We leveraged nationally representative data from the Panel study of Income Dynamics-Child Development Supplement (N = 3,562) and the Early Childhood Longitudinal study (N = 18,174), to chart the development of working memory, indexed via verbal forward and backward digit span task performance, from 3 to 19 years of age. Results revealed nonlinear…

In an appeal to establish transformative learning's (TL) boundaries, Kegan (2000) implored researchers to identify "what from transforms?" As a social psychologist, I am particularly drawn to theorists who identify the self as the form that transforms; however, I argue that a model of the self that specifies how it is represented in…

We explored a two-stage recognition memory paradigm in which people first make single-item "studied"/"not studied" decisions and then have a chance to correct their errors in forced-choice trials. Each forced-choice trial included one studied word ("target") and one nonstudied word ("lure") that received the…

A classic issue in the cognitive psychology of human category learning has involved the contrast between exemplar and prototype models. However, experimental tests to distinguish the models have relied almost solely on use of artificially-constructed categories composed of simplified stimuli. Here we contrast the predictions from the models in a…

Slamecka and McElree (1983) and Rivera-Lares et al. (2022), like others before them, factorially manipulated the number of learning trials and the retention interval. The results revealed two unsurprising main effects: (a) the more study trials, the higher the initial degree of learning, and (b) the longer the retention interval, the more items…

Reinstating the olfactory learning context can increase access to memory information, but it is not fully clear which memory functions are subject to an enhancing odor context reinstatement effect. Here, we tested whether congruent odor context during encoding and recall positively affected declarative and nondeclarative memory scores using a…

Virtual faces have been found to be rated less human-like and remembered worse than photographic images of humans. What it is in virtual faces that yields reduced memory has so far remained unclear. The current study investigated face memory in the context of virtual agent faces and human faces, real and manipulated, considering two factors of…

This paper examines the possibilities and limitations of introducing simulated experiments in the psychology domain by practicing a course with graduate students in psychology, in which simulated experiments were conducted in place of real human experiments. The class-learning object was the dual-storage model of human memory. The simulation…

Studies of reconsolidation interference posit that reactivation of a previously consolidated memory via a reminder brings it into an active, labile state, leaving it open for potential manipulation. If interfered with, this may disrupt the original memory trace. While evidence for pharmacological reconsolidation interference is widespread, it…

It is widely known that test anxiety (TA) is associated with a decrease in test scores. The objective of this study is to provide evidence of the existence of two paths through which TA affects test scores: an indirect path that is associated with the mediation of the updating efficiency and a direct path moderated by the putting into perspective…

When memories of past rewarding experiences are distorted, are relevant decision-making preferences impacted? Although recent research has demonstrated the important role of episodic memory in value-based decision making, very few have examined the role of false memory in guiding novel decision making. The current study combined the pictorial…

Purpose: The purpose of this study was to investigate the effectiveness of a self-administered naming treatment for one individual, B.N., presenting with semantic variant primary progressive aphasia (svPPA) and a history of traumatic brain injury (TBI). Method: Naming treatment included components of Lexical Retrieval Cascade Treatment and was…

Some theories have proposed that autistic individuals have difficulty learning predictive relationships. We tested this hypothesis using a serial reaction time task in which participants learned to predict the locations of a repeating sequence of target locations. We conducted a large-sample online study with 61 autistic and 71 neurotypical…

This study examined the associations between excessive alcohol intake during adolescence and neurocognitive functioning in young adulthood and whether these relations varied by sex. Participants were working-class Chilean adolescents (N = 692; M[subscript age] 16.0 years; 54.5% female) who provided frequency of past 30-day bingeing and past-year…

Across three separate investigations, this dissertation documents work examining the role of higher-order processes and cognitive effort during the top-down compensatory repair of degraded speech, specifically perceptual restoration. Perceptual restoration is a phenomenon where a listener can perceptually restore or repair speech…