Arithmetic computation is ubiquitous in daily life and occurs in both visual and auditory modalities. Visual form matching, as a key visual perceptual ability, serves as an important cognitive basis for arithmetic ability, but its role in auditory arithmetic tasks remains unclear. The primary aim of this study was to examine whether the association between visual form matching and arithmetic processing is influenced by the presentation modality. A sample of 241 undergraduates from China (109 males, 132 females, M age = 21.49, SD = 2.37) participated in the study. Participants completed seven tasks, including arithmetic tasks presented visually and auditorily, a visual figure matching task, an auditory tone matching task, and additional cognitive tasks assessing mental rotation, choice reaction time, and nonverbal matrix reasoning. Results indicated that visual form matching was significantly associated with arithmetic performance in both visual and auditory presentation formats. These relationships remained significant after controlling for age, gender, and general cognitive factors. In contrast, auditory tone matching showed no significant association with arithmetic performance in either presentation modality. These findings indicate that the link between visual form matching and arithmetic performance is independent of the sensory modality of input, suggesting that bimodal arithmetic processing relies more on cross-modal shared symbolic representation processing or mental imagery mechanisms than on a modality-specific perceptual system.
Virtual reality has become popular in sport and other domains because it can immerse the user within a sporting context and solve logistical problems for additional off-field training. There is limited evidence, however, of whether immersion is crucial for learning and transfer. This study compared training of decision-making skill between 360-degree video virtual reality (360VR) and two-dimensional video. Twenty-eight Australian Rules Football players were randomly assigned to one of three training groups: 360VR, two-dimensional video, and control. Across four weeks, participants in the training groups were exposed to decision-making scenarios consisting of visual, contextual and auditory cues. Performance was assessed pre- and post-training with virtual reality and field-based decision-making tests. Results indicated that the two-dimensional video training group showed significantly superior decision-making in the field-based transfer test compared to 360VR and control groups post intervention. There was also indication that two-dimensional video training was superior to the control post intervention in the virtual reality test. Findings indicate that immersion created in virtual reality is not an underpinning mechanism for learning and transfer, rather the use of perceptual information is crucial. 360VR may facilitate uptake through engagement, but two-dimensional video is adequate for learning and transfer of decision-making to the field.
Task-switching studies often report minimal age-related differences in switch costs, leading to the conclusion that switching-related control processes are relatively preserved in aging. However, this conclusion is based on paradigms that confound preparatory and execution processes. This study examined whether age-related differences in semantic task-set reconfiguration may be underestimated due to this confound. In Experiment 1 (36 young and 30 older adults), participants performed an externally paced task-switching paradigm without control over preparation. In Experiment 2 (28 young and 28 older adults), a self-paced paradigm allowed participants to initiate stimulus onset, enabling measurement of preparation time. Across both experiments, reaction time (RT) and error rate (ER) showed reliable age effects but no interactions between age and condition, whereas switching-related condition effects varied across measures and experiments. The expression of switching-related costs differed across measures and task structures. Local switch costs were expressed in ER in Experiment 1 but in RT in Experiment 2. Global switch costs (all-switch vs. all-repeat) were observed in execution measures only in Experiment 1. In Experiment 2, preparation time showed reliable mixing, local, and global switching effects, with age-related amplification emerging specifically for global switching. These findings indicate that switching-related costs are redistributed across processing stages and behavioral measures. The results suggest that age-related modulation of semantic task-set reconfiguration may emerge more clearly during preparation than task execution, particularly under continuous switching demands. Preparation time is interpreted cautiously as reflecting participant-regulated preparatory processes rather than a pure measure of preparation efficiency.
Sense of Agency (SoA) refers to the subjective experience of control over one’s actions and their outcomes. Although agency-related action–outcome processes have been shown to influence attention, memory, and learning, it remains unclear whether the reliability of action-linked perceptual consequences shapes contextual learning. The present study examined whether contextual cueing—a form of learning in which repeated spatial layouts facilitate visual search—is modulated by two aspects of the action–outcome context. Experiment 1 compared a Free-Control condition, in which responses immediately terminated the search display, with a Constrained-Control condition, in which display offset was externally determined. Contextual cueing developed more strongly when responses reliably produced display offset. Experiment 2 tested whether configuration-specific contingencies between responses and subsequent visual outcomes modulate contextual learning. Contextual cueing was larger when old displays were more reliably followed by a response-triggered visual outcome, even though the overall frequency of such outcomes was held constant across sessions. Together, the findings provide preliminary evidence that contextual learning is sensitive to the reliability of action-linked perceptual consequences. Reliable response–effect relations and configuration-specific outcome contingencies may support the updating and stabilization of context–target associations across repeated encounters.
This study examines subtle dynamic facial expression recognition and associated metacognitive awareness, and how these cognitive processes are modulated by Sensory Processing Sensitivity (SPS). Participants (n = 127) completed a dynamic subtle expression categorization task featuring stimuli that displayed only the initial phase of emotional unfolding of full-blown dynamic expressions. Four expressions were included: happy, fearful, angry, and neutral, and participants categorized them using a three-choice format comprising happy, fearful, and angry. Results showed that happiness was recognized most accurately, followed by fear and anger. Higher SPS, as measured by the Highly Sensitive Person Scale (HSPS), predicted greater accuracy in recognizing all three emotional categories, suggesting enhanced sensitivity to both positive (happy) and negative (fearful, angry) affective cues. Additionally, an overconfidence bias was observed selectively for fearful expressions. This bias was attenuated as SPS level increased, suggesting greater metacognitive awareness for fear among individuals with high SPS, whereas metacognitive awareness for happy and angry expressions was observed across all participants. These effects remained significant after controlling for Neuroticism, suggesting that refined emotional perception is a distinct feature of SPS. Together, these findings provide empirical support for both perceptual and metacognitive refinement in emotion recognition among highly sensitive individuals. Such heightened sensitivity to subtle emotional cues may underpin their greater empathy and prosocial behaviour, while also contributing to their susceptibility to social and emotional overload.
Mind wandering is frequently associated with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) symptoms in adults, yet the precise nature of this relationship remains unclear. The current study applied an approach from mind-wandering research to the context of ADHD by distinguishing between remembered mind wandering, defined as explicitly recalling off-task thought content, and subjective feelings of inattention, defined as sensing that one’s attention was off task without recalling specific thoughts. We investigated how these distinct aspects of off-task experience relate to ADHD symptomatology, well-being, impairment, and sustained-attention performance. Participants from university and online ADHD communities completed the Sustained Attention to Response Task (SART) with thought probes assessing remembered mind wandering and subjective inattention, along with measures of ADHD symptoms, well-being, and impairment. Results showed partially separable patterns of association: subjective feelings of inattention were associated with inattentive symptoms, well-being, impairment, and poorer SART performance, whereas remembered mind wandering was associated primarily with hyperactive–impulsive symptoms. These findings suggest that the association between mind wandering and ADHD depends on how off-task experience is defined and measured. More broadly, they highlight the importance of distinguishing metacognitive judgments about attentional state from reports of thought content when evaluating mind wandering, because reports of being off task may not always imply access to identifiable task-unrelated thoughts. By separating attentional state from accessible thought content, the present study helps clarify the complex relationship between mind wandering and ADHD and points to a broader measurement issue in research on inattention and off-task thought.
Artificial faces are frequently used in research on perception, attention, working memory, and long-term memory. Although artificial faces offer advantages in terms of standardization, time, and cost, people tend to recognize real human faces more accurately than artificial faces in long-term memory tasks. However, there is no direct comparison of working memory performance between human and artificial faces. This study aims to examine the effect of artificial faces on working memory performance. Additionally, the study investigated the effects of the emotional valence of facial stimuli and the cognitive load of the task on working memory performance. Forty-five adults (18–36 years) completed an n-back task with two conditions: human faces and computer-generated versions of the same identities (artificial faces). Working-memory load was manipulated at two levels (1-back and 2-back), and emotional valence was varied across three levels (neutral, happy, and angry). Sensitivity (d’) and reaction times served as dependent measures to examine the effects of stimulus type, cognitive load, and emotional valence on working-memory performance. Results showed that sensitivity was lower and reaction times were longer for artificial faces compared to the real faces. Moreover, performance decreased as cognitive load increased, whereas the effect of emotional valence was not statistically significant. These findings suggest that artificial faces are processed less efficiently not only in long-term memory but also in working-memory. The results are discussed within the context of the face-space model and the other-race effect.
Information representations in working memory (WM) decay rapidly over time. Although phonological rehearsal partially compensates for this decay of memory traces, the extent to which WM updating benefits from linguistic knowledge and whether this benefit is independent of phonological rehearsal strategies remains unclear. This study addressed this question using two progressive experiments. Experiment 1 employed a verbal N-back task (1-back and 2-back) to compare WM updating performance between real and pseudo-characters. Results showed that real characters elicited significantly shorter reaction times than pseudo-characters in the 2-back task, with no difference observed in the low-load 1-back task. This indicates that task load modulates the facilitating effect of linguistic knowledge. Experiment 2 disrupted phonological rehearsal ability through forced numerical repetition, after which the performance between stimulus types was compared. Results showed that real characters demonstrated higher accuracy than pseudo-characters in 1-back and 2-back tasks, confirming the memory stability advantage of linguistic knowledge. Additionally, real characters exhibited shorter reaction times than pseudo-characters in the 2-back task. The facilitating effect of Chinese language knowledge on WM updating is not entirely dependent on phonological rehearsal strategy. This finding reveals that knowledge representations (particularly semantic knowledge) serve as key modulators of WM updating, offering new insights and empirical support for refining WM theories. Public significance statement. This study explored how linguistic knowledge affected working memory (WM) updating during Chinese-character processing. This indicates that familiar characters boost memory performance under a high cognitive load, even when phonological rehearsals are disrupted. This finding reveals that knowledge representations are key modulators of WM updating, offering new insights and empirical support for refining WM theories.
Retrieval-induced forgetting (RIF) refers to the phenomenon whereby selectively retrieving some information impairs later recall of related, non-retrieved information, often interpreted as reflecting inhibitory control processes during memory retrieval. Recent work suggested that acute aerobic exercise performed between repeated memory tests may preserve the RIF effect over time. The present study sought to directly replicate and extend this finding using a larger and more controlled experimental design. Healthy young adults (N = 372) completed a standard category-exemplar RIF task involving selective retrieval practice followed by two final test assessments. Between the two tests, participants were randomly assigned to one of five conditions that manipulated exercise exposure, duration, and order (exercise, standing control, or combined sequences). Exercise was performed on a treadmill at vigorous intensity (80
Evidence suggests that the processing of graspable object nouns elicits specific motor programs related to potential hand-object interactions. Notably, adjectives specifying manipulative features of these objects are integrated into this sensorimotor representation. In the present study, three experiments were conducted to explore the impact of spatial adjectives denoting the position of the object in space on the sensorimotor representation of graspable object nouns. We used a reach-to-grasp compatibility task, in which participants had to categorize object nouns as artifact or natural, by performing either a power or a precision reach-to-grasp movement matching or not the typical grip associated with the object. On each trial the object noun was presented with a second word specifying the location of the object in space (e.g. near vs. far). In addition, using the same task, we explore also the impact of a different class of words on the object sensorimotor representation that are spatial demonstratives (i.e., this and that) In all experiments, a reliable grasp compatibility effect emerged. The grasp-compatibility effect was modulated differentially by spatial adjectives and spatial demonstratives, revealing not only that both elements are integrated into the noun sensorimotor representation, but also that these different word categories lead to different spatial representations of the object during the semantic processing of object-related words combinations.
Most research on attentional biases towards emotional information has been conducted in the visual modality. There are theoretical debates about whether attentional processes generalize across nonverbal modalities (e.g., facial vs. vocal), but no research has directly compared how emotional faces and voices capture attentional resources. The current study compared response time-based measures of attentional bias to emotional expressions in facial and vocal dot-probe tasks. Participants (18–63 years old; 52
Vierordt's law is a well-established phenomenon in time perception research, describing systematic biases where long durations tend to be underestimated while short durations tend to be overestimated. The present study investigated whether these central tendency biases extend to temporal memory and examined how emotional context influences such estimation biases. Through three experiments employing pictorial and textual stimuli, we assessed the accuracy of temporal distance and position memories. Consistent with Vierordt's law, we found robust regression-toward-the-mean biases across all experiments: items near the beginning of a sequence were remembered as having occurred later than they did, while items near the end were remembered as having occurred earlier; short inter-item distances were overestimated and long distances underestimated. Trial-level linear mixed-effects models using participants' subjective valence ratings as a continuous predictor revealed that emotional valence did not reliably modulate the central tendency bias in Experiments 1a (images, blocked design) or 1b (words, blocked design). In Experiment 2, which employed a mixed-list design and collected trial-level confidence ratings, confidence robustly attenuated the central tendency bias across both temporal memory measures, whereas emotional valence did not produce a robust modulation of this bias. Overall, the central tendency bias in temporal memory proved highly replicable across stimulus types and designs, whereas emotional modulation was minimal. Our findings extend the scope of Vierordt's law to quasi-retrospective temporal memory and highlight the role of memory confidence in shaping temporal reconstruction.
Although vision is inherently three-dimensional, depth has often been overlooked in the literature on selective attention. The present study examined how perceptual load modulates attentional selection in depth. Fifty participants took part in the study, which was conducted in virtual reality, a recently emerging technique offering precise experimental control of depth. The target always appeared in the middle plane, and the distractor could appear either in the same plane as the target, in front of it, or behind it. The perceptual load was manipulated by defining Go/No-go cues on the basis of either a single feature (low load) or a conjunction of features (high load). The results revealed that under low load, distractors in the front and same planes interfered with performance, whereas distractors in the back plane did not, which is consistent with a viewer-centered attentional gradient. Under high load, distractor interference was eliminated across all depth planes. These findings suggest that increased perceptual load is associated with reduced distractor interference regardless of the distractor’s depth plane, although the mechanism underlying this effect remains to be clarified. Overall, these results provide initial evidence for extending Perceptual Load Theory to three-dimensional contexts and highlight the importance of considering depth in models of selective attention. While we live in a three-dimensional world, most research on attention has focused on flat, two-dimensional displays. Our findings suggest that task demands can influence how much interference is produced by information located in irrelevant planes. These results have practical implications in the design of visual interfaces, virtual and augmented reality systems, and safety-critical environments (e.g., for driving or air-traffic control) where efficient focus and distraction management are essential.
Selection history is traditionally characterized as a rigid and automated habit that persists regardless of current goals. Although recent research suggests that explicit goals can modulate this process, the mechanisms underlying this flexibility and its acquisition conditions remain poorly understood. Across two experiments using simple geometric shapes, the present study examined the joint modulatory effects of explicit goals and training variability on spatial probability learning. Experiment 1 demonstrated that explicit goals can directly activate the spatial priority map, ruling out confounds based on long-term semantic associations. Crucially, this modulation was found to be highly target-specific, as the spatial bias vanished immediately when the explicit cue was removed. Experiment 2 investigated the acquisition of this flexibility through the lens of the Contextual Interference effect. We found that training format played a highly influential role: In Experiment 2 A (Interleaved training), where background colors switched randomly across trials, participants successfully established a robust, flexible “context-goal” mapping. However, in Experiment 2B (Blocked training), participants failed to transfer the learned bias to a dynamic test phase, despite showing strong effects during learning. These results suggest that flexibility is not inherent to probability cueing but is learned. Establishing a robust Contextual Gating mechanism requires high-variability training that forces active strategy retrieval, whereas low-variability training yields only fragile biases dependent on passive priming. These findings support a conditional automaticity account of selection history.
Recent studies highlight the importance of early executive functioning (EF); notwithstanding, these studies remain limited due to methodological difficulties. The A-not-B task has been adapted to assess EF; however, variations in its administration hinder result comparability and standardization. This scoping review mapped the procedures used in studies employing the A-not-B task to assess EF in children up to 24 months. Searches were conducted in PubMed, Scopus, and Web of Science for empirical studies published in English. From 350 references, 53 articles were included. Most studies primarily focused on assessing global EF, working memory, and inhibitory control; employed the standard two-locations task with fixed delays, used two consecutive correct trials to switch locations, and measured accuracy as the main outcome. Testing typically ended after the completion of trials/sequences. Few studies reported inclusion criteria. This review summarizes A-not-B procedures to identify research gaps and support methodological consistency in early EF assessment.
The present study investigated the impact of handedness on haptic and visual size comparisons. Moreover, we sought to determine whether strength differences between the hands are correlated with lateral differences between judged sizes. Therefore, 80 left-handed and 80 right-handed young adults (without additional constraints on individual characteristics except for those required by the experimental tasks) completed a bimanual haptic size-comparison task, a visual size-comparison task, and strength measurements of fingers, hands, and arms. In the haptic size-comparison task, we observed an impact of handedness: Both left- and right-handers underestimated the size of an object in their dominant hand relative to an object in their non-dominant hand. This hand-related bias was confined to the haptic modality; in the visual size-comparison task, we observed a small overestimation of stimulus size in the right visual hemifield, as compared to the left visual hemifield, in right-handers, but not in left-handers. The strength measurements revealed the expected superiority of the dominant effector over the non-dominant effector, but the strength asymmetries were not correlated with the bias in haptic size-comparisons. The observed impact of handedness on haptic size judgments represents a case of embodied perception in the haptic modality.
In an ever-changing environment, synchronizing automatic and controlled behaviors is essential for successful adaptation. Yet, the relationship between these behaviors is often debated, partly because of the diverse approaches used to investigate them. The present study examined how statistical learning of environmental regularities, a process that supports automatic behaviors, and interference suppression, which contributes to controlled responding in the presence of distraction, interact when both operate concurrently. Participants completed a visual four-choice reaction time paradigm that combined a statistical learning task with the Eriksen flanker task. In this novel paradigm, a central target stimulus, surrounded by flanker stimuli, was either predictable or unpredictable based on the statistical regularities induced by the sequence of target stimuli. Statistical learning was indexed by the performance difference between predictable and unpredictable trials, whereas interference suppression was reflected by the flanker congruency effect (i.e., the performance difference between congruent and incongruent trials). Reaction times revealed a significant interaction: the flanker congruency effect was reduced on predictable trials, and the behavioral expression of statistical knowledge was larger in the incongruent than in the congruent condition. Together, these findings provide a proof-of-concept demonstration of a behavioral interaction between statistical learning and interference suppression within the present paradigm. Although this experimental design does not establish the causal direction of the interaction, the observed pattern indicates that learned predictability is associated with a reduced cost of conflicting distractors.
While prior research has examined the effects of example sequencing on children’s category learning, it has largely overlooked the role of self-regulated exemplar sequencing and whether its effectiveness varies across developmental stages. In the present study, we employed a between-subjects design to examine the effects of example sequencing (interleaved, blocked, or self-regulated) on the learning of high-similarity categories in two age groups (10–12 years and 12–14 years; N = 180). Results indicated that interleaved learning outperformed both self-regulated and blocked sequencing in category learning. Moreover, a significant age group × study condition interaction indicated that the advantage of interleaved learning was more pronounced in older children (12–14 years) than in younger children (10–12 years), suggesting that the effectiveness of interleaved sequencing is shaped by developmental factors. Older children also showed stronger category learning and greater flexibility in adjusting between interleaved and blocked strategies during self-regulated learning, whereas younger children showed a steady decline in interleaving over time. Together, these findings highlight the critical role of exemplar sequencing in children’s acquisition of high-similarity categories and underscore the importance of developmental factors in shaping the effectiveness of different learning sequences.
Musicians demonstrate advantages in acquiring motor sequences, showing faster learning and better explicit sequence knowledge than non-musicians. However, it is unclear whether this advantage extends beyond acquisition to the consolidation phase, which is when newly learned skills stabilize and become resistant to interference. Additionally, while interference from executing competing motor tasks is well-established, less is known about whether purely sensory information presented after learning can disrupt consolidation of a bimodal motor sequence. We investigated how post-acquisition sensory interference affects performance of a learned audio-visual sequence, and whether musical training moderates this vulnerability. Participants first learned an explicit sequence in a serial reaction time task using synchronous, informative audio-visual cues. After a brief consolidation period, they were randomly assigned to one of four observational conditions that manipulated the relationship between auditory and visual streams. Motor performance was then reassessed. Post-acquisition sensory interference impaired subsequent motor performance, but this effect was modality-specific: it was driven primarily by manipulations to the task-relevant visual stream, while auditory interference alone had no credible effect. Distributional analysis revealed that learning involved a strategic shift from reactive to anticipatory responding. Critically, participants with musical training showed a consistently higher reliance on anticipatory responses than those without throughout acquisition, indicating stronger predictive motor control. These findings demonstrate that newly formed sensorimotor memories are selectively vulnerable to interference in task-relevant modalities. Furthermore, our work provides a candidate mechanistic account for the musician advantage in sequence learning, linking it to greater reliance on predictive motor strategies during acquisition.
Emotion is typically perceived in dynamic multisensory contexts. Although previous studies have demonstrated multimodal gains in audiovisual recognition (i.e., general enhancement in audiovisual conditions), they have not clarified how visual and auditory information contribute to affective judgments or whether their contribution differs by emotion categories. The current study investigated how emotion perception varies across modalities and examined whether these variations depend on emotion categories. We conducted an emotion perception experiment using audio-only (AO), video-only (VO), and audio-visual (AV) speech stimuli. Participants evaluated the valence (positive/negative) and arousal (weak/strong) of stimuli depicting seven emotions (angry, calm, disgust, fearful, happy, sad, and surprise). Overall, AO stimuli tended to be perceived as more negative in valence and weaker in arousal compared to VO or AV stimuli. In representational similarity analysis, the response patterns for AV were more similar to VO than to AO. Happy and disgust stimuli were rated as weaker in arousal and less positive or less negative in valence in AO condition than in other conditions. For surprise, VO stimuli were rated more negatively than AO and AV. However, angry, fearful, and sad emotions did not differ between modalities. These findings indicate that affective judgments are not solely driven by general enhancement from combined audiovisual cues; rather, the relative importance of sensory modalities varies by emotion, suggesting that specific unimodal cues can be as informative as multimodal information. These modality-specific contributions to emotion perception have implications for clinical assessment, social communication, and affective neuroscience.
