Unlike typical written prose, visual narratives can be arranged in various ways on the page. Recent theoretical frameworks predict that narrative structure and layout both involve hierarchical structures which are constructed with similar processes. While experimental research has begun to look at how comics layouts are perceived and affect reading comprehension, they have yet to probe the interaction between narrative structure and layout. To this end, we describe two experiments where we display the same comic strips in each of three different layouts, while also investigating the influence of narrative structure. In Experiment 1, self-paced reading times show effects of both the layout on the screen and the narrative structure. In Experiment 2, eye-tracking reveals how attention moves between panels. Regressions-which move the eyes back to a previously inspected panel-are common but happen less often when panels are interrupted by a layout line break. Regressions were also less likely to move across a narrative boundary when it co-occurred with a line break. This shows how layout choices can affect scanning between panels, and potentially change how the narrative is processed and segmented. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2026 APA, all rights reserved).
Cognitive offloading can boost the performance of memory-based tasks while simultaneously impairing memory for offloaded information. Past research suggests that this impairment may occur because people reduce the use of encoding strategies that support memory when expecting to rely on an offloaded store at test. To further elucidate the memorial costs of cognitive offloading, we investigated the effects of store expectancy on both encoding and retrieval processes. In Experiments 1, 2, and 3, we investigated how offloaded store expectancy affects levels of processing at encoding by comparing free recall performance in deep and shallow-processing conditions to performance in cognitive offloading conditions where people did or did not expect to lose access to offloaded notes at test. Across these experiments, performance in the unexpected loss of access offloading conditions was poorer than performance in the shallow encoding conditions. In Experiment 4, we investigated how access to offloaded notes and store expectancy affects subjective retrieval experiences by asking participants to make remember/know judgments under offloading conditions where they did or did not expect to have access to their offloaded stores. Participants were also asked to report what they remembered specifically about the recalled word (remember judgments) or how confident they were (know judgments). Participants made fewer remember judgments when they had access to offloaded notes at test than when they did not. We suggest that cognitive offloading is a dynamic tool that can simultaneously serve external storage and encoding functions, with the emphasis on each function shifting depending on offloaded store expectancy. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2026 APA, all rights reserved).
The Hebb repetition effect, in which memory improves for repeated compared to nonrepeated sequences, is a well-established phenomenon in memory research. Despite its broad practical and theoretical importance, the mechanisms underlying this phenomenon remain unclear. It has recently been suggested that explicit awareness, or foreknowledge of repetition, plays a critical role in sequence learning. Across five large-scale experiments, using a serial recall task, we tested this proposition by examining the influence of foreknowledge (informing participants whether each sequence is repeated or nonrepeated) on Hebb learning. We used both an open pool, where nonrepeated trials contained unique items, and a closed pool, where the same items were used on every trial. In Experiment 1, all participants received foreknowledge; half were assigned to the open-pool group and half to the closed-pool group. The pool-size effect persisted: Learning was stronger in open than in closed pools. Experiment 2 compared foreknowledge and no foreknowledge groups using an open pool and found no benefit of foreknowledge. In Experiments 3, 4, and 5, using closed pools, foreknowledge provided a modest advantage for Hebb learning, especially for nonwords (Experiment 4) compared to words (Experiments 3 and 5). Experiment 5 further compared learning based on recognition of the repeated sequence postexperiment and revealed that learning only occurred when the repeated sequence could be recognized, regardless of the foreknowledge condition. Together, these findings suggest that while foreknowledge of repetition can enhance sequence learning under conditions of high interference, it is not a sufficient condition for learning to occur. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2026 APA, all rights reserved).
Testing studied information not only facilitates long-term consolidation of tested content but also enhances subsequent acquisition of new knowledge. These dual aspects of test-enhanced learning have predominantly been examined using verbal materials. In the present study, we extended this investigation to low-level visual features, in particular visual salience (luminance and color saturation), to determine whether interim testing can retrospectively consolidate and prospectively boost learning of continuous visual information. Across two experiments, participants studied five lists of scene images with varying levels of visual salience. Participants in the interim test group were tested on each list, while those in the interim restudy group restudied the prior list after studying Lists 1-4 and were tested only on List 5. A cumulative final test was administered after either a brief delay of 30 s (Experiment 1) or an extended delay of 2 days (preregistered Experiment 2). Both experiments showed that interim testing prospectively enhanced the precision, absolute accuracy, and relative accuracy of visual memory in the List 5 interim test without altering memory bias. Similar retrospective effects of interim testing were observed on the cumulative test. These findings demonstrate the generalizability of test-enhanced learning to the precision and accuracy of continuous visual memory for subtle features and provide support for reset-of-encoding and motivation-based accounts of test-enhanced learning while challenging semantic explanations. In addition, design-related insights into the replicability of memory fading are provided, and practical implications are discussed. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2026 APA, all rights reserved).
Critical details are important to remember, whereas trivial information is not. The present research examined whether there were differences in relative susceptibility to proactive interference (PI) for high-value, low-value, zero-value, or negative-value information within working memory (WM) in younger adults. PI occurs when previously learned information disrupts current performance. Across four experiments, participants (N = 255) completed a recent probes WM task, where verbal memoranda were arbitrarily assigned point values after encoding and memory was tested after a 3-s delay. A surprise long-term memory recognition test was also administered. Results revealed similar magnitudes of PI for high-, low-, and zero-value information. In contrast, there was significantly less PI for negative-value relative to high-value memoranda. Moreover, negative-value cues resulted in worse long-term memory relative to high-value cues, whereas long-term memory was comparable among zero-, low-, and high-value memoranda. These data inform theories of value-directed remembering and the removal of information from WM, including how only negative-value cues resembled directed forgetting in WM, whereas participants tended to maintain high-, low-, and zero-value memoranda in WM when there was no externally apparent harm to retain the items. Thus, evidence demonstrates that individuals tend to maintain information in WM unless explicitly told to remove it or informed that it will be detrimental to retain. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2026 APA, all rights reserved).
Four experiments tested whether prior incidental exposure to a word or to a pseudoword affected lexical decision performance when the same item was subsequently heard. In two experiments, the interval between initial exposure and test item was 10-20 min. In two other experiments, the interval was 12 hr, either with or without sleep during the 12 hr. Prior exposure to undegraded words had no effect on lexical decision performance-accuracy and reaction times were the same for words with such prior exposure and ones without it. For pseudowords, prior incidental exposure consistently impaired the ability to reject the item as a word, presumably due to an increased sense of familiarity. This effect was still intact after a 12-hr delay. The results are consistent with the idea that words heard under clear conditions rapidly match lexical representations, making recent episodic experience with the word irrelevant. Pseudowords cannot match existing lexical representations, and as a result, their perception is strongly affected by recent episodic experience. The experiments extend prior work on long-term priming and support different functions for episodic and long-term representations of spoken items. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2026 APA, all rights reserved).
Previous research has demonstrated that although involuntary autobiographical memories (IAMs) and involuntary future thoughts (IFTs) occur spontaneously with minimal effort, their frequency is significantly reduced during cognitively demanding activities, which leaves their precise underlying mechanism(s) yet to be revealed. Across two experiments, we tested the hypotheses that the frequency of IAMs and IFTs may be reduced due to (a) the limited working memory capacity that enables the processing of only a finite number of thoughts and/or (b) the reduced likelihood of noticing incidental, task-irrelevant cues that may potentially trigger IAMs and IFTs. To this end, participants completed a laboratory vigilance task with irrelevant cue words to trigger IAMs and IFTs and random thought probes to measure their frequency. Study 1 manipulated the level of working memory load (none, low, high) while participants performed a letter version of the N-back task during the vigilance task. The presentation of working memory task items and incidental cue words in the vigilance task was also manipulated (simultaneous vs. sequential). Study 2 further manipulated the type of working memory load by using either verbal or visuospatial N-back task while using a sequential presentation of working memory task items and cue words. In both studies, to further examine levels of incidental cue noticing, participants also completed an unexpected cue-recognition task after completing the vigilance task. Cognitive load reduced cue recognition, which positively predicted IAMs frequency. While working memory type had no robust effect, IFTs tended to be more frequent under visuospatial load. Overall, working memory load, cue noticing, and participants' strategic behaviors jointly shaped IAMs and IFTs retrieval. The results provide new insights about the underlying mechanisms of IAMs and IFTs in terms of their dependency on cognitive load and may open interesting avenues for future research. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2026 APA, all rights reserved).
In the cognitive-energetic framework, both goal activation and goal maintenance are important for successfully sustaining attention over time. There are multiple factors that can possibly contribute to maintaining goals and persisting with vigilance as time on task increases, like capacity and motivation. In this study, we use a latent growth model to track individual differences in sustained attention performance on the psychomotor vigilance task on two levels: initial reaction time and the linear slope in reaction time, or the vigilance decrement. We identify how individual differences in the vigilance decrement are predicted by both the ability to activate and maintain a goal, operationalized as capacity derived from four working memory tasks, and the desire to activate and maintain a goal, operationalized as both mean self-reported motivation and change in motivation from the beginning to the end of the task. We found that ability (working memory) and desire (motivation) were unrelated, and they each predicted unique variance in sustained attention performance over time. Working memory negatively predicted initial performance and the vigilance decrement, change in motivation negatively predicted initial performance, and mean motivation negatively predicted the vigilance decrement. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2026 APA, all rights reserved).
To stay focused, we must learn to direct attention to relevant information and ignore salient distractions. Many theories of attention suggest that the ability to ignore salient stimuli is driven by learning processes that require extensive exposure to distracting stimuli. The present study critically questions this assumption. Participants searched for a target and attempted to ignore a salient distractor. Importantly, a regularity in the salient distractor was held constant for short runs of five trials before changing. For example, the salient distractor could appear in a persistent color or location for five trials before changing. Shifts of gaze were used to determine if salient distractors captured attention or were instead suppressed. Across three experiments, we observed capture on the initial trial when the regularity changed, followed by immediate suppression on subsequent trials. Moreover, we demonstrate that this rapidly learned suppression occurs for multiple distractor regularities (featural, spatial, and combined). A fourth experiment showed that inserting an interruption trial produced capture, but suppression reemerged when the original regularity returned. Altogether, the results challenge theories proposing that salient stimuli cannot be ignored or that distractor suppression only results from slow statistical learning. Instead, the results support the view that the learned attentional control is highly adaptive, at least under certain conditions, in a manner that is broadly consistent with the Signal Suppression 2.0 account. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2026 APA, all rights reserved).
Police in many countries routinely ask eyewitnesses to state how confident they are after making an identification. Prior work suggests that verbal (e.g., "I'm very certain") and numeric (e.g., "80%") confidence provide nonredundant diagnostic information, but it is unclear whether this reflects distinct cognitive processes or simply the value of collecting multiple judgments. In two experiments (Experiment 1: N = 698, Experiment 2: N = 1,614), participants viewed 12 photo lineups and provided confidence ratings using verbal, numeric, slider (Experiment 1), and visual (Experiment 2) formats in counterbalanced order. While competing theories were tested-including multiretrieval-process and evidence accumulation accounts-the results favored a metacognitive noise account, where each confidence judgment is a noisy estimate of memory strength and averaging across judgments improves accuracy prediction. These findings inform both policing practices and basic science theories of metacognition. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2026 APA, all rights reserved).
A recent series of studies has demonstrated an unusual effect in which generating deliberate errors benefits memory for complex information-a phenomenon termed the derring effect. However, evidence for this effect is mixed, and theoretical understanding is underdeveloped. Inspired by the pretesting literature, the current work examined the derring effect under carefully controlled experimental conditions before going on to test theoretical explanations for the observed effect. In four preregistered experiments, participants studied weakly related word pairs in errorful and errorless learning conditions before completing a cued-recall test. In Experiment 1, both unintentional and deliberate errors enhanced subsequent memory relative to their respective errorless learning conditions, replicating the well-established pretesting effect and providing preliminary evidence of a derring effect with paired associates. Experiments 2-4 tested two theoretical accounts for the benefits of deliberate error generation: a broad attentional account, which proposes that generating errors boosts attention to the target, and a semantic elaboration account, which proposes that deliberate errors encourage elaboration of related information. Participants generated semantically related or semantically unrelated errors for each target or simply copied the correct answer. Consistent with the semantic elaboration account, deliberate errors only enhanced memory when they were semantically related to the study materials. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2026 APA, all rights reserved).
Some images are consistently more likely to be remembered or forgotten, but there is debate over the mechanisms that underlie these effects. Here we attempted to narrow the theoretical space by examining forgetting functions for high- and low-memorable images (faces and scenes). Experiments 1 and 2 used a continuous recognition procedure-a modified recognition memory task in which study events are interleaved with test trials-and Experiment 3 evaluated forgetting over longer retention intervals using a traditional study-test procedure. Forgetting functions were estimated using a hierarchical Bayesian model that accounted for subject and item effects, in addition to retention interval. The results from all three experiments revealed a consistent pattern: high-memorable images enjoyed both a higher initial degree of learning and a lower rate of forgetting than low-memorable images. This combination of results indicates that high-memorable images benefit both from enhanced encoding and from retarded forgetting. We discuss the implications of these findings for theories of image memorability. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2026 APA, all rights reserved).
Adults acquire new words, including written and spoken forms, across the lifespan. Learning novel words is a dynamic process that progresses from initial familiarization through repeated exposure and offline processes toward lexicalization. These processes exhibit substantial interindividual variability. In this study, we leverage this variability to investigate how domain-specific linguistic and domain-general skills relate to performance across different phases of learning. Across three sessions, distributed over 3 weeks, 140 native German participants learned Mandarin Chinese spoken and written (Pinyin) word forms and were tested on the retention of the new knowledge. Additionally, participants completed nine tests assessing linguistic experience, processing speed, auditory and visual short-term memory, and nonverbal reasoning. Structural equation modeling, including latent growth curve analysis, revealed that the acquisition and linking of word forms was primarily shaped by domain-general skills. Critically, whereas processing speed predicted learning performance across all sessions, auditory short-term memory supported earlier but not later learning. An association between learning performance and linguistic experience was observed in exploratory network analyses with links to receptive vocabulary across all and spelling during earlier learning phases. These findings highlight that learning is conditioned by how fast and efficient incoming information is processed and that earlier learning is constrained by short-term memory capacity. More broadly, the engagement of cognitive resources changes over the course of learning, in step with a change from effortful and controlled processing at earlier to more efficient automatic processing at later phases. Learners may benefit from tailoring input to individual memory capacity. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2026 APA, all rights reserved).
Speech prosody richly encodes both linguistic and social meaning. However, the prosody-meaning mapping varies across contexts and talkers, contributing to the lack of invariance problem in speech perception. This article extends a recent line of work targeting the adaptivity of the human comprehension system, mapping variable input to linguistic meanings in a talker-sensitive manner. Specifically, we investigate the stability of adaptation: Once a listener adapts to the prosody of a particular talker, how long does the effect last? We conducted a large-scale (N = 424) adaptation experiment using a two-session paradigm in which listeners go through a pretest, exposure, posttest sequence in the first session, in which exposure and feedback disambiguate an ambiguous prosodic contour as a question or a statement in a between-participants manner. They were then invited back on the 2nd day after a delay of 3, 5, or 7 days to repeat the same sequence. The results provide novel evidence that adaptation is both rapid and stable. Listeners showed robust adaptation within the first few trials of exposure in the first session, and they maintained some adaptive shift even after a delay of up to 7 days. This finding extends the scientific knowledge about the longevity of adaptive shifts seen across levels of speech hierarchy. We discuss possible memory mechanisms that support the long-term maintenance of cross-talker adaptation. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2026 APA, all rights reserved).
Individuals can engage in a variety of study strategies that influence later recall. The effects can be complex and are often diagnostic of underlying memory processes. For example, producing items by reading them aloud yields a crossover pattern: Early list items are recalled more accurately when studied silently, whereas later items benefit from being read aloud. When aloud and silent items alternate within a list, this contrast produces a characteristic sawtooth serial-position curve in which aloud items form the peaks and silent items the troughs. According to the revised feature model, these interactions arise from encoding mechanisms: Production both disrupts rehearsal-primarily affecting early serial positions-and adds distinctive features that benefit later items. Crucially, because these mechanisms operate prior to retrieval and do not depend on how recall is initiated, the revised feature model predicts that the interaction between production and serial position should appear regardless of whether recall proceeds forward (from first to last) or backward (from last to first). That is, changing the output order should not undo encoding-based differences that have already shaped the memory traces. In six experiments, we tested this a priori prediction by manipulating recall direction in immediate serial recall. Consistent with expectations, the interactions associated with the production effect were observed in both forward and backward recall, despite the substantial performance differences typically observed between the two tasks. These findings are consistent with the encoding-based predictions of the revised feature model, and the model provides a principled account of the patterns observed across the experiments. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2026 APA, all rights reserved).
In two experiments we examined the impact of adjacency (adjacent vs. nonadjacent words) on transposed-word (TW) effects. The nonadjacent words were separated by a single intervening word. Both experiments involved the serial presentation of words in a sequence of words that could be grammatically correct or not. Participants performed a speeded grammatical decision task. The critical ungrammatical sequences were either TW sequences for which transposing two words would result in a grammatically correct sentence (e.g., the white was cat big) or the corresponding control sequences for which transposing any two words could not generate a grammatically correct sentence (e.g., the white was cat slowly). Experiment 1 presented word sequences auditorily, and Experiment 2 used the rapid serial visual presentation procedure. In both experiments there was clear evidence for an impact of adjacency on TW effects, with the effects being greater in the adjacent condition. However, this pattern was only robust in the analysis of reaction times under auditory presentation and only in the analysis of accuracy rates under rapid serial visual presentation. We discuss these results in terms of the relative role played by bottom-up word position uncertainty and sentence-level constraints in driving TW effects. Our results also provide a further dissociation between TW effects observed with auditory sequences and serially presented written words, and we discuss possible reasons for this dissociation in terms of differences in how participants make speeded grammatical decisions to sequences of auditory stimuli compared with serially presented visual stimuli. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2026 APA, all rights reserved).
When performing cognitive tasks like solving problems in an exam or tackling challenging thinking tasks at work, knowing when to stop struggling with a difficult problem is often crucial for effective global performance. That is, opting out quickly when success is unlikely allows conserving time for other tasks with a higher chance of success. While research has examined how we find answers, giving-up efficiency has been largely ignored. This study delineates the metacognitive process by which individuals manage their mental effort when given a legitimate choice to quit. The present research extends prior metacognitive models, with one and two stopping rules, that did not take the temporal dynamics of opting out into account. The 3-Stopping-Rule Model addresses this gap in understanding time regulation under uncertainty by adding an opting-out confidence criterion to the known confidence criterion and a time limit for providing answers. Three experiments (N = 596) used problem-solving and general knowledge tasks that differ in opt-out rates and patterns of the confidence stopping criterion for submitting answers. The set of opt-out measures revealed that while opting out frequency was sensitive to manipulations, tasks, and individual characteristics, opt-out confidence remained stable and independent of time across incentives, tasks, opt-out wording (do not know, skip, help), and individual-level characteristics. The 3-Stopping-Rule Model advances prior metacognitive frameworks by revealing that opting out is not merely a by-product of failed problem solving but a systematically governed control decision with its own stable confidence threshold by which people counteract the speed-accuracy trade-off. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2026 APA, all rights reserved).
The formation of object categories can be influenced by multisensory information and prior knowledge. To accommodate changes in category structures or new perceptual experiences, category rules should be flexible to changes in sensory information and task goals. However, multisensory category adaptation may be influenced by crossmodal correspondences between object features, reflecting, for example, the learned statistics of the environment. Across three independent experiments, participants first learned a category structure defined by corresponding or noncorresponding audio-visual cues (Experiment 1, N = 34: size-pitch; Experiment 2, N = 33: spatial elevation-pitch; Experiment 3, N = 35: spatial frequency-pitch). Participants were subsequently introduced to a new audio-visual category rule that conflicted with the previously learned category structure. Our results indicated that successful rule adaptation was generally achieved. However, in all three experiments, a category structure defined by corresponding crossmodal cues was less adaptable compared to one defined by noncorresponding cues. These findings provide novel evidence that the nature of crossmodal cues can constrain category learning and adaptability, providing insights into the cognitive dynamics of acquired multisensory category representations and the link between multisensory perceptual and categorization processes. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2026 APA, all rights reserved).
Qiao and Forster (2013) showed that repeated exposure to novel neighbors (e.g., "banara") leads to the disappearance of facilitation in masked priming when trained items are used as primes-a between-subject result taken as a sign that newly learned primes had become competitors of their targets (e.g., "BANANA"). Here, we assess the long-term nature of this effect and the possible involvement of sleep in its emergence by teaching participants two sets of neighbors (e.g., "alarchy" for "anarchy") 12 hr apart and testing them immediately after learning Set 2 and again after another 12 hr. Crucially, half the participants (PM group) learn Set 1 at 20:00, while the other half (AM group) learn Set 1 at 08:00. Training does reduce the amount of orthographic facilitation (i.e., 23 vs. 32 ms). However, this effect is short-lived and gone within 12 hr, whether participants sleep after learning or not. Also, at odds with the "prime-lexicality" account, this effect is driven by unrelated targets becoming faster, rather than related targets becoming slower, as a result of neighbor exposure. In contrast, a Reicher-Wheeler task, pitting the neighbor against its base word (e.g., "alarchy/anarchy"), shows reliable signs of sleep-associated consolidation: The rate of neighbor-consistent responses (e.g., choosing "l" over "n"), made stronger through exposure, remains unchanged during subsequent wakefulness, but is enhanced after sleep. Given that the reduction in masked orthographic facilitation following neighbor exposure is clearly a short-term effect, our results call into question Qiao and Forster's conclusions and the usefulness of masked priming for tracking lexical consolidation. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2026 APA, all rights reserved).
Research on the hindsight bias with the memory design has mainly focused on the mechanisms underlying the biased reconstruction of the original judgments after the presentation of the correct answers, as well as on the robustness and generalizability of the bias. Less attention has been paid to the memory processes that hinder the recall of the original judgments (recollection bias) or promote their biased reconstruction (reconstruction bias) after the presentation of the correct answers. However, memory processes are important to explain the cognitive underpinnings of these biases. In three experiments with the memory design, we contrasted the relative accessibility, discriminability, and context change hypotheses on the memory underpinnings of the size of the recollection and reconstruction biases. The findings provided more support for the relative accessibility hypothesis: When the memory traces of the original judgments were more accessible relative to the interfering traces of the correct answers, the size of the recollection and reconstruction biases was smaller. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2026 APA, all rights reserved).
