Visual working memory (VWM) is an online memory buffer that is typically assumed to be immune to source memory confusions. Accordingly, the few studies that have investigated the role of proactive interference (PI) in VWM tasks found only a modest PI effect at best. In contrast, a recent study has found a substantial PI effect in that performance…

This study examined executive control in sixty-two 5-year-old children who were monolingual or bilingual using behavioral and event-related potentials (ERPs) measures. All children performed equivalently on simple response inhibition (gift delay), but bilingual children outperformed monolinguals on interference suppression and complex response…

Purpose: Increasing evidence suggests that children with specific language impairment (SLI) have a deficit in inhibition control, but research isolating specific abilities is scarce. The goal of this study was to examine whether children with SLI differ from their peers in resistance to proactive interference under different conditions. Method: An…

When people read questions like "How many animals of each kind did Moses take on the ark?", many mistakenly answer "2" despite knowing that Noah sailed the ark. This "Moses illusion" occurs when names share semantic features. Two experiments examined whether shared "visual" concepts (facial features)…

The purpose of this meta-analysis was to examine the relation between mathematics anxiety (MA) and mathematics performance among school-aged students, and to identify potential moderators and underlying mechanisms of such relation, including grade level, temporal relations, difficulty of mathematical tasks, dimensions of MA measures, effects on…

In a Yes/No object recognition memory test with similar lures, older adults typically exhibit elevated rates of false recognition. However, the contributions of impaired retrieval, relative to reduced availability of target details, are difficult to disentangle using such a test. The present investigation sought to decouple these factors by…

Event-based prospective memory (PM) is the ability to remember to perform an intention in response to an environmental cue. Recent microstructure models postulate four distinguishable stages of successful event-based PM fulfillment. That is, (a) the event must be noticed, (b) the intention must be retrieved, (c) the context must be verified, and…

Selective sustained attention is vital for higher order cognition. Although endogenous and exogenous factors influence selective sustained attention, assessment of the degree to which these factors influence performance and learning is often challenging. We report findings from the Track-It task, a paradigm that aims to assess the contribution of…

Proactive interference (PI) refers to the finding that memory for recently studied (target) information can be vastly impaired by the previous study of other (nontarget) information. PI can be reduced in a number of ways, for instance, by directed forgetting of the prior nontarget information, the testing of the prior nontarget information, or an…

Purpose: The purpose of this study was to determine differences in cognition between acute bouts of resistance exercise, aerobic exercise, and a nonexercise control in an untrained youth sample. Method: Ninety-four participants performed 30 min of aerobic exercise, resistance exercise, or nonexercise separated by 7 days each in a randomized…

Background: Many adults who stutter presenting for speech treatment experience social anxiety disorder. The presence of mental health disorders in adults who stutter has been implicated in a failure to maintain speech treatment benefits. Contemporary theories of social anxiety disorder propose that the condition is maintained by negative…

The complicated cognitive processes involved in natural (primary) bilingualism lead to significant cognitive development. Executive functions as a fundamental component of human cognition are deemed to be affected by language learning. To date, a large number of studies have investigated how natural (primary) bilingualism influences executive…

The present research examines the nature of the different processes that have been proposed to underlie semantic priming. Specifically, it has been argued that priming arises as a result of "automatic target activation" and/or the use of strategies like prospective "expectancy generation" and "retrospective semantic…

The mechanism responsible for retrieval-induced forgetting has been the subject of rigorous theoretical debate, with some researchers postulating that retrieval-induced forgetting can be explained by interference (J. G .W. Raaijmakers & E. Jakab, 2013) or context reinstatement (T. R. Jonker, P. Seli, & C. M. MacLeod, 2013), whereas others…

Classic theories emphasized the role of expectations in the intentional control of attention and action. However, recent theorizing has implicated experience-dependent, online adjustments as the primary basis for cognitive control--adjustments that appear to be implicit (Blais, Harris, Guerrero, & Bunge, 2012). The purpose of the current study…