Color perception has been widely studied and well modeled with respect to combining visible electromagnetic frequencies, yet new technology provides the means to better explore and test novel temporal frequency characteristics of color perception. Experiment 1 tests how reliably participants categorize static spectral rainbow colors, which can be a useful tool for efficiently identifying those with functional dichromacy, trichromacy, and tetrachromacy. The findings confirm that all individuals discern the four principal opponent process colors, red, yellow, green, and blue, with normal and potential tetrachromats seeing more distinct colors than color blind individuals. Experiment 2 tests the moving flicker fusion rate of the central electromagnetic frequencies within each color category found in Experiment 1 as a test of the Where system. It then compares this to the maximum temporal processing rate for discriminating direction of hue change with colors displayed serially as a test of the What system. The findings confirm respective processing thresholds of about 20 Hz for Where and 2-7 Hz for What processing systems. Experiment 3 tests conditions that optimize false colors based on the spinning Benham’s Top illusion. Findings indicate the same four principal colors emerge as in Experiment 1, but at low saturation levels for trichromats that diminish further for dichromats. Taken together, the three experiments provide an overview of the common categorical boundaries and temporal processing limits of human color vision.

Individuals encounter problems daily wherein varying numbers of constraints require delimitation of memory to target goal-satisfying information. Multiply-constrained problems, such as compound remote associates, are commonly used to study this type of problem solving. Since their development, multiply-constrained problems have been theoretically and empirically related to creative thinking, analytical problem solving, insight problem solving, intelligence, and a multitude of other cognitive abilities. Critically, in order to correctly solve a multiply-constrained problem the solver must have the solution available in memory and be able to target and access to that information. Experiment 1 determined that the cue – target relationship affects the likelihood that a problem is solved. Moreover, Experiment 2 identified that the association between cues and targets predicted inter- & intra-individual differences in multiply-constrained problem solving. Lastly, Experiment 3 found monetary incentives failed to improve problem solving performance likely due to knowledge serving as a limiting factor on performance. Additionally, problem solvers were shown to be able to reliably assess the likelihood they would solve a problem. Taken together all three studies demonstrated the importance of knowledge & knowledge structures on problem solving performance.

In the daily life of an individual problems of varying difficulty are encountered.

Each problem may include a different number of constraints placed upon the problem

solver. One type of problem commonly used in research are multiply-constrained

problems, such as the compound remote associates. Since their development they have

been related to creativity and insight. Moreover, research has been conducted to

determine the cognitive abilities underlying problem solving abilities. We sought to fully

evaluate the range of cognitive abilities (i.e., working memory, episodic and semantic

memory, and fluid and crystallized intelligence) linked to multiply-constrained problem

solving. Additionally, we sought to determine whether problem solving ability and

strategies (analytical or insightful) were task specific or domain general through the use

of novel problem solving tasks (TriBond and Location Bond). Results indicated that

multiply-constrained problem solving abilities were domain general, solutions derived

through insightful strategies were more often correct than analytical, and crystallized

intelligence was the only cognitive ability that provided unique predictive value.

Previous research from Rajsic et al. (2015, 2017) suggests that a visual form of confirmation bias arises during visual search for simple stimuli, under certain conditions, wherein people are biased to seek stimuli matching an initial cue color even when this strategy is not optimal. Furthermore, recent research from our lab suggests that varying the prevalence of cue-colored targets does not attenuate the visual confirmation bias, although people still fail to detect rare targets regardless of whether they match the initial cue (Walenchok et al. under review). The present investigation examines the boundary conditions of the visual confirmation bias under conditions of equal, low, and high cued-target frequency. Across experiments, I found that: (1) People are strongly susceptible to the low-prevalence effect, often failing to detect rare targets regardless of whether they match the cue (Wolfe et al., 2005). (2) However, they are still biased to seek cue-colored stimuli, even when such targets are rare. (3) Regardless of target prevalence, people employ strategies when search is made sufficiently burdensome with distributed items and large search sets. These results further support previous findings that the low-prevalence effect arises from a failure to perceive rare items (Hout et al., 2015), while visual confirmation bias is a bias of attentional guidance (Rajsic et al., 2015, 2017).

It is a well-established finding in memory research that spacing or distributing information, as opposed to blocking all the information together, results in an enhanced memory of the learned material. Recently, researchers have decided to investigate if this spacing effect is also beneficial in category learning. In a set of experiments, Carvalho & Goldstone (2013), demonstrated that a blocked presentation showed an advantage during learning, but that ultimately, the distributed presentation yielded better performance during a post-learning transfer test. However, we have identified a major methodological issue in this study that we believe contaminates the results in a way that leads to an inflation and misrepresentation of learning levels. The present study aimed to correct this issue and re-examine whether a blocked or distributed presentation enhances the learning and subsequent generalization of categories. We also introduced two shaping variables, category size and distortion level at transfer, in addition to the mode of presentation (blocked versus distributed). Results showed no significant differences of mode of presentation at either the learning or transfer phases, thus supporting our concern about the previous study. Additional findings showed benefits in learning categories with a greater category size, as well as higher classification accuracy of novel stimuli at lower-distortion levels.

Prospective memory is defined as remembering to carry out specified actions in the future. Research has suggested that prospective memory retrieval is reliant on multiple cognitive processes to function, and the ways in which these different processes are used is dependent on a variety of variables relating to the prospective memory task at hand. The current study focuses on the strength of the association between the prospective
memory cue and the prospective memory intention. Based on literature suggesting that aspects of prospective memory are reliant on executive control functioning, the current study examined the possibility that executive control depletion would affect prospective memory ability on subsequent tasks. Results showed that depletion of executive control resources, measured objectively, did not impair prospective memory in either a low or
high cue-association condition. However, participants‟ subjective assessment of their own fatigue correlated significantly with their subsequent prospective memory performance, regardless of association condition. The results of the study indicate that depletion studies that fail to account for both objective and subjective measures suffer from an unclear interpretation of effects, and that recognition of perceived expectancies
of cognitive resource limitation can assist in improving prospective memory ability.

Understanding categories and the way in which individuals classify and distinguish between these categories is vital to a number of cognitive functions. The present study introduced a new approach to dimensional identification by using identifiable properties rather than of ill-defined patterns. Although replication of studies that utilize well-defined features is necessary, the results of the study could potentially indicate some interesting findings regarding learning.

A category is a set of entities associated by specific characteristics (features). These features can have different relations between one another, including correlations and causal connections. The purpose of this study was to examine how the relations between features would affect the inference of unknown features of new entities from a given set of features. Categories and their relations were learned in a Learning Phase, whereas features were inferred in Transfer and Selection Phases. Correct inference of feature was enhanced by correlation between the features given and the features inferred. It is less clear whether causal connections further enhanced correct inference of features over and above the effect of the correlation. Future research of this topic may benefit from utilizing more difficult tasks, repeating instructions, or manipulating the participants' understanding of the relation in ways other than administration of instructions.

In this study, the oppositional processes theory was proposed to suggest that reliance on semantic and episodic memory systems hinder originality during idea generation for divergent thinking tasks that are generally used to assess creative potential. In order to investigate the proposed oppositional processes theory, three experiments that manipulated the memory accessibility in participants during the alternative uses tasks were conducted. Experiment 1 directly instructed participants to either generate usages based on memory or not from memory; Experiment 2 provided participants with object cues that were either very common or very rare in daily life (i.e., bottle vs. canteen); Experiment 3 replicated the same manipulation from Experiment 2 with much longer generation time (10 minutes in Experiment 2 vs. 30 minutes in Experiment 3). The oppositional processes theory predicted that participants who had less access to direct and unaltered usages (i.e., told to not use memory, were given rare cues, or were outputting items later in the generation period) during the task would be more creative. Results generally supported the predictions in Experiments 1 and 2 where participants from conditions which limited their access to memory generated more novel usages that were considered more creative by independent coders. Such effects were less prominent in Experiment 3 with extended generation time but the trends remained the same.

In baseball, the difference between a win and loss can come down to a single call, such as when an umpire judges force outs at first base by typically comparing competing auditory and visual inputs of the ball-mitt sound and the foot-on-base sight. Yet, because the speed of sound in air only travels about 1100 feet per second, fans observing from several hundred feet away will receive auditory cues that are delayed a significant portion of a second, and thus conceivably could systematically differ in judgments compared to the nearby umpire. The current research examines two questions. 1. How reliably and with what biases do observers judge the order of visual versus auditory events? 2. Do observers making such order judgments from far away systematically compensate for delays due to the slow speed of sound? It is hypothesized that if any temporal bias occurs it is in the direction consistent with observers not accounting for the sound delay, such that increasing viewing distance will increase the bias to assume the sound occurred later. It was found that nearby observers are relatively accurate at judging if a sound occurred before or after a simple visual event (a flash), but exhibit a systematic bias to favor visual stimuli occurring first (by about 30 msec). In contrast, distant observers did not compensate for the delay of the speed of sound such that they systematically favored the visual cue occurring earlier as a function of viewing distance. When observers judged simple visual stimuli in motion relative to the same sound burst, the distance effect occurred as a function of the visual clarity of the ball arriving. In the baseball setting, using a large screen projection of baserunner, a diminished distance effect occurred due to the additional visual cues. In summary, observers generally do not account for the delay of sound due to distance.