Using a short-term recognition memory task, the authors evaluated the carryover across trials of 2 types of auditory information: the characteristics of individual study sounds (item information) and the relationships between the study sounds (study set homogeneity). On each trial, subjects heard 2 successive broadband study sounds and then…

Criterion- versus distribution-shift accounts of frequency and strength effects in recognition memory were investigated with Type-2 signal detection receiver operating characteristic (ROC) analysis, which provides a measure of metacognitive monitoring. Experiment 1 demonstrated a frequency-based mirror effect, with a higher hit rate and lower…

Time and distance estimates were elicited with either unit-based (e.g., "How many days until...") or end-based (e.g., "On what date...") questions. For intervals of uncertain extent, unit-based estimates were consistently lower than were the corresponding end-based estimates. The observed patterns are consistent with an anchoring and adjustment…

Seven independent groups estimated the location of North American cities using both spatial and numeric response modes and a variety of perceptual and memory supports. These supports included having location markers for each city color coded by nation and identified by name, giving participants the opportunity to see and update all their estimates…

The transition from algorithmic to memory-based performance is a core component of cognitive skill learning. There has been debate about the temporal dynamics of strategy execution, with some models assuming a race (i.e., independent, capacity unconstrained parallel processing) between algorithm and retrieval, and others assuming a choice…

How can a task-appropriate response be selected for an ambiguous target stimulus in task-switching situations? One answer is to use compound cue retrieval, whereby stimuli serve as joint retrieval cues to select a response from long-term memory. In the present study, the authors tested how well a model of compound cue retrieval could account for a…

The authors investigated whether confidence in causal judgments varies with virtual sample size--the frequency of cases in which the outcome is (a) absent before the introduction of a generative cause or (b) present before the introduction of a preventive cause. Participants were asked to evaluate the influence of various candidate causes on an…

The population of linear experts (POLE) model suggests that function learning and transfer are mediated by activation of a set of prestored linear functions that together approximate the given function (Kalish, Lewandowsky, & Kruschke, 2004). In the extrapolation-association (EXAM) model, an exemplar-based architecture associates trained input…

On the basis of the executive-attention theory of working memory capacity (WMC; e.g., M. J. Kane, A. R. A. Conway, D. Z. Hambrick, & R. W. Engle, 2007), the authors tested the relations among WMC, mind wandering, and goal neglect in a sustained attention to response task (SART; a go/no-go task). In 3 SART versions, making conceptual versus…

According to the principle of relative-strength competition, stronger items in memory block the retrieval of weaker items. This principle, integral to many theories of forgetting over the years, derives much of its support from the list-strength effect (LSE), in which strengthening some items in a study list makes it more difficult to recall other…

The authors compared sublexical and supralexical approaches to morphological processing with unambiguous and ambiguous inflected words and words with ambiguous stems in 3 masked and unmasked priming experiments in Finnish. Experiment 1 showed equal facilitation for all prime types with a short 60-ms stimulus onset asynchrony (SOA) but significant…

The interaction between length and lexical status is one of the key findings used in support of models of reading aloud that postulate a serial process in the orthography-to-phonology translation (B. S. Weekes, 1997). However, proponents of parallel models argue that this effect arises in peripheral visual or articulatory processes. The authors…

Recent studies have suggested that eye movement patterns while viewing scenes differ for people from different cultural backgrounds and that these differences in how scenes are viewed are due to differences in the prioritization of information (background or foreground). The current study examined whether there are cultural differences in how…

A successful theory of conditional reasoning requires an account of how reasoners recognize the pragmatic function a conditional statement is meant to perform. Situations in which it is ambiguous whether a conditional statement was meant to add information or to correct a mistake are discussed in this article. This ambiguity has direct…

Unconscious plagiarism occurs when people try to generate new ideas or when they try to recall their own ideas from among a set generated by a group. In this study, the factors that independently influence these two forms of plagiarism error were examined. Participants initially generated solutions to real-world problems in 2 domains of knowledge…