Hierarchical Encoding in Visual Working Memory: Ensemble Statistics Bias Memory for Individual Items Timothy F. Brady and George A. Alvarez Current models of visual working memory assume that people encode memories of objects individually. Yet, new research has shown that items surrounding an object can influence a person’s recollection of More
On the Strength of Connections Between Localist Mental Modules as a Source of Frequency-of-Occurrence Effects Shannon O’Malley, Derek Besner, and Sarah Moroz How do people become familiar with items and events that appear frequently in their lives? To test potential mechanisms, the reaction times to numerical stimuli presented in either More
The Insula and Evaluative Processes Gary G. Berntson, Greg J. Norman, Antoine Bechara, Joel Bruss, Daniel Tranel, and John T. Cacioppo The insula has been implicated in evaluative and affective processes. New findings indicate that the insula may be broadly involved in integrating affective and cognitive processes. Participants rated the More
A research report explains how eyewitnesses’ memories can become distorted after speaking with co-witnesses. More
Meditation has been practiced for centuries, as a way to calm the soul and bring about inner peace. According to a new study in Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science, there is now evidence that a specific method of meditation may temporarily boost our visuospatial abilities More
Working memory (also known as short term memory) is our ability to keep a small amount of information active in our mind. This is useful for information we need to know on-the-fly, such as a phone number or the few items we need to pick up from the grocery store. More
