The ability to navigate in a familiar environment depends on both an intact mental representation of allocentric spatial information and the integrity of systems supporting complementary egocentric representations. Although the hippocampus has been implicated in learning new allocentric spatial information, converging evidence suggests that the…

Recent models in spatial cognition posit that distinct memory systems are responsible for maintaining transient and enduring spatial relations. The authors used perspective-taking performance to assess the presence of these enduring and transient spatial memories for locations encoded through verbal descriptions. Across 3 experiments, spatial…

Two experiments are reported that use patients with visual extinction to examine how visual attention is influenced by action information in images. In Experiment 1 patients saw images of objects that were either correctly or incorrectly colocated for action, with the objects held by hands that were congruent or incongruent with those used…

A number of computational models have been developed over the last 2 decades that are remarkably successful at explaining the process of translating print into sound. Nevertheless, 2 of the most successful computational accounts on the table fail to simulate the results from factorial experiments reported in this article in which university…

Finding an object in our environment is an important human ability that also represents a critical component of human foraging behavior. One type of information that aids efficient large-scale search is the likelihood of the object being in one location over another. In this study we investigated the conditions under which individuals respond to…

This work explores the influence of motivation on choice behavior in a dynamic decision-making environment, where the payoffs from each choice depend on one's recent choice history. Previous research reveals that participants in a regulatory fit exhibit increased levels of exploratory choice and flexible use of multiple strategies over the course…

One of the most important open questions in reasoning research is how inductive reasoning and deductive reasoning are related. In an effort to address this question, we applied methods and concepts from memory research. We used 2 experiments to examine the effects of logical validity and premise-conclusion similarity on evaluation of arguments.…

Disjunction fallacies have been extensively studied in probability judgment. They should also occur in episodic memory, if remembering a cue's episodic state depends on how its state is described on a memory test (e.g., being described as a target vs. as a distractor). If memory is description-dependent, cues will be remembered as occupying…

Current theories of text processing say little about how authors' narrative choices, including the introduction of small mysteries, can affect readers' narrative experiences. Gerrig, Love, and McKoon (2009) provided evidence that 1 type of small mystery--a character introduced without information linking him or her to the story--affects readers'…

Two event-related brain potential experiments were conducted to investigate whether there is a functional primacy of syntactic structure building over semantic processes during Chinese sentence reading. In both experiments, we found that semantic interpretation proceeded despite the impossibility of a well-formed syntactic analysis. In Experiment…

Two experiments tested whether differences in problem-solving strategies influence the ability of people to monitor their problem-solving effectiveness as measured by confidence judgments. On multiple choice problems, people tend to use either a constructive matching strategy, whereby they attempt to solve a problem before looking at the response…

In 8 recognition experiments, we investigated the "production effect"--the fact that producing a word aloud during study, relative to simply reading a word silently, improves explicit memory. Experiments 1, 2, and 3 showed the effect to be restricted to within-subject, mixed-list designs in which some individual words are spoken aloud at study.…

Recent efforts have been made to elucidate the commonly observed link between working memory and reasoning ability. The results have been inconsistent, with some work suggesting that the emphasis placed on retrieval from secondary memory by working memory tests is the driving force behind this association (Mogle, Lovett, Stawski, & Sliwinski,…

Testing spatial memory within the same environment used for learning produces interference between one's immediate representation of current position and the to-be-retrieved position. In a series of 3 experiments, we show that "current position" and its influence on memory performance can be driven by conceptual factors in an ambiguous testing…

This study investigates whether the use of a spacing strategy absolutely improves final performance, even when the learner had chosen, metacognitively, to mass. After making judgments of learning, adult and child participants chose to mass or space their study of word pairs. However, 1/3 of their choices were dishonored. That is, they were forced…