The present research tested the hypothesis that false recognition in confabulating patients results, at least in part, from sustained processing of irrelevant information about test items. Thus, we predicted that false recognition would be reduced if cognitive resources available for such a processing are experimentally reduced. Two experiments provided evidence consistent with this proposal. I...

The present study investigated whether developmental changes in cognitive control may underlie improvements of time-based prospective memory. Five-, 7-, 9-, and 11-year-olds (N = 166) completed a driving simulation task (ongoing task) in which they had to refuel their vehicle at specific points in time (PM task). The availability of cognitive control resources was experimentally manipulated by ...

Attention is one of the most active areas of experimental research in cognitive science. This chapter focuses on an aspect of attention that has been studied intensively over the past twenty-five years or so: capacity limitations on our ability to perceive multiple visual inputs. The basic questions are simple but far-reaching. How much visual information can we take in at one time? What can we...

A long-standing debate in the literature is whether attention can form two or more independent spatial foci in addition to the well-known unique spatial focus. There is evidence that voluntary visual attention divides in space. The possibility that this also occurs for automatic visual attention was investigated here. Thirty-six female volunteers were tested. In each trial, a prime stimulus was...

How can we improve memory retention? A large body of research suggests that difficulty encountered during learning, such as when practice sessions are distributed rather than massed, can enhance later memory performance (see Bjork & Bjork, 1992). Here, we investigated whether divided attention during retrieval practice can also constitute a desirable difficulty. Following two initial study phas...