Across two experiments we examined individual differences in the use of precues and retrocues to guide the selective encoding and maintenance of information in visual working memory (WM). In Experiment 1, we used spatial cues to indicate which item would be tested either before or after the presentation of a memory array. Regression analyses allowed us to separate variance due to visual WM capa...

Politeness issues in virtual commercial contexts received rare attention from both practitioners and researchers. This work developed an instrument for gauging degree of politeness in online retailers’ storefronts. The instrument’s reliability and validity were confirmed through empirical data analysis. A second-order confirmatory factor analysis revealed that online consumers' tendency in payi...

Inattentional blindness (IB) describes the failure to notice salient but unexpected stimuli when attention is partially engaged by another task. Few studies have explicitly investigated the role of eye movements in IB and the relative contributions of overt and covert attention. We recorded eye movements in a series of IB experiments using dynamic stimuli. Results indicate that eye movements do...

The ability to allocate attention to emotional cues in the environment is an important feature of adaptive self-regulation. Existing data suggest that physically abused children overattend to angry expressions, but the attentional mechanisms underlying such behavior are unknown. The authors tested 8-11-year-old physically abused children to determine whether they displayed specific information-...

Studying speech errors has revealed much about the language production system. We believe it can also be used to investigate the interaction between the speech production and other systems, such as the executive system. This paper studies the effect of focusing attention on the production of a single word in a sequence. We present three experiments in which participants, while reciting four-wor...

Learning to read is often considered the most important skill taught in school because reading is a gateway to other learning. Many children struggle to acquire this fundamental skill. Suboptimal design of books for beginning readers may contribute to the difficulties children experience as close proximity between text and illustrations could promote attentional competition hampering literacy s...

The misallocation of driver visual attention has been suggested as a major contributing factor to vehicle accidents. One possible reason is that the relatively high cognitive demands of driving limit the ability to efficiently allocate gaze. We present an experiment that explores the relationship between attentional function and visual performance when driving. Drivers performed 2 variations of...

Where we allocate our visual spatial attention depends upon a continual competition between internally generated goals and external distractions. Recently it was shown that single neurons in the macaque lateral intraparietal area (LIP) can predict the amount of time a distractor can shift the locus of spatial attention away from a goal. We propose that this remarkable dynamical correspondence b...

In both adults and school-age children, volitional control over the presentation of stimuli during study leads to enhanced recognition memory. Yet little is known about how very young learners choose to allocate their time and attention during self-directed study. Using a recognition memory task, we investigate self-directed study in low-income preschoolers, who are at an age when attention, me...

The concepts of attention and intrinsic motivations are of great interest within adaptive robotic systems, and can be exploited in order to guide, activate, and coordinate multiple concurrent behaviors. Attention allocation strategies represent key capabilities of human beings, which are strictly connected with action selection and execution mechanisms, while intrinsic motivations directly affe...