Actions can enhance memory, exemplified by the enactment effect. In a typical experiment, participants hear a series of simple action phrases (e.g., "bounce the ball"), which they either carry out (subject-performed tasks, or SPTs), watch the experimenter carry out (experimenter-performed tasks, EPTs), or simply listen to (verbal tasks,…

A major question for the study of learning and memory is how to tailor learning experiences to promote knowledge that generalizes to new situations. In two experiments, we used category learning as a representative domain to test two factors thought to influence the acquisition of conceptual knowledge: the number of training examples (set size)…

For nearly half a century now, Garner interference has been serving as the gold standard measure of dimensional interaction and selective attention. But the mechanisms that generate Garner interference are still not well understood. The current study proposes a novel theory that ascribes the interference (and dimensional interaction in general) to…

A classic issue in the cognitive psychology of human category learning has involved the contrast between exemplar and prototype models. However, experimental tests to distinguish the models have relied almost solely on use of artificially-constructed categories composed of simplified stimuli. Here we contrast the predictions from the models in a…

Language is used in communicative contexts to identify and successfully transmit new information that should be later remembered. In three studies, we used question-answer pairs, a naturalistic device for focusing information, to examine how properties of conversations inform later item memory. In Experiment 1, participants viewed three pictures…

Knowing what one knows and accurately monitoring one's own capacities and performance on a moment-to-moment basis are important determinants of task success. Individual differences in such metacognitive monitoring are well documented, but what determines an individual's monitoring accuracy in a particular context is yet to be fully understood. One…

Mounting evidence suggests that monetary reward induces an incidentally learned selection bias toward highly rewarded features. It remains controversial, however, whether learning of reward regularities has similar effects on spatial attention. Here we ask whether spatial biases toward highly rewarded locations are learned implicitly, or are…

Existing research shows that the order in which evidence arrives can bias its evaluation and the resulting decision in favor of information encountered early on. We used eye-tracking to study the underlying cognitive mechanisms in the context of incentivized financial choices based on real world market data. Subjects learned about the…

We test empirically the strategic counterpart of the Adaptive Decision Maker hypothesis (Payne, Bettman, & Johnson, 1993), which states that decision makers adapt their attention and decision rules to time pressure in predictable ways. For 29 normal form games, we test whether players adapt to tightening time constraints by reducing their…

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…

When correcting a common misconception, it seems likely that for corrective feedback to be effective, it needs to be believed. In 2 experiments, we assessed how participants' belief in the validity of corrective feedback regarding individual misconceptions influenced knowledge revision. After responding about the validity of a set of…

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…

We implemented NSF-funded computerized Experimental Psychology Laboratories at Touro College and incorporated process-oriented guided-inquiry learning (POGIL). We designed POGIL modules for the labs and conducted workshops for faculty on the implementation of the guided-inquiry approach, including learning teams. Data were collected from students…

There is much evidence that the prospect of reward modulates cognitive control in terms of more stable behavior. Increases in expected reward magnitude, however, have been suggested to increase flexible behavior as evidenced by reduced switch costs. In a series of experiments, the authors provide evidence that this increased cognitive flexibility…

The recognition heuristic (RH) theory predicts that, in comparative judgment tasks, if one object is recognized and the other is not, the recognized one is chosen. The memory-state heuristic (MSH) extends the RH by assuming that choices are not affected by recognition judgments per se, but by the memory states underlying these judgments (i.e.,…