Journal of Experimental Psychology-Learning Memory and Cognition最新文献

Reports an error in "A grain of truth in the grain size effect: Retrieval practice is more effective when interspersed during learning" by Hilary J. Don, Shaun Boustani, Chunliang Yang and David R. Shanks (Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition, 2024[Nov], Vol 50[11], 1791-1810). In the article, the copyright attribution was incorrectly listed, and the Creative Commons CC BY license disclaimer was incorrectly omitted from the author note. The correct copyright is "2024 The Author(s)," and the omitted disclaimer is present as: Open Access funding provided by University College London: This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (CC BY 4.0; https://creativecommons .org/licenses/by/4.0). This license permits copying and redistributing the work in any medium or format, as well as adapting the material for any purpose, even commercially. (The following abstract of the original article appeared in record 2025-46535-001). Retrieval practice is a powerful method for consolidating long-term learning. When learning takes place over an extended period, how should tests be scheduled to obtain the maximal benefit? In an end-test schedule, all material is studied prior to a large practice test on all studied material, whereas in an interim test schedule, learning is divided into multiple study/test cycles in which each test is smaller and only assesses material from the preceding study block. Past investigations have generally found a difference between these schedules during practice but not during a final assessment, although they may have been underpowered. Five experiments confirmed that final assessment performance was better in students taught using interim than end tests in list (Experiments 1, 2, and 5) and paired associate (Experiments 3 and 4) learning, with a meta-analysis of all available studies (k = 19) yielding a small- to medium-sized effect, g = 0.25, 95% confidence interval [0.09, 0.42]. Experiment 5 finds that the higher level of practice retrieval success in interim tests contributes to the grain size effect, but the effect is eliminated if these tests are too easy. Additional analyses also suggest that the forward testing effect, in which tests promote subsequent learning, may be a major cause of the grain size effect. The practical and theoretical implications of these demonstrations of robust grain size effects are discussed. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2025 APA, all rights reserved).

Previous research has demonstrated that attentional prioritization is shaped by prior experience of reward uncertainty: Attention is more likely to be captured by a stimulus associated with a variable (uncertain) reward than a stimulus that provides diagnostic information about available reward. This finding is noteworthy, because it runs counter to the principle that cognition is motivated to reduce uncertainty and hence surprise. Here we investigated whether this pattern of uncertainty-modulated attentional capture (UMAC) reflects a process of attention for learning, wherein uncertainty-related stimuli are prioritized in an attempt to learn about their true predictive status. To address this, we examined the distinct impact of two information sources that modulate potential for learning: explicit instruction versus ongoing experience of prediction error in reward feedback. Experiment 1 demonstrated that providing explicit instructions-and hence negating the need for further learning-did not reduce the magnitude of the UMAC effect, indicating that UMAC does not reflect attention for learning as a strategic approach for determining the task state. On the other hand, Experiment 2 showed that instructions alone were insufficient to generate a UMAC effect in the absence of reward feedback, suggesting that the impact of uncertainty on rapid attentional prioritization is driven by direct experience of prediction error. Taken together, these findings point to two possibilities: UMAC may reflect attention for learning operating at an implicit level or may evince an attentional system that is configured for rapid detection of sources of experienced uncertainty so that subsequent behavior can be tailored appropriately. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved).

An unexamined assumption in many studies of learning and decision making is that people learn underlying probability distributions. However, the acquisition of distributional knowledge is rarely the focus of investigations. We report five experiments (N = 580 adults) that provide this focus and highlight the factors that impact people's ability to accurately learn and reproduce underlying distributions. We find that people accurately reproduced the distribution only when either the environmental signal is strong (e.g., discrete bimodal distributions) or sufficient cues are provided to aid construction of mental representations (e.g., items from the modes in a noisy bimodal distribution are presented in different colors). We interpret these results in terms of participants testing and learning discrete rules corresponding to salient features of the environment rather than spontaneously representing entire distributions. As such, the findings challenge strong assumptions about the role of probability distribution knowledge in explanations of learning and decision making. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved).

Extensive research has shown that differences in cognitive ability predict working memory (WM) performance. However, strategy use may also explain individual differences in WM. Here we explored individual variation in encoding strategy optimization in visual WM. Participants searched for a target that changed between two alternating displays that cycled until response. Critically, participants could freely choose between one red and one blue target, and the ratio of red to blue items varied randomly across trials. Therefore, the optimal strategy was to selectively encode items in the smaller color subset. Results showed a general tendency to choose the optimal (small subset) target, but there were large individual differences in strategy choice, with many participants using suboptimal strategies. While Experiment 1 found no relationship between ability and strategy, a larger sample replication in Experiment 5 found a small, positive correlation between WM ability and strategy optimization. Experiment 2 showed that strategy use was not stable over time. Many participants spontaneously shifted to highly optimal target choices, suggesting a sudden discovery of the optimal strategy. Experiment 3 confirmed the importance of explicit knowledge in strategy choice. Informing participants about the optimal strategy induced a large strategy improvement. Moreover, optimally performing participants demonstrated explicit awareness of the optimal strategy. Experiment 4 showed that, even under greater task demands, when participants viewed the displays only once, strategy use was still suboptimal. Our findings highlight strategy choice as an important source of individual variation and therefore should be considered alongside the ability to fully understand differences in WM. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved).

Collecting an adequate amount of information for a decision is an important skill. However, previous experiments on speed-accuracy trade-offs in sample-based decisions revealed marked oversampling that was impervious to various interventions (Fiedler, McCaughey, et al., 2021). When faced with the threat of being preempted by a rival in making decisions, participants seem to reduce information search substantially (Phillips et al., 2014). Such a decrease provides unique opportunities for metareasoning, which should advance people's understanding of the task and improve their performance. To test this possibility, in the present research (N = 101), participants had to compete with a fast (computer-simulated) rival and indeed substantially reduced self-determined sample size compared to a control condition. This speed increase also carried over to a subsequent decision block without rival, albeit participants regressed to a slower strategy. Mere exposure to a teammate using small samples either in an equivalent competitive version of the task or the standard solitary version led to similar reductions in sample size. This demonstrates that competition is not a necessary requirement for participants to make use of the metareasoning opportunity to improve task performance. Further research is needed to uncover the metacognitive underpinnings of improving performance and facilitate people taking full advantage of such opportunities for metareasoning. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved).

Cognitive control processes mirror fast and dynamic adaptation toward a change in the environment. When performing dual tasks, mental representations of dual-task-specific control requirements and the task-pair set are established that help to manage dual-task processing (Hirsch et al., 2017, 2018; Hommel, 2004, 2020). In the present study, we investigated to which extent such higher order representations of dual-task processing persist even if major characteristics of the task context change, for example, if one of the tasks of a dual task becomes irrelevant. For this, we adapted the fade-out paradigm (Mayr & Liebscher, 2001) to a dual-task setting and tested whether fade-out costs appear. Performance of pure Task 1 single tasking was compared to the performance of Task 1 processing right after dual-task trials (fade-out phase). Results showed that performance in this fade-out block did not immediately drop to single-task performance (fade-out costs), indicating the persistence of task-pair set representations (Experiments 1 and 3, N = 40 each). In addition, automatic stimulus-response translation processes continued within the fade-out phase, resulting in ongoing between-task interference. Furthermore, the frequency of between-task interference in dual-task blocks was manipulated (75% vs. 25% incongruence) between participants to establish conflict-biased control states of increased versus relaxed task shielding. These different control states, however, did not modulate fade-out costs (Experiment 2, N = 80). Nevertheless, the persistence of these control adaptations was reflected in manipulation-dependent between-task interference during fade-out trials. Implications of this new evidence are discussed. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved).

Past research has shown that semantically richer (i.e., modified) words are retrieved more easily at a subsequent point during language comprehension relative to less rich (i.e., unmodified) words, presumably due to more robust encoding of modified words. We investigated if this modification effect is modulated by age and/or the level of engagement with the task. Young and older participants (total N = 120) read sentences containing unmodified and premodified words followed by a critical verb that triggered their retrieval. The results showed that the retrieval benefit was not modulated by age but depended on the accuracy rates on comprehension questions (a proxy for task engagement), with the retrieval benefit emerging only for participants with lower accuracy rates. We replicated this engagement effect in a reanalysis of an independent, large data set from younger adults (N = 333). Based on these results, it is possible that when engagement is high, the memory representations associated with critical words may remain in the focus of attention when retrieval is being triggered, obviating a retrieval operation and eliminating the modification effect. However, when engagement is low, the critical memory representations may fade to a degree that the modification effect can emerge. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved).

Historically, working memory (WM) and long-term memory (LTM) were viewed as distinct systems, operating independently. Recent research, however, has uncovered intricate interactions between these memory systems, revealing that LTM information can enhance the WM performance. This study investigates the mechanisms underlying such facilitation through a delayed color-recall task, adapted from Brady et al. (2009). Across three experiments, we systematically manipulated stimulus pairings with temporarily invalidating (Experiment 2) or changing (Experiment 3) statistical pairing regularities. The results demonstrated subjects' flexible utilization of recent input regularities, showcasing their control over this information. Furthermore, regularity learning selectively modulated neural oscillations during the encoding phase, indicating reduced information storage and increased mental resource deployment when leveraging regularities to enhance the WM performances. In sum, this study shed new light on how and when LTM facilitates WM performances through rapid learning and flexible implementation of regularities between stimuli. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved).

Decision makers seem to evaluate risky options differently depending on the learning mode-that is, whether they learn about the options' payoff distributions from a summary description (decisions from description) or by drawing samples from them (decisions from experience). Are there also discrepancies when people choose between a described and an experienced option? In two experiments, we compared people's behavior in a condition with mixed learning modes (i.e., one option described, the other experienced with the sampling paradigm) to that in conditions where both options were either described or experienced. Using cumulative prospect theory's value and probability weighting functions to characterize how observed outcome and probability information was subjectively distorted in people's choices, we found clear differences between the pure description and pure experience conditions. In the mixed-mode condition, however, the value and probability weighting functions did not differ between the described and the experienced options, suggesting that people evaluated them based on a joint representation despite the different learning modes. Participants' choices were not biased toward the described or the experienced option. Finally, per-option search effort for an experienced option tended to be higher in the mixed-mode condition than in the purely experience-based condition. Our findings demonstrate that how people evaluate described and experienced options depends on the learning mode of the other option in the choice set, highlighting a previously overlooked boundary condition of discrepancies between description- and experience-based choice. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved).

Humans have to deal with conflicting information. This is studied in conflict tasks such as the Simon task or the flanker task. For example, participants respond with the left or right hand to the color of a stimulus (task-relevant stimulus feature) which is presented in a left or right position (irrelevant feature) in the Simon task or to a letter (relevant) which is flanked by same or different letters (irrelevant) in the flanker task. In incongruent trials, in which relevant and irrelevant stimulus features require different responses, reaction time is longer and errors are more frequent. This congruency effect is reduced after incongruent trials, dubbed congruency sequence effect (CSE). Here, we show that with temporally separated presentations of relevant and irrelevant stimulus features in the Simon task the CSE is strong with leading irrelevant feature, but declines with leading relevant feature. For the flanker task, this modulation of the CSE was unreliable. By means of an extended leaky, competing accumulator model, we contrasted two mechanisms of the CSE for the Simon task: gating of the irrelevant stimulus information and re-mapping of the stimulus positions to response positions after incongruent trials. The gating model failed to account for some aspects of the observed data which could be simulated by the re-mapping model. For the flanker task, there was not only a CSE, but also overall longer reaction times after incongruent trials. This required an extension of the re-mapping model in terms of higher response thresholds after incongruent than after congruent trials. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved).