Evidence for implicit aversive learning effects has been criticized for its lack of experimental rigor and statistical reliability. Here we examine whether attentional emotional responses to aversive conditioned stimuli can occur in the absence of stimulus-outcome contingency awareness, and use a novel Bayesian tool to reliably perform a post hoc…

Twenty-three college students participated in two studies evaluating an application designed to measure stimulus overselectivity in pictures depicting facial affect. We analyzed whether this application worked as designed by evaluating whether it could provide a robust analysis of the types of errors users make (e.g., by matching by the top…

An unresolved issue regarding working memory (WM) processes relates to whether domain-general attentional resources are required to form and store bound representations. Recent evidence suggests that visual WM performance during tasks that require binding of face-scene pairs is disrupted by concurrent divided attention to a greater degree than…

The purpose of this study was to identify the feasibility of using the pupil dilation and heart rate variability (HRV), to diagnose learners' changing cognitive load in a video learning setting. The pupil dilation and HRV of 23 participants were recorded during their learning progress, and the learning materials, including differences in task…

In the Stroop task, color words are presented in colored fonts and the task of the subject is to either name the word or name the color. If the word and font color are in agreement, then the stimulus is said to be congruent (e.g., RED in red font color); however, if the word and font color are not in agreement, the stimulus is said to be…

A frequent observation in dual-task studies is the backward crosstalk effect (BCE), meaning that aspects of a secondary Task 2 influence Task 1 performance. Up to this point, 2 major types of the BCE were investigated: a BCE based on dimensional overlap between both stimuli and/or responses (the compatibility-based BCE), and a BCE based on whether…

Retrieval-induced forgetting (RIF) is the observation that retrieval of target information causes forgetting of related nontarget information. A number of accounts of this phenomenon have been proposed, including a context-shift-based account (Jonker, Seli, & Macleod, 2013). This account proposes that RIF occurs as a result of the context…

In 2 variants of the color-word Stroop task, we compared 5 types of color-neutral distractors--real words (e.g., "HAT"), pseudowords (e.g., "HIX"), consonant strings (e.g., "HDK"), symbol strings (e.g., #$%), and a row of Xs (e.g., "XXX")--as well as incongruent color words (e.g., "GREEN" displayed…

In experiments with univalent target stimuli, task-switching costs can be eliminated if participants are unaware of the task rules and apply cue-target-response associations. However, in experiments with bivalent target stimuli, participants show task-switching costs. Participants may exhibit switch costs even when no task rules are provided in…

The time required to determine the larger of 2 digits decreases with their numerical distance, and, for a given distance, increases with their magnitude (Moyer & Landauer, 1967). One detailed quantitative framework to account for these effects is provided by random walk models. These chronometric models describe how number-related noisy…

Unlike other animals, humans have the unique ability to share and use verbal instructions to prepare for upcoming tasks. Recent research showed that instructions are sufficient for the automatic, reflex-like activation of responses. However, systematic studies into the limits of these automatic effects of task instructions remain relatively…

The metronome is a frequently used time-keeping tool in music instrument practice. However, if its speed is set beyond a comfortable level for the performer, their eye movement (EM) patterns can betray pressure that might have been placed on the visual processing system. The patterns of the eyes moving forward or back, (saccades); when the eye…

Executive functioning deficits found in college students with ASD may have debilitating effects on their everyday activities. Although laboratory studies tend to report unimpaired inhibition in autism, studies of resistance to distractor inhibition reveal difficulties. In two studies, we compared a Virtual Classroom task with paper-and-pencil and…

When people read questions like "How many animals of each kind did Moses take on the ark?", many mistakenly answer "2" despite knowing that Noah sailed the ark. This "Moses illusion" occurs when names share semantic features. Two experiments examined whether shared "visual" concepts (facial features)…

Stimulus-response (S-R) episodes are formed whenever a response is executed in close temporal proximity to a stimulus. Subsequent stimulus repetition will retrieve the episode from memory, reactivating the previous response. Whereas many research findings attest to the flexibility of representing stimulus features, only little is known about the…