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…

It is a prevailing theoretical claim that path integration is the primary means of developing global spatial representations. However, this claim is at odds with reported difficulty to develop global spatial representations of a multiscale environment using path integration. The current study tested a new hypothesis that locally similar but…

In second language acquisition, a popular method of introducing new vocabulary is by embedding the words in a natural text. Supplementary information (e.g., definitions, illustrations, synonyms, etc.), or glosses, can be included in the margins of the texts to highlight and improve retention of the new words. Previous studies suggest multimodal…

Dividing attention (DA) between a memory task and a secondary task results in deficits in memory performance across a wide array of memory tasks, but these effects are larger when DA occurs at encoding than at retrieval. Although some research suggests the effects of DA are equal for item and associative memory, thereby suggesting that DA disrupts…

When our experience violates our predictions, it is adaptive to update our knowledge to promote a more accurate representation of the world and facilitate future predictions. Theoretical models propose that these mnemonic prediction errors should be encoded into a distinct memory trace to prevent interference with previous, conflicting memories.…

Ancient as well as modern writers have promoted the idea that bizarre images enhance memory. Research has documented bizarreness effects, with one standard technique finding that sentences describing unusual, implausible, or bizarre scenarios are better remembered than sentences describing plausible, every day, or common scenarios. Not…

According to several computational models, novel items can create a learning mode with dynamics favorable to new learning, and not to memory retrieval. In line with that idea, a new item in a recognition test has been found to create a bias toward calling subsequent items new as well. Here, we tested whether this bias, which we termed the…

In 8 experiments, we investigated motion fluency effects on object preference. In each experiment, distinct objects were repeatedly seen moving either fluently (with a smooth and predictable motion) or disfluently (with sudden and unpredictable direction changes) in a task where participants were required to respond to occasional brief changes in…

Previous studies have reported contradictory findings regarding the effects of item repetition on the subsequent encoding of contextual details associated with items (i.e., source memory). Whereas some studies reported repetition-induced enhancement in source memory, other studies observed repetition-induced impairment. To resolve these…

How are scene representations stored in memory? Researchers have often posited that scene representations have a hierarchical structure with background elements providing a scaffold for more detailed foreground elements. To further investigate scene representation and the role of background and foreground information, we introduced a new stimulus…

Emotional intelligence (EI) refers to a set of competencies to process, understand, and reason with affective information. Recent studies suggest ability measures of experiential and strategic EI differentially predict performance on non-emotional and emotionally laden tasks. To explore cognitive processes underlying these abilities further, we…

Cognitive control describes the ability to use internal goals to strategically guide how we process and respond to our environment. Changes in the environment lead to adaptation in control strategies. This type of control learning can be observed in performance adjustments in response to varying proportions of easy to hard trials over blocks of…

Attribute amnesia (Chen & Wyble, 2015, 2016) demonstrates that we may not always be able to spontaneously retrieve a simple attribute of a visual object (e.g., its color) for conscious report, even though the object had just been the target in a visual task. Attribute amnesia has been suggested to reflect a lack of consolidation of the…

The typical pattern of results in divided attention experiments is that subjects in a full attention (FA) condition perform markedly better on tests of memory than subjects in a divided attention (DA) condition which forces subjects to split their attention between studying to-be-remembered stimuli and completing some peripheral task.…

In prospective memory (PM) research, costs (slowed responding to the ongoing task when a PM task is present relative to when it is not) have typically been interpreted as implicating an attentionally demanding monitoring process. To inform this interpretation, Heathcote, Loft, and Remington (2015), using an accumulator model, found that PM-related…