Eye-tracking methodologies have revealed that eye movements and pupil dilations are influenced by our previous experiences. Dynamic fluctuations in pupil size during learning reflect in part the formation of memories for learned information, while viewing behavior during memory testing is influenced by memory retrieval and drawn to previously…

One model of numeric perception is a density-area mechanism: a process that estimates both density and area of an array, then multiplies them to create an estimate of number. One line of evidence that supports this is the surprising numeric Ebbinghaus illusion: smaller context circles lead to greater perceived number than larger context circles,…

Stimulus-response binding and retrieval (SRBR) is a fundamental mechanism driving behavior automatization. In five experiments, we investigated the modulatory role of affective consequences (AC) on SRBR effects to test whether binding/retrieval can explain instrumental learning (i.e., the "law of effect"). SRBR effects were assessed in a…

Remembering facilitates future remembering. This benefit of practicing by active retrieval, as compared to more passive relearning, is known as the testing effect and is one of the most robust findings in the memory literature. It has typically been assessed using verbal materials such as word pairs, sentences, or educational texts. We here…

The process of creative problem-solving (CPS) commonly demands that individuals consciously or unconsciously integrate creative ideas from a vast array of diverse information. Using a masked priming paradigm and the Chinese remote associates test (RAT), this study provides innovative behavioral evidence for the integration of multiple unconscious…

People perform poorly at sighting missing and wanted persons in simulated searches due to attention and face recognition failures. We manipulated participants' expectations of encountering a target person and the within-person variability of the targets' photographs studied in a laboratory-based and a field-based prospective person memory task. We…

Prospective memory (PM) involves remembering to carry out intended actions in the future (e.g., posting a letter on the way to school or passing on a message) and is important for children's independent functioning in daily life. This study examined, for the first time, the effects of incidental reminder cues on children's PM. Five- and 7-year-old…

Background: White noise stimulation has demonstrated efficacy in enhancing working memory in children with ADHD. However, its impact on other executive functions commonly affected by ADHD, such as inhibitory control, remains largely unexplored. This research aims to explore the effects of two types of white noise stimulation on oculomotor…

Mind-wandering (MW) is a universal cognitive process that is estimated to comprise [approximately] 30% of our everyday thoughts. Despite its prevalence, the functional utility of MW remains a scientific blind spot. The present study sought to investigate whether MW serves a functional role in cognition. Specifically, we investigated whether MW…

People with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) often report difficulty remembering information in their everyday lives. Recent findings suggest that such difficulties may be due to PTSD-related deficits in parsing ongoing activity into discrete events, a process called "event segmentation." Here, we investigated the causal…

Previous studies on value-driven attentional capture (VDAC) have demonstrated that the uncertainty of reward value modulates attentional allocation via associative learning. However, it is unclear whether such attentional exploration is executed based on the amount of potential reward information available for refining value prediction or the…

Previous research has mostly approached face recognition and target identification by focusing on face perception mechanisms, but memory mechanisms also appear to play a role. Here, we examined how the presence of a mask interferes with the memory mechanisms involved in face recognition, focusing on the dynamic interplay between encoding and…

During associative retrieval, the brain reinstates neural representations that were present during encoding. The human medial temporal lobe (MTL), with its subregions hippocampus (HC), perirhinal cortex (PRC), and parahippocampal cortex (PHC), plays a central role in neural reinstatement. Previous studies have given compelling evidence for…

Memory decision-making in 26- to 32-month-olds was investigated using visual-paired comparison paradigms, requiring toddlers to select familiar stimuli (Active condition) or view familiar and novel stimuli (Passive condition). In Experiment 1 (N = 108, 54.6% female, 62% White; replication N = 98), toddlers with higher accuracy in the Active…

Spatial navigation is a fundamental cognitive function essential for daily life. Navigation skill assessment predominantly relies on self-reports, with varying accounts regarding their validity. The current study aimed to determine whether performance on an objective visual scene memory recognition ability task could serve as a valid predictor of…