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…

Reasoning about verbal analogies requires selective retrieval of relevant relational information. A consequence of this may be that inhibitory processes in memory cause reduced recall of information associated with analogy-irrelevant relations. The current experiments apply the retrieval-induced forgetting framework to investigate the potential…

In the present study, we examined how the relevance of potentially distracting information modulates the interplay of target and distractor processing in conflict tasks. Specifically, we manipulated the degree to which distracting information is relevant for performing the overall task by varying the proportion of trials in which a response to the…

List-method directed forgetting usually involves asking people to study a list, followed by a cue to forget it, and then studying a second list. Prior work suggests that List 2 encoding is necessary for directed forgetting to occur, but recent studies have found that moving the forget cue from List 1 to List 2 allows people to selectively forget…

Unlike other visual objects which are invariant to the left-right orientation, mirror letters (e.g., b and d) represent different object identities. Previous masked priming lexical decision studies have suggested that the identification of a mirror letter involves suppression of its mirror image counterpart reporting as evidence that a pseudoword…

How working memory supports dual-task performance is the focus of a long-standing debate. Most previous research on this topic has focused on participant performance data. In three experiments, we investigated whether changes in participant-reported strategies across single- and dual-task conditions might help resolve this debate by offering new…

The impact of bilingualism on the executive functioning constructs of inhibition, shifting, and updating remains unclear, with prior findings yielding inconsistent results. Several explanations for the lack of congruency have been suggested, including the dependence on observed variables, the impact of test modality on performance, and the need to…

The phenomenological experience of lexical retrieval often involves repeated, active attempts to retrieve phonologically and/or semantically related information. However, the influence of these multiple retrieval attempts on subsequent lexical retrieval is presently unknown. We investigated the influence of passively viewing or actively retrieving…

Post-error cognitive control processes are evident in post-error slowing (PES) and post-error increased accuracy (PIA). A recent theory (Wessel, 2018) proposes that post-error control disrupts not only ongoing motor activity but also current task-set representations, suggesting an interdependence of post-error control and memory. In 2 experiments,…

For the most part, the effects of lexical-distributional properties of words on visual word recognition are well-established. More uncertainty remains, however, about the influence of these properties on lexical processing for nonwords. The work presented here investigates the mechanisms that guide nonword processing through an analysis of lexical…

Studies of switching between tasks and studies of error commission have both provided solid behavioral measures of executive control. Nonetheless, a gap remains between these strands of research. In three experiments we sought to reduce this gap by assessing the impact of task errors on N-2 repetition costs, an effect supposedly related to…

Collaborative inhibition (reduced recall in collaborative vs. nominal groups) is a robust phenomenon. However, it is possible that not everyone is as susceptible to collaborative inhibition, such as those higher in working memory capacity (WMC). In the current study, we examined the relationship between WMC and collaborative inhibition.…

Numerous studies of retrieval-induced forgetting have shown that the selective retrieval of some studied items can impair recall of other nonretrieved items. Varying the lag between study and selective retrieval and using lists of unrelated items as study material, recent work replicated this detrimental effect when the lag between study and…

We used a technique known as reach tracking to investigate how individual differences in working memory capacity (WMC) relate to the functioning of two processes proposed to underlie cognitive control: a threshold adjustment process that temporarily inhibits motor output in response to signals of conflict and a controlled selection process that…

It was shown previously that observers can learn to exploit an uneven spatial distribution of singleton distractors to better shield visual search from distractors in the frequent versus the rare region (i.e., distractor location probability cueing; Sauter, Liesefeld, Zehetleitner, & Müller, 2018). However, with distractors defined in the same…