In this evaluation study, we investigated the extent to which Solitaired.com's online game, Solitaire, could be used to model players' performance on several validated cognitive tests commonly associated with mental acuity (i.e., memory and processing speed). Prior research found that Solitaire gameplay is affected by mild cognitive impairment and…

The retro-cue effect (RCE) describes the finding that participants' working memory performance is enhanced when their attention is directed to the to-be-tested position by a spatial cue during the retention interval. Here, we explore the relationship between RCE and working memory consolidation. A sequential display retro-cue paradigm is used for…

Performing two actions at the same time usually results in performance costs. However, recent studies have also reported dual-action benefits: performing only one of two possible actions may necessitate the inhibition of the initially activated, but unwarranted second action, leading to single-action costs. Presumably, two preconditions determine…

Background: This study compared the acute effects of aerobic (AE) and resistance (RE) exercise on reaction time (RT) and working memory (WM) in individuals with intellectual disability. Methods: RT tests and Corsi test for WM were performed before and after three intervention sessions: AE, RE, or control session consisting on watching video.…

The main objective of this methodological article is to discuss the contribution of response times as a tool in education research. The use of response times in research is largely a legacy of the work carried out in cognitive psychology, which has made it possible to describe the cognitive processes involved in information processing. In…

In a typical probabilistic cuing experiment, participants are asked to find a visual target among a series of distractors. Although participants are not informed about this, the target appears more frequently in one region of the display, resulting in faster search times for targets located in this region. This bias is thought to depend on a…

This study explored the impact of oxidation-reduction reaction problem difficulty on university students' cognitive load using event-related potentials (ERPs). Forty-eight balanced low and high difficulty problems were designed. Fifteen undergraduate students majoring in chemistry (8 females and 7 males) participated in the study. Results…

The paper examined the relations among problem solving, automaticity, and working memory load (WML) by changing the difficulty level of task characteristics through two applications. In Study 1, involving 68 engineering students, a 2 (automaticity) x 2 (WML) design was utilized for arithmetic problems. In Study 2, involving 76 engineering…

This study examines the referential context effect on second-language relative clause ambiguity resolution by proficient L1 Chinese learners who learn English as a foreign language (EFL) and investigates whether the ambiguity resolution process is constrained by individuals' working memory capacity (WMC). It presents a self-paced reading study and…

Although working memory (WM) is usually defined as a cognitive system coordinating processing and storage in the short term, in most WM models, memory aspects have been developed more fully than processing systems, and many studies of WM tasks have tended to focus on memory performance. The present study investigated WM functioning without…

Small but robust differences in cognition exist between the sexes in adult populations. Studying sex differences in children's cognition can bring insight into when, where and how these differences might emerge in development. Here, we focus on differences in working memory because of its importance in underpinning a wide range of complex…

We used the timing of serial recall in several situations to reveal important aspects of recall groupings that participants construct and the reasons those groupings occur. We examined the timing of responses in the recall of digit strings within two published experiments. Cowan, Saults, Elliott, and Moreno (2002) examined memory for nine-item…

When individuals read a narrative text, they construct a mental representation known as a situational model to comprehend the unfolding story. These models require updates at meaningful changes in the story to reflect current information accurately. Existing research highlights the attentional and working memory demands of these updating…

Purpose: Emotional processing allows us to predict our own and others' behavior, communicate our wants and needs, and understand those of others. Thus, deficits in emotional processing can negatively impact one's quality of life. While changes in emotional processing across several domains (e.g., prosody, faces) in Parkinson's disease (PD) are…

Previous work with complex memory span tasks, in which simple choice decisions are imposed between presentations of to-be-remembered items, shows that these secondary tasks reduce memory span. It is less clear how reconfiguring and maintaining various amounts of information affects decision speeds. We introduced preliminary "lead-in"…