Most models of spoken production predict that shorter utterances should be initiated faster than longer ones. However, whether word-length effects in single word production exist is at present controversial. A series of experiments did not find evidence for such an effect. First, an experimental manipulation of word length in picture naming showed…

Using 3 experiments, we examine whether simple pairwise comparison judgments, involving the "recognition heuristic" (Goldstein & Gigerenzer, 2002), are sensitive to implicit cues to the nature of the comparison required. In Experiments 1 and 2, we show that participants frequently choose the recognized option of a pair if asked to make "larger"…

Backward inhibition (BI) is a performance cost that occurs when an individual returns to a task after 1 (vs. more than 1) intervening trial, and it may reflect the inhibition of task-set components during switching. In 3 experiments, we support the theory that inhibition can target cue-based preparatory stages of a task. Participants performed a…

It has been proposed that switch costs in task switching reflect the strengthening of task-related associations and that strengthening is triggered by response execution. The present study tested the hypothesis that only task-related responses are able to trigger strengthening. Effects of task strengthening caused by error corrections were…

On the basis of consistently finding significant overall costs to the ongoing task with a single salient target event, Smith, Hunt, McVay, and McConnell (2007) concluded that preparatory attentional processes are required for prospective remembering and that spontaneous retrieval does not occur. In this article, we argue that overall costs are not…

Task switching requires maintaining readiness to execute any task of a given set of tasks. However, when tasks switch, the readiness to execute the now-irrelevant task generates interference, as seen in the task rule incongruence effect. Overcoming such interference requires fine-tuned inhibition that impairs task readiness only minimally. In an…

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.…

In 3 experiments, subjects named pictures with low- or high-frequency superimposed distractor words. In a 1st experiment, we replicated the finding that low-frequency words induce more interference in picture naming than high-frequency words (i.e., distractor frequency effect; Miozzo & Caramazza, 2003). According to the response exclusion…

Signed languages exploit the visual/gestural modality to create iconic expression across a wide range of basic conceptual structures in which the phonetic resources of the language are built up into an analogue of a mental image (Taub, 2001). Previously, we demonstrated a processing advantage when iconic properties of signs were made salient in a…

Relevance theory (Sperber & Wilson, 1995) suggests that people expend cognitive effort when processing information in proportion to the cognitive effects to be gained from doing so. This theory has been used to explain how people apply their knowledge appropriately when evaluating category-based inductive arguments (Medin, Coley, Storms, & Hayes,…

In 5 experiments, the authors examined the influence of associative information in list-method directed forgetting, using the extralist cuing procedure (Nelson & McEvoy, 2005). Targets were studied in the absence of cues, but during retrieval, related cues were used to test their memory. Experiment 1 manipulated the degree of resonant connections…

We investigated the effects of the duration and type of to-be-articulated distractors during encoding of a verbal list into short-term memory (STM). Distractors and to-be-remembered items alternated during list presentation, as in the complex-span task that underlies much of working-memory research. According to an interference model of STM, known…

Einstein et al. (2005) predicted no cost to an ongoing task when a prospective memory task met certain criteria. Smith, Hunt, McVay, and McConnell (2007) used prospective memory tasks that met these criteria and found a cost to the ongoing task, contrary to Einstein et al.'s prediction. Einstein and McDaniel (2010) correctly noted that there are…

Dynamic adjustments in cognitive control are well documented in conflict tasks, wherein competition from irrelevant stimulus attributes intensifies selection demands and leads to subsequent performance benefits. The current study investigated whether mnemonic demands, in a working memory (WM) task, can drive similar online control modifications.…

In 2 previous studies (O'Brien, Rizzella, Albrecht, & Halleran, 1998; Zwaan & Madden, 2004), researchers have provided conflicting accounts about whether outdated information continues to influence the comprehension of subsequent text. The current set of experiments was designed to explore further the impact of outdated information on…