From Lab-Testing to Web-Testing in Cognitive Research: Who You Test is More Important than how You Test

Short-term retention of words as a function of encoding depth

The traditional short- and long-term storage view of information processing and the levels-of-processing view both discuss the forgetting of information over time. In the traditional stage view, there is loss of at least poorly encoded information across several seconds when the information cannot be rehearsed (e.g., Ricker et al., 2020, Learning, Memory, and Cognition, 46, 60-76). In the levels-of-processing approach, information that is encoded in a shallow manner is lost more quickly over time than deeply-encoded information (Craik & Lockhart, 1972, Journal of Verbal Learning and Verbal Behavior, 11, 671-684.). Previous studies of the depth of encoding, however, have mostly been conducted using delayed tests, so there are few studies directly comparing the rate of forgetting over time for information as a function of different depths of encoding. We manipulated the level of processing with immediate recall in a modified Brown-Peterson task. An effect of the level of processing was robust, but evidence of forgetting across retention intervals was not always observed. When encoding time was curtailed (in Experiments 3 and 4), we found main effects of both the level of processing and the retention interval, but no interaction between the two variables. The results suggest that the depth-of-encoding effect may occur during the initial encoding of items, but without differential forgetting within the range of retention intervals that we examined (0-18 s), in contrast to the suggestion by Craik and Lockhart. Further work is needed to determine whether the depth-of-processing effect would grow over longer intervals.

Enhancing musical pleasure through shared musical experience

Music and social interactions represent two of the most important sources of pleasure in our lives, both engaging the mesolimbic dopaminergic system. However, there is limited understanding regarding whether and how sharing a musical activity in a social context influences and modifies individuals' rewarding experiences. Here, we aimed at (1) modulating the pleasure derived from music under different social scenarios and (2) further investigating its impact on reward-related prosocial behavior and memory. Across three online experiments, we simulated a socially shared music listening and found that participants' music reward was significantly modulated by the social context, with higher reported pleasure for greater levels of social sharing. Furthermore, the increased pleasure reported by the participants positively influenced prosocial behavior and memory outcomes, highlighting the facilitating role of socially boosted reward. These findings provide evidence about the rewarding nature of socially driven music experiences, with important potential implications in educational and clinical settings.

Too hard, too easy, or just right? The effects of context on effort and boredom aversion

Despite people's general desire to avoid cognitive effort, there is a limit to our parsimony: boredom, a state defined by a lack of successful mental engagement, is found to be similarly aversive. The work presented here investigates how context - the alternative tasks present and the environmental context - impacts people's aversion to exerting cognitive effort and avoiding boredom via a demand-selection task. In a population of undergraduate students, we assessed how people's willingness to exert mental effort (in a working memory task) is affected by the presence of an easier alternative (less cognitively demanding) or a boring alternative (doing nothing at all). To manipulate environmental context, we conducted the experiment online, where participants completed the task remotely, and in a controlled laboratory setting. We find people willingly seek out effortful tasks to avoid boredom, despite avoiding high demands when both tasks on offer required some effort. We also find large effects of the participants' environmental context, with preferences for the most demanding task increasing by over 150% in the lab compared to online. These results bear relevance to theories that argue the costs of effort are determined relative to the alternatives available (e.g., opportunity cost theories). Moreover, the results demonstrate that researchers who deliberately (or inadvertently) manipulate effort and boredom must consider the effects context (both choice and environmental) may have on people's behaviour.

Exploring bias in horizontal and vertical spatial representations using mental number lines and the greyscales task

People have a leftward bias when making visuospatial judgements about horizontally arranged stimuli ("pseudoneglect"), and a superior bias when making visuospatial judgements about vertically arranged stimuli. The leftward visuospatial bias in physical space seems to extend to the mental representation of space. However, whether any bias exists in mental representation of vertical space is unknown. We investigated whether people show a visuospatial bias in the mental representation of vertical space, and if any bias in mental representations of horizontal and vertical space related to the extent of bias in physical space. Participants (n = 171) were presented with three numbers and asked which interval was smaller/larger (counterbalanced): the interval between the first and middle, or middle and last number. Participants were instructed to either think of the numbers as houses on a street or as floors of a building, or were given no imagery instructions. Participants in the houses on a street condition showed a leftward bias, but there was no superior bias in the floors of a building condition. In contrast, we replicated previous findings of leftward and superior bias on greyscales tasks. Our findings reinforce previous evidence that numbers are represented horizontally and ascending left to right by default.

The Effects of Mind-Wandering, Cognitive Load, and Task Engagement on Working Memory Performance in Remote Online Experiments

Recent changes in environments from in-person to remote present several issues for work, education, and research, particularly related to cognitive performance. Increased distraction in remote environments may lead to increases in mind-wandering and disengagement with tasks at hand, whether virtual meetings, online lectures, or psychological experiments. The present study investigated mind-wandering and multitasking effects during working memory tasks in remote and in-person environments. In two experiments, participants completed a working memory task with varied cognitive load during a secondary task. After each working memory trial, participants reported their mind-wandering during that trial. Some participants completed the procedures in-person, while others completed the procedures remotely. Overall, remote participants reported significantly more mind-wandering and poorer secondary task performance than in-person participants, but this pattern was not reflected in working memory accuracy. Both groups exhibited similar multitasking effects on performance. Additional analyses found that for remote participants, task engagement better predicted working memory performance than either cognitive load or mind-wandering rates but did not indicate a tradeoff in resources between tasks. Together, these results demonstrate the importance of considering multiple metrics when assessing performance and illustrate that making assumptions about the equivalence of remote and in-person work is a risky proposition.

The cost of monitoring in time-based prospective memory

Time-based prospective memory (TBPM) involves remembering to perform actions at specific times in the future. Several studies suggest that monetary consequences improve prospective remembering; however, the effect of monetary consequences on strategic time monitoring (i.e., clock-checking behaviour) in TBPM is still unknown. The present study investigated how the monetary costs on clock-checking affected TBPM accuracy and strategic time monitoring. Participants performed an ongoing lexical decision task while carrying out a TBPM task every two minutes. Motivational incentives were manipulated across three experimental conditions: a single-cost condition in which missed TBPM responses led to monetary deductions, a double-cost condition in which both missed responses and time monitoring led to monetary deductions, and a control condition with no monetary deductions. Overall, the findings indicated that monetary costs on clock-checking prompted more parsimonious strategic time monitoring behaviour, which negatively impacted TBPM accuracy. These results emphasize the importance of weighing the motivational aspects involved in strategic monitoring, shedding light on the complex relationship between clock-checking behaviour, its consequences, and TBPM performance.

Assessing time-based prospective memory online: A comparison study between laboratory-based and web-based testing

Prospective memory (PM, i.e., the ability to remember and perform future intentions) is assessed mainly within laboratory settings; however, in the last two decades, several studies have started testing PM online. Most part of those studies focused on event-based PM (EBPM), and only a few assessed time-based PM (TBPM), possibly because time keeping is difficult to control or standardise without experimental control. Thus, it is still unclear whether time monitoring patterns in online studies replicate typical patterns obtained in laboratory tasks. In this study, we therefore aimed to investigate whether the behavioural outcome measures obtained from the traditional TBPM paradigm in the laboratory-accuracy and time monitoring-are comparable with an online version in a sample of 101 younger adults. Results showed no significant difference in TBPM performance in the laboratory versus online setting, as well as no difference in time monitoring. However, we found that participants were somewhat faster and more accurate at the ongoing task during the laboratory assessment, but those differences were not related to holding an intention in mind. The findings suggest that, although participants seemed generally more distracted when tested remotely, online assessment yielded similar results in key temporal characteristics and behavioural performance as for the laboratory assessment. The results are discussed in terms of possible conceptual and methodological implications for online testing.

Reward conditioning may not have an effect on category-specific memory

Behavioural tagging facilitates the temporary storage of seemingly insignificant episodic events, which may later become salient and enhanced in memory. Human behavioural studies have demonstrated selective memory enhancement for neutral stimuli from one category when this category is subsequently paired with reward. Although this phenomenon has implications for the role of reward conditioning on emotional and adaptive memory, its generalisability is underexplored. We conducted four experiments to investigate whether pairing items from a semantic category, animals or objects, with high or low rewards resulted in preferential memory for the high-reward category. Three of these experiments also aimed to replicate the category-specific retrospective enhancement effect reported by Patil et al. and two explored the corresponding prospective memory effect. None of our experiments showed consistent evidence for an effect of reward on category-specific memory enhancement, despite employing the same reward paradigm and incidental encoding protocol as in the original study. Consequently, we found no evidence for category-specific retrospective or prospective enhancement effects. Our experiments were conducted online which is an equally relevant method for assessing behavioural phenomenon as the in-person studies conducted by Patil et al. Overall, our results question the generalisability of previously reported category-specific memory enhancement effects due to reward.