Recent context-control learning studies have shown that switch costs are reduced in a particular context predicting a high probability of switching as compared to another context predicting a low probability of switching. These context-specific switch probability effects suggest that control of task sets, through experience, can become associated…

Prospective memory (PM) refers to memory for future intentions (e.g. remembering to press a button when you see an animal word). Researchers classify PM intentions in the laboratory as focal or nonfocal primarily in two ways. One way, task-appropriateness, refers to how the processing for the intention relates to the processing required for an…

Four experiments investigated the classic issue in semantic memory of whether people organize categorical information in hierarchies and use inference to retrieve information from them, as proposed by Collins and Quillian (1969). Past evidence has focused on RT to confirm sentences such as "All birds are animals" or "Canaries breathe." However,…

We used a newly developed experimental paradigm to investigate aftereffects of completed intentions on subsequent performance that required the maintenance and execution of new intentions. Participants performed an ongoing number categorization task and an additional prospective memory (PM) task, which required them to respond to PM cues that…

Two experiments examined 3 variables affecting accuracy, response time, and reports of strategy use in a binary classification skill task. In Experiment 1, higher rule cue salience, allowing faster rule application, produced higher aggregate rule use than lower rule cue salience. After participants were pretrained on the relevant classification…

Two voluntary task-switching experiments probed the influence of previous exposures to stimuli and categorizations of these stimuli on task choice during subsequent exposures to the same stimuli. Subjects performed origin and size judgments under standard voluntary task-switching instructions to perform the tasks equally often in a random order.…

Thirty graduate students were asked to produce a type of semantic information; they named psychologists who satisfied certain restrictions. Not only was the speed in responding influenced by the speed in which restrictions were given, but the effect of order differed for advanced and beginning students. (Author/RC)

To what extent does prior knowledge of a superordinate category facilitate recognition of an instance of that category? The results of this study reveal that the facilitating effect of a category prime on perceptual processing is inversely related to the quality of the stimulus information available. (Author/RK)

Subjects learned 24 words from two categories to either a lenient or a stringent criterion and were then tested in an identification task. (Editor)

Students in grades 4, 6, and 8 were required to indicate whether or not a stimulus word belonged in either of two semantic categories that were held in memory. Results indicated that even for the youngest children semantically similar categories required less search time than dissimilar categories. (GO)

Investigates three alternative explanations for why younger children benefit more than older children from the provision of category size information when recalling items from a categorized list. Subjects were 29 kindergarten and 30 third grade children. (MP)

A study examined the effect of variation in category dominance on retrieval latencies (and errors) from semantic memory. Subjects, 66 students enrolled in an introductory psychology course, were required to perform 6 successive retrievals from each of 18 conceptual categories. The six retrievals consisted of two successive blocks of three from…

In a study of individual differences in long-term memory access, university undergraduates verified (1) whether an item was a member of a category; (2) whether two items belonged in the same category; and (3) whether two words had the same name. Reaction times from these tasks were correlated with verbal ability, as measured by performance on a…

The way cognitive, event-related brain potentials (ERPs) can aid in further understanding of memory span change in children is discussed. ERPs are time-dependent changes in electrical activity of the brain (as recorded by scalp electrodes) following the presentation of a physical stimulus through auditory, visual, or somatosensory modalities. The…

Two models are considered for how people verify explicitly quantified sentences. To test the models, three reaction time experiments required subjects to verify statements quantified by some or all. The results show that some-statements took longer to verify than all-statements. (Author/DEP)