control. The current study explored the role of arousal in individual differences in WMC and attention control. Participants performed multiple WMC and attention control tasks. During the attention control tasks participants were…

Remembered utility is the retrospective evaluation about the pleasure and pain associated with a past experience. It can influence choices about repeating or avoiding similar situations in the future (Kahneman, 2000). A set of 5 experiments explored the remembered utility of effortful test episodes and how it impacted future test choices.…

The "nothing-special" account of insight predicts positive correlations of insight problem solving and working memory capacity (WMC), whereas the "special-process" account expects no, or even negative, correlations. In the latter vein, DeCaro, Van Stockum Jr., and Wieth (2016) have recently reported weak negative WMC…

Higher working memory capacity (WMC) improves performance on a range of cognitive and academic tasks. However, a greater ability to control attention sometimes leads individuals with higher WMC to persist in using complex, attention-demanding approaches that are suboptimal for a given task. We examined whether higher WMC would hinder insight…

Four experiments examined the interplay of memory and creative cognition, showing that attempting to think of new uses for an object can cause the forgetting of old uses. Specifically, using an adapted version of the Alternative Uses Task (Guilford, 1957), participants studied several uses for a variety of common household objects before…

Determining adults' and children's strategies in mental arithmetic constitutes a central issue in the domain of numerical cognition. However, despite the considerable amount of research on this topic, the conclusions in the literature are not always coherent. Therefore, there is a need to carry on the investigation, and this is the reason why we…

Research on retrieval-induced forgetting has shown that retrieval can cause the forgetting of related or competing items in memory (Anderson, Bjork, & Bjork, 1994). In the present research, we examined whether an analogous phenomenon occurs in the context of creative problem solving. Using the Remote Associates Test (RAT; Mednick, 1962), we…

The correlation between individual differences in working memory capacity and performance on the Raven's Advanced Progressive Matrices (RAPM) is well documented yet poorly understood. The present work proposes a new explanation: that the need to use a new combination of rules on RAPM problems drives the relation between performance and working…

Directed actions can play a causal role in cognition, shaping thought processes. What drives this cross-talk between action and thought? I investigated the hypothesis that representations in spatial working memory mediate interactions between directed actions and problem solving. Participants attempted to solve an insight problem while…

Selectively retrieving a subset of previously studied information enhances memory for the retrieved information but causes forgetting of related, nonretrieved information. Such retrieval-induced forgetting (RIF) has often been attributed to inhibitory executive-control processes that supposedly suppress the nonretrieved items' memory…

Upon learning the outcome to a problem, people tend to believe that they knew it all along ("hindsight bias"). Here, we report the first study to trace the development of hindsight bias across the life span. One hundred ninety-four participants aged 3 to 95 years completed 3 tasks designed to measure visual and verbal hindsight bias. All age…