Aging and guided visual search: the role of visual working memory.

In the present study, we examined age-related differences in utilizing learned associations to guide visual search. Participants viewed an object cue that was associated with 1 or 2 target colors, followed by a search array. Older adults showed slower RTs, larger visual search slopes, and reduced cue-target association knowledge than did younger adults.

Making Retrospective Confidence Judgments Improves Learners' Ability to Decide What Not to Study.

Predictions about future retrieval success, known as judgments of learning (JOLs), are often viewed as important for effective control over learning. However, much less is known about how retrospective confidence judgments (RCJs), evaluations of past retrieval success, may affect control over learning. We compared participants' ability to identify items that would benefit from additional study after making either a JOL or an RCJ.

Does constraining memory maintenance reduce visual search efficiency?

We examine whether constraining memory retrieval processes affects performance in a cued recall visual search task. In the visual search task, participants are first presented with a memory prompt followed by a search array. The memory prompt provides diagnostic information regarding a critical aspect of the target (its colour).

Personality and attention: Levels of neuroticism and extraversion can predict attentional performance during a change detection task.

The present study demonstrates that levels of extraversion and neuroticism can predict attentional performance during a change detection task. After completing a change detection task built on the flicker paradigm, participants were assessed for personality traits using the Revised Eysenck Personality Questionnaire (EPQ-R). Multiple regression analyses revealed that higher levels of extraversion predict increased change detection accuracies, while higher levels of neuroticism predict decreased change detection accuracies.

Using a model of hypothesis generation to predict eye movements in a visual search task.

We used a model of hypothesis generation (called HyGene; Thomas, Dougherty, Sprenger, & Harbison, 2008) to make predictions regarding the deployment of attention (as assessed via eye movements) afforded by the cued recall of target characteristics before the onset of a search array. On each trial, while being eyetracked, participants were first presented with a memory prompt that was diagnostic regarding the target's color in a subsequently presented search array. We assume that the memory prompts led to the generation of hypotheses (i.

Explicit awareness supports conditional visual search in the retrieval guidance paradigm.

In four experiments we explored whether participants would be able to use probabilistic prompts to simplify perceptually demanding visual search in a task we call the retrieval guidance paradigm. On each trial a memory prompt appeared prior to (and during) the search task and the diagnosticity of the prompt(s) was manipulated to provide complete, partial, or non-diagnostic information regarding the target's color on each trial (Experiments 1-3). In Experiment 1 we found that the more diagnostic prompts was associated with faster visual search performance.

Using the memory activation capture (MAC) procedure to investigate the temporal dynamics of hypothesis generation.

Research investigating top-down capture has demonstrated a coupling of working memory content with attention and eye movements. By capitalizing on this relationship, we have developed a novel methodology, called the memory activation capture (MAC) procedure, for measuring the dynamics of working memory content supporting complex cognitive tasks (e.g.

Working memory dynamics bias the generation of beliefs: the influence of data presentation rate on hypothesis generation.

Although temporal dynamics are inherent aspects of diagnostic tasks, few studies have investigated how various aspects of time course influence hypothesis generation. An experiment is reported that demonstrates that working memory dynamics operating during serial data acquisition bias hypothesis generation. The presentation rate (and order) of a sequence of serially presented symptoms was manipulated to be either fast (180 ms per symptom) or slow (1,500 ms per symptom) in a simulated medical diagnosis task.

Catching a glimpse of working memory: top-down capture as a tool for measuring the content of the mind.

This article outlines a methodology for probing working memory (WM) content in high-level cognitive tasks (e.g., decision making, problem solving, and memory retrieval) by capitalizing on attentional and oculomotor biases evidenced in top-down capture paradigms.

The influence of action on visual search: behavioral response toward stimuli modifies the selection process.

In five experiments, we investigated how simple actions (as assessed via a go/no-go task) influence visual search. In Experiments 1 and 2, participants responded (go) when a color name (cue) matched a colored shape (prime), and did not respond (no-go) when they mismatched. Participants then searched a visual array for a tilted line, either embedded within the prime (valid prime) or within a different shape of a different color (invalid prime).

The effect of behavioral response on affective evaluation.

In the present research we investigated how action influences affective evaluation. In three experiments, participants conducted a sequence of go/no-go tasks, then evaluated the pleasantness of a novel shape. The results of Experiments 1 and 2 show that participants evaluated the shapes that appeared in the go trials more positively than the shapes that appeared in the no-go trials.