Distraction embedded in working memory tasks leads to impaired performance. This impairment is mitigated when targets and distractors that follow them share common features--a signature effect of interference by superposition. Here we propose that target-distractor similarity modulates not only forgetting from working memory but also encoding into…

The animacy effect refers to the memory advantage of words denoting animate beings over words denoting inanimate objects. Remembering animate beings may serve important evolutionary functions, but the cognitive mechanism underlying the animacy effect has remained elusive. According to the richness-of-encoding account, animate words stimulate…

The production effect is a well-established finding: If some words within a list are read aloud, that is, produced, they are better remembered than their silently read neighbors. The effect has been extensively studied with long-term memory tasks. Recently, using immediate serial recall and short-term order reconstruction, Saint-Aubin et al.…

This study investigated the development of divergent thinking (DT) in early childhood. We followed 107 4-year-olds for 1.5 years. Children's DT was assessed with the Alternative Uses Task (AUT) every 6 months, four times in total. Within the AUT, children were asked to generate unusual uses of common objects while explaining how they came up with…

Free time in a working memory task often improves the recall performances of the to-be-remembered items. It is still debated whether the free-time effect in working memory is purely proactive, purely retroactive, or both proactive and retroactive. In the present study, we used the single-gap paradigm to explore this question. In Experiment 1, we…

The biological motion refers to the continuous configuration movement of live agents in space. The perceptual processing of biological motion has the specificity of the dissociation between body form and body motion. However, there is limited evidence for whether such specificity continues when holding biological motion in working memory. We…

Responding to a prospective memory task in the course of an ongoing activity requires switching tasks, which typically comes at a cost in performing the ongoing activity. Similarly, when the prospective memory task is deactivated, a cost can occur when previously relevant prospective memory targets appear in the course of the ongoing activity. In…

Massive studies have explored biological motion (BM) crowds processing for their remarkable social significance, primarily focused on uniformly distributed ones. However, real-world BM crowds often exhibit hierarchical structures rather than uniform arrangements. How such structured BM crowds are processed remains a subject of inquiry. This study…

Objective: To investigate the neural mechanisms underlying working memory (WM) deficits in children with ADHD. Method: WM was compared between thirty-four children with ADHD and thirty-four matched controls using neuropsychological tests, spatial and verbal versions of modified delayed matching-to-sample (DMTS) tasks, and the event-related…

The results of Cognitive Intervention (CI) programs vary considerably; thus, it is helpful to assess the characteristics that enhance the effectiveness of these programs. Our objectives were to analyze the effectiveness of a multicomponent CI program called UMAM on cognitive performance, subjective memory, daily forgetfulness, and mood of…

This study aimed to identify the perspectives of post-graduate students on online learning in the field of educational sciences utilizing Bloom's revised taxonomy specified for the cognitive domain to qualitatively explore the factors affecting lower-order thinking skills (LOTS) including remembering, understanding, and applying as well as…

Learning new words entails, inter alia, encoding of novel sound patterns and transferring those patterns from short-term to long-term memory. We report a series of 5 experiments that investigated whether the memory systems engaged in word learning are specialized for speech and whether utilization of these systems results in a benefit for word…

Recall performance in working memory (WM) is strongly affected by the similarity between items. When asked to encode and recall list of items in their serial order, people confuse more often the position of similar compared to dissimilar items. Models of WM explain this deleterious effect of similarity through a problem of discriminability between…

In a cross-sectional study, 5-, 7-, and 9-year-old-children and adults (N = 144, 86 females, predominantly White U.K. sample of lower-middle to middle-class background) were interviewed about their experiences of involuntary autobiographical memories (IAMs) and semantic mind-pops that come to mind unintentionally. Although some age differences…

Long-term memory knowledge is considered to impact short-term maintenance of item information in working memory, as opposed to short-term maintenance of serial order information. Evidence supporting an impact of semantic knowledge on serial order maintenance remains weak. In the present study, we demonstrate that semantic knowledge can impact the…