Unfamiliar face recognition is a critical ability that can have significant implications, such as in legal or security contexts. Despite this, little is known about the cognitive skills that support children's ability to accurately recognise and report unfamiliar faces and how these change with age. This research examined whether executive functioning (EF), including working memory, cognitive flexibility, response inhibition, and updating, predicts school-aged children's performance on two face recognition tasks: an old/new recognition task (Experiment 1;  = 113) and a lineup identification task (Experiment 2;  = 121). While EF was not strongly related to recognition accuracy in either task, it was associated with children's response bias, indicating that EF supports regulation of decision thresholds rather than memory strength. Age predicted modest improvements in discriminability, but these effects were not explained by EF, indicating that other developmental factors, such as metacognition or social understanding, may also play a role. Together, these findings suggest that EF contributes more to how children regulate and apply memory decisions than to how accurately they encode or retrieve unfamiliar faces.

It has been reported that autobiographical memories have a social function that promotes conversation by using past events as conversation materials for non-autistic people. Autistic people and those with high autistic traits who were not diagnosed with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) used social functions less frequently than those without autism. Thus, this study seeks to answer the question of whether autistic people and those with high levels of autistic traits who were not diagnosed with ASD and who use the social function of autobiographical memory less frequently do so because they have diminished open-air memory. To achieve this, university students who were not diagnosed with ASD were divided into high and low groups based on the number of autistic traits; open-air and laboratory encoding were conducted. Furthermore, we examined the correlation between memory performance and the social functions of autobiographical memory. The results showed that the performance of open-air encoding was better than that of laboratory encoding, regardless of the group. There was no significant correlation between performance in open-air encoding and the social function of the autobiographical memory. These findings emphasise the importance of actual experience in memory formation, even in an increasingly digitalised world.

Alzheimer's disease (AD) is associated with impaired emotional memory, though findings are mixed. Music has been shown to enhance or decrease memory. Few studies applied music immediately after encoding in both AD and older adults. The aim of this study is to analyze emotional memory and the effect of music listening on emotional memory in patients with Alzheimer's disease and older adults. Ninety-three patients with AD and ninety-three older adults with low educational levels participated. They viewed positive, negative and neutral pictures, followed by three minutes of either emotionally arousing music, relaxing music, or white noise. Participants then recalled and recognised the pictures. One week later, the recall and recognition tasks were repeated. Participants remembered emotional pictures better than neutral pictures. Emotionally arousing music increased delayed recall in older adults and decreased delayed false recognition in AD. Relaxing music decreased recognition of negative pictures. Emotional memory was relatively spared in AD patients, despite previous findings. Emotionally arousing music enhanced memory in AD patients and older adults, while relaxing music decreased memory for negative stimuli. The results are novel considering the characteristics of the sample (low educational levels), and support the use of emotional stimuli and music-based interventions in these populations.

The present study replicated and extended prior research by comparing the effects of reviewing notes in groups vs. reviewing notes individually on individual final test performance. We also examined the potential interaction between reviewing delay and reviewing methods. Finally, students completed a questionnaire, the results of which reveal how students perceive the effectiveness of group vs. individual reviewing methods. In this experiment, students watched and took notes on two lectures. Following a short or long delay, students reviewed their notes either individually or in a group and were allowed to update their notes during these sessions. After the reviewing phase, students completed a final test for each lecture. We found that individuals added more idea units to their notes after reviewing notes in a group, and this beneficial effect was greater after a longer delay compared to a shorter delay. However, more new idea units did not translate into better cued recall performance. Our findings suggest that reviewing notes in a group helps individuals add more overlooked idea units in their notes, but more factors should be considered when studying the relationship between reviewing notes in a group and final test performance.

When retrieving information, people often shift over time from "Remembering" high levels of detail about a study episode to simply "Knowing" the information absent such detail. This "Remember-Know" shift is well-documented for true information, and recent work suggests that this effect exists, but is attenuated, for false information. One explanation for this difference is that true information is better represented in people's prior knowledge, supporting retention of this content as "Known" over time. In this registered report we tested this hypothesis by measuring people's reported retrieval experiences (e.g., "Remembering" or "Knowing") for true and false information at two levels of anticipated prior knowledge. While we replicate the "Remember-Know" shift, we do not find that it differs by anticipated prior knowledge. We also examine the relation between retrieval experiences and the production of encountered information, as well as the impact of repeated testing on retrieval experiences.

Past research has found substantial evidence of enhanced memory for objects and events that are highly incongruent with individuals' prior expectations. This well-known bizarreness effect, was recently extended into the domain of colour, revealing enhanced memory for objects paired with expectation-incongruent colours (or bizarre - e.g., blue carrot) relative to expectation-congruent colours (e.g., orange carrots; Morita & Kambara, 2022). Colour bizarreness effects in object memory: Evidence from a recall test and eye tracking.. In two experiments, we explored whether the enhanced memory for bizarre, expectation-incongruent objects includes object- memory and whether this feature memory persists long-term. Using a 4-Alternative recognition task, we assessed memory for object colours as a function of expectation-congruence immediately following study and three days later. Results of Study 1 revealed no significant difference in recognition memory for bizarre compared to expectation-congruent colours, and no enhanced memory for bizarre colours in long-term memory. In Study 2, we found that an encoding task requiring participants to activate their prior expectations during study did not promote greater retention of bizarre object features. Instead, the results across both studies revealed a long-term memory advantage for expectation-congruent items. These findings highlight conditions where the enhanced memory for bizarre information is limited, providing an interesting challenge to current mechanistic accounts of memory for expectation-related information.

Studies have shown that involuntary autobiographical memories often have identifiable cues, which are rooted in a variety of experiences. Studies have also suggested that one's activities and thoughts may also sometimes be related to these memories. Here, we examined a relatively large diary sample of involuntary memories ( = 123), where participants were asked to record their activities and thoughts along with their involuntary memories, and to decide if these activities and thoughts were related to these memories. The results showed that nearly two-thirds of the recorded involuntary memories were reported to be related to the activities and/or thoughts that coincided with them. Further, independent judges determined that activities and thoughts frequently overlapped conceptually with the memories, resulting in high inter-rater reliability estimates between the judges and the participants. We argue that the results suggest that activities and thoughts may have a priming role in the elicitation of involuntary memories.

Public belief in repressed memories remains widespread, yet little is known about the demographic predictors of this belief. We examined beliefs about the repression, permanence, and reliability of memory in a nationally representative sample of U.S. adults (N = 1,545). Nearly all participants (94%) expressed belief in unconscious repressed memory. Belief in repression was high across all groups, with the highest rates among women without a college education. Age patterns varied by construct: Generation Z reported the strongest endorsement of repression, permanence beliefs increased steadily with age, and reliability beliefs followed a nonlinear trajectory with dips among younger adults and rebounds in midlife. These findings confirm that memory misconceptions remain pervasive and are structured by gender, age, and education. Because nearly all demographic subgroups still show very high endorsement, these misconceptions pose serious challenges for legal, clinical, and public education contexts.

False autobiographical memories can have serious implications in legal settings, where the case outcomes may hinge entirely on memory-based eyewitness testimony. This study investigated whether a sensitisation memory training could reduce false autobiographical memory reports. We employed a blind implantation method in which participants ( = 294) indicated whether various childhood events had happened to them. Participants were then told they had confirmed five events - one of which was false - and were asked to rate their memory and belief. In session two, 15% (44/294) of participants reported a false belief and an additional 3.4% (10/294) a false memory, meaning that a total of 18.4% made a false report. Before session three, participants were randomly assigned to receive either the memory training or a distractor task, then repeated the false memory procedure. Contrary to our expectations, the training did not reduce false reports. Instead, false beliefs (SMT: 20.4%, 28/137, Control: 22.3%, 31/139) and false memories (SMT: 5.1%, 7/137, Control: 2.9% 4/139) increased in session three. The findings suggest false memories elicited in the blind implantation paradigm might be particularly resistant to correction.

In sexual abuse cases, the witness statement plays a fundamental role. This brings about the complex task for judges to evaluate the statement on its credibility. In Study 1, we polled 79 Dutch legal professionals about the criteria they rely on to evaluate the credibility of a statement. Most criteria mentioned pertained to the content of the statement, specifically consistency (66%), accuracy (66%), and detailedness (53%). Twenty-eight percent mentioned all three criteria. The way the statement is presented was also mentioned (non-verbal behaviour: 14%, emotion; 13%; authentic impression: 11%). In Study 2, we analyzed 518 Dutch court rulings on sexual assault on the criteria used in credibility assessment. The most often used criteria were again consistency (80.1%), detailedness (65%), and accuracy (31%), with 13% relying on all three criteria. Authentic impression (21%), emotionality during the statement (13%), and signs of trauma (9.5%) were also regularly used. In conclusion, legal professionals rely heavily on content criteria (Consistency, Accuracy, and Detailedness) - but not in a systematic way. Highly contested criteria (i.e., emotion, trauma, nonverbal behaviour, authentic impression) are also regularly used. Judicial decision-making may benefit from relying exclusively on validated indicators and doing so in a more systematic manner.

We investigated age-related differences and commonalities in earliest memories, focusing on retrieval speed, recollection type (remember vs. know), retrieval type (direct vs. generative), age at the time of the event, and phenomenological characteristics. The sample consisted of 131 adults: 68 young adults (48.5% males;  = 20.29,  = 1.53) and 63 older adults (47.6% males;  = 68.43,  = 4.11). They reported their earliest memories, estimated their age at the time, indicated recollection and retrieval types, and rated event characteristics (e.g., importance, vividness). Results showed that older adults were significantly more likely to classify their memories as and retrieved, whereas young adults had a more balanced distribution of the classifications. retrieved memories were accessed more rapidly than retrieved ones, and young adults demonstrated shorter retrieval latencies than older adults. Additionally, older adults dated their earliest memories to later age and rated them as significantly more vivid, emotionally intense, and personally meaningful. Recollection type was not associated with retrieval latency but linked to higher vividness and confidence. Overall, our findings demonstrate potential age-related shifts in the retrieval and subjective evaluation of earliest autobiographical memories.

: Dissociative identity disorder remains contested. The debate hinges on whether memories carry over between identity states and whether those states are truly distinct, but most evidence rests on self report rather than direct memory tests. Neuroimaging has been advanced as an indirect, non self-report approach by scanning individuals with DID in different identity states and comparing them with simulators or other groups. : To evaluate how studies that scan people with DID in more than one identity state inform the core memory claims of DID, by assessing their methodological quality. : Systematically reviewing studies from the past 40 years, quality was assessed using GRADE criteria and the Newcastle-Ottawa scale. : Of the nine studies reviewed, many lacked specific aims and only one stated clear hypotheses throughout. The results further indicated several concerns related to diagnostic comorbidity, and absence of clinical comparisons, reverse inference, and post hoc reasoning. : On current evidence, functional imaging across identity states does not support firm claims about identity fragmentation or inter identity amnesia, nor does it decide between trauma based and sociocognitive accounts. Methodological refinement and direct tests of memory transfer are needed for progress.

Producing images of to-be-remembered words via drawing often improves memory for the word relative to a control in which the word is written or read silently, a pattern dubbed the . Most drawing effect studies have utilised words as memory stimuli, which while promising, limit the external validity where information is often presented in visual and verbal modalities. The present study sought to address this gap by using word-image stimuli, and comparing drawing when individuals replicate a provided image or generate a different image than the one provided. Relative to a writing control task, replicate-drawing and generate-drawing tasks were compared in both mixed - and pure-list designs in free recall. A drawing effect was found in both designs and this effect was more robust when drawings were generated than replicated. Drawing effects were also larger in a mixed - than pure-list design which reflected a mixed-list drawing benefit (higher recall for mixed-list drawing than pure-list drawing) and a mixed-list writing cost (lower recall for mixed-list writing than pure-list writing). Collectively, generating drawings at study appears to be a more powerful memory technique than replicating drawings and both produce a design effect.

People are more accurate at recognising individuals from their own race than those who come from other racial groups, the Cross-Race Effect (CRE). We explored whether this effect was still evident for faces that had been seen multiple times. Black and White participants viewed five blocks of Black and White faces presented in a continuous series with 30 target faces presented in the first block. In Blocks 2-5, target faces were repeated and intermixed with new faces. The impact of this familiarisation was markedly different for hits or false alarms. For instance, the false alarm rate data, as well as the data, showed a CRE across all 5 blocks, and repetition had no reliable effect on the magnitude of the CRE. In contrast, the hit rate data showed no CRE at all. Consistent with prior findings, though, our CRE pattern was asymmetric - plainly evident with White participants, but not Black participants. Overall, our results suggest that in the realm of face recognition, hits and false alarms are responsive to different mechanisms and are dissociable in contexts such as ours. These results have important implications for identifications and misidentifications of familiar same- and cross-race faces in the real world.

Some songs stay with us for a lifetime. Even decades later, a few familiar notes can unlock vivid memories. Yet the life periods from which these songs originate and their prominence across age and gender remain underexplored. This study examines lifespan patterns in music-related memory, focusing on age trends, gender differences, and the global presence of the "reminiscence bump", a peak in emotional connection to music from adolescence and early adulthood. While this phenomenon is well-documented in Western samples, its global manifestation, gendered dimensions and variation across life stages remains unexplored. Using responses collected from 1891 participants across diverse geographical backgrounds, we analysed the release years of personally meaningful songs. Results showed an inverted U-shaped distribution peaking at age 17, with men peaking earlier with a stable reminiscence bump into older age, while women showed a later peak and a stronger recency effect with age. This gender asymmetry, pronounced in older cohorts, highlights how age and gender shape the emotional salience of music. The findings reveal that musical memory is shaped by multiple temporal bumps - cascading (cross-generational), reminiscence (adolescence), and recency - each influenced by age and gender, offering new insights into how music gains emotional significance across the lifespan.

This study explores the relationship between cultural life scripts and actual life stories of Czechs and Slovaks, building on prior research by Štěpánková et al. (2020. Czech and Slovak life scripts: The rare case of two countries that used to be one. , (10), 1204-1218) that examined the semantic knowledge of an ideal life within the Czech and Slovak cultures (cultural life scripts). The current study investigates the extent to which individual life stories align with or diverge from these cultural life scripts. A clear reminiscence bump - a concentration of positive memories between the ages of 15 and 30 - was observed in participants' life stories. The impact of most important life events was analysed using the Transitional Impact Scale (TIS). Results showed that positive cultural script-consistent events yielded the highest TIS scores, while unique, script-divergent negative events had greater impact on psychological dimension of the TIS than their positive counterparts. These findings are discussed in the context of existing literature, highlighting their theoretical implications and alignment with prior research.

Individual differences in working memory capacity, selective attention, and need for cognition were investigated as postdictors-variables indicating the likelihood that an identification is accurate-using same-race and cross-race lineups. We also explored whether these variables improve predictions of identification accuracy when considering confidence and response time. White participants ( = 274) completed individual differences measures, watched four mock-crime videos (2 Asian targets, 2 White targets), made lineup decisions, and rated their confidence. Working memory capacity predicted identification accuracy and target-present accuracy but not target-absent accuracy. A regression model with confidence, response time, and working memory capacity explained more variance than a model with confidence and response time alone, indicating that working memory capacity tells us more about identification accuracy than extant reflector variables about identification accuracy.

This study aimed to test whether changing the administration order of instruments assessing autobiographical memory has an effect on the responses that participants give when filling in these instruments. We employed a between-subjects experimental design involving two groups of undergraduates: participants in the "narrative-first group" ( = 149) recounted an autobiographical event in writing and then completed questionnaires assessing memory phenomenology and event centrality; participants in the "questionnaire-first group" ( = 152) carried out the same tasks but in reverse order. Results showed no significant group differences in autobiographical memory measures derived from questionnaires or in narrative organisation. However, compared with participants in the narrative-first group, participants in the questionnaire-first group formulated longer narratives with a greater number of memory details, while producing a lower percentage of words indicating affective processes. Implications of our findings, study limitations, and future research directions are discussed.

How do people mentally replay real-life events, and what shapes the time it takes to remember them? In this study, we investigated the temporal compression of memories by examining how long it takes participants to recall everyday events they recorded using wearable cameras. While remembering duration increased with the actual length of events, this relationship was nonlinear: recall duration rose steeply for events lasting up to ∼10 min, then plateaued, suggesting scale-invariant retrieval beyond this threshold. Crucially, various event characteristics also influenced remembering duration, with events that were more unusual, unpredictable, emotionally positive, socially engaging, or marked by greater change showing less temporal compression. These effects were not explained by retrieval difficulty, but rather reflected the richness of memory representations, including greater detail and stronger sense of reliving. Together, these findings suggest that memory compression depends not only on the event's actual duration, but also on how it was subjectively experienced and structured in memory. By linking event features to the tempo of recall, this study offers novel insight into the dynamics of episodic memory and the mechanisms that shape how we mentally replay real-life experiences.

Although previous research has extensively examined the characteristics of specific autobiographical memories, few tools have been available to assess how individuals recall their personal past in general. To address this gap, we adapted into Polish the Autobiographical Recollection Test (ART), a self-report instrument originally designed to capture general autobiographical remembering across seven components: vividness, narrative coherence, reliving, rehearsal, scene construction, visual imagery, and life story relevance. Confirmatory factor analysis supported the factorial validity of the Polish version, demonstrating adequate psychometric properties. The Polish adaptation also showed expected correlations with another self-report measure of autobiographical memory ability (Survey of Autobiographical Memory, SAM), supporting its convergent validity. Furthermore, both the full and brief versions of ART showed significant associations with scores on the Involuntary Autobiographical Memory Inventory (IAMI). These findings provide robust support for the Polish adaptation of ART as a reliable tool for assessing the subjective qualities of autobiographical memory, with potential applications in research on diverse populations.

Recognition memory is typically better for items learned after a free choice (independent of study material) than after a forced choice. However, previous studies presented to-be-remembered items in isolation, whereas everyday learning often occurs alongside distractors. Therefore, this study investigated the effect of free versus forced choice on recognition memory in a learning situation with both relevant (to-be-remembered) and irrelevant (to-be-ignored) items. Experiment 1 (N = 62) used word-picture combinations, and Experiment 2 (N = 59) used audio-visual word combinations. In both experiments, participants either chose themselves (free choice) or were instructed (forced choice) which item category to remember before presentation of the compound stimulus. Experiment 1 found better recognition for relevant than irrelevant items, with free choice additionally improving memory specifically for relevant items. Experiment 2 showed descriptively the same pattern, although the interaction was not significant. Exploratory pooled analyses across experiments confirmed that free choice selectively improved recognition memory for relevant, but not irrelevant items. Taken together, participants were able to learn selectively in the face of irrelevant distractors, and more importantly, having some control over the learning situation seemed to further improve memory specifically for relevant items. This suggests that self-directed learning is beneficial even in situations with irrelevant distraction.

Remembering past events usually takes less time than their actual duration - events are temporally compressed in memory. A recent study found that this compression is not systematic but emerges when continuous events exceed approximately 9 s. Unexpectedly, however, remembering shorter events (3-6 s) took more time than their actual duration. Here, we aimed to investigate the mechanisms behind this increased replay duration of short events. In Experiment 1, we developed a corrected measure accounting for recall initiation time - the time needed to access the beginning of the event. With this correction, the longer replay times for short events disappeared, suggesting the effect was partly due to unmeasured recall initiation time. In Experiment 2, we examined the potential role of a central tendency bias by exposing participants to different ranges of event durations. Replay duration was influenced by the event's relative position within the duration range, consistent with a central tendency bias. However, for events longer than 9 s, temporal compression occurred consistently across all conditions. Together, these findings suggest that while central tendency influences replay duration, temporal compression systematically emerges when events exceed a few seconds, likely reflecting memory capacity limits in representing continuous experiences.

This study used an odd (isolated) item inserted into a homogeneous serial list to investigate process differences between absolute- and relative-order judgments. The serial list consisted of eight names of people ordered in height. These were all male or female names except the fourth name which was of the opposite gender. A name/rank pair accuracy recognition test was used as the absolute judgment, and a comparative judgment (comparing height ranks between two names) as the relative judgment. Reaction time (RT) was the dependent measure for the close-to-ceiling accurate performance. Although the isolated item gained a memory advantage in both the absolute and relative judgments, the magnitudes of the effects differed greatly between the two judgments. For the absolute judgment, the isolated item's RT dropped below the levels of the two end terms, transforming the homogeneous condition's bow-shaped serial-position curve into one with two fully blown bowings. On the other hand, the isolated item caused only a moderate dent on the relative-judgment function with the curve keeping the original overall single-bowing shape. A hypothesis suggesting that absolute judgments are based more on individual-item specific information processing whereas relative judgments more on relational-information processing was proposed to explain the asymmetric isolation effects.

Autobiographical memory plays a central role in behaviour regulation, social connection, and self-continuity, but may become emotionally biased after traumatic experiences. Resilience, defined as the capacity to adapt effectively to stress and adversity, is widely linked to psychological recovery. However, few studies have examined whether resilience can buffer emotional biases in daily autobiographical memory, particularly among trauma-exposed individuals. Therefore, the current study aimed to examine this relationship using ecological momentary assessment (EMA). Seventy-nine participants (mean age = 22.26, 68.4% women) completed the Connor-Davidson Resilience Scale (CD-RISC) and reported autobiographical memories five times daily for seven consecutive days. Emotional valence features were extracted using natural language processing (NLP), including lexical-level features (e.g., negative term frequency) and sentence-level semantic features (e.g., positive sentence ratio). Multilevel modelling showed that while resilience was not associated with lexical-level features, it significantly predicted more positive and fewer negative emotional expressions at the semantic level. Moreover, negative memory entries tended to be followed by similarly negative content in subsequent entries, whereas positive entries did not exhibit such continuity. These results suggest that resilience may serve as a protective factor against the emotional effects of trauma in daily memory recall, offering potential insights for clinical intervention.

The prospective and retrospective memory questionnaire (PRMQ) is one of the most widely used questionnaires to assess subjective memory through self-reporting of common memory failures. There have been mixed results in the literature regarding its internal structure. The early studies favoured a tripartite structure with one factor representing a general memory and two group factors representing retrospective (RM) and prospective memory (PM) components. Other findings favoured different structures, such as with only a single factor or only two factors (PM and RM). The objective of the present study was to verify the internal structure of the PRMQ in a very large sample and with precise modelling. We analysed data from 297,242 adult participants, with ages ranging from 18 to 79 years, and used exploratory and confirmatory factor analysis to examine the internal structure of PRMQ. The results showed that the model that best describes the data was one with a single factor. The tripartite model failed to converge and our results indicate that the PRMQ is a unidimensional instrument. This is relevant especially for researchers interested in using the PRMQ in future studies and professionals using the questionnaire in clinical settings.

Mental time travel involves mental imagery to recollect past experiences and envision future events, eliciting anticipatory emotional responses that motivate goal-directed behaviour. However, the temporal dynamics of neural, physiological, and affective processing of mental time travel remain elusive. This study examined late positive potential (LPP), skin conductance responses (SCR), and behavioural affect ratings in response to mental time travel. Forty-eight participants (52% female) viewed 16 neutral, positive, and negative stimuli from the International Affective Picture System ("encoding task"). Participants then vividly imagined the stimuli ("recall task") and imagined a scenario involving the presented stimuli as if it might occur after leaving the lab ("prospection task"). Results showed enhanced LPP amplitudes when recalling negative and prospecting positive experiences, alongside elevated self-reported affect and arousal during these emotional recall and prospection tasks. These findings suggest that mental time travel through emotionally salient events is associated with increased LPP amplitudes akin to the processing of immediate experiences. This might reflect a neural mechanism of anticipatory affective responses to mental representations.

Autobiographical memory involves the integration of self-referential memory into a coherent narrative of life experiences. Recently, several studies of healthy adults and older adults with neurodegenerative disorders have utilised diffusion imaging to construct a network of cortical regions that support autobiographical memory. We extend this work to an age range, 4 to 7 years, when autobiographical memory is still developing. We correlated the recall of autobiographical events with limbic white matter tracts that have been previously implicated in episodic and autobiographical recall, i.e., the uncinate fasciculus and cingulum bundle. While there was no evidence for a link between the uncinate and autobiographical memory, we found a strong association between cingulum microstructure (fractional anisotropy; FA) and the number of autobiographical details provided. No relation was found between limbic tract microstructure and other measures of episodic recall. These findings extend work in adult samples, suggesting that the cingulum bundle may contribute in a meaningful way to autobiographical memory across a wide age range.

People often save information by storing it on a computer or smartphone for future use, thus preserving cognitive economy and reducing processing demands [Risko, E. F., & Gilbert, S. J. (2016). Cognitive offloading. , (9), 676-688. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tics.2016.07.002]. Such cognitive offloading is associated with mnemonic benefits including a phenomenon known as saving-enhanced memory. [Storm, B. C., & Stone, S. M. (2015). Saving-enhanced memory: The benefits of saving on the learning and remembering of new information. Psychological Science, 26(2), 182-188. https://doi.org/10.1177/0956797614559285] showed that when participants are prompted to study two lists of words, saving the first list (i.e., by saving the associated file onto a computer) can enhance their ability to remember the second list. Saving is believed to serve as a form of cognitive offloading, reducing cognitive load and interference from the first list, and allowing for the re-allocation of cognitive resources towards the encoding of the second list. The present study investigated whether working memory capacity (WMC) is associated with the ability to take advantage of this kind of saving-enhanced memory. Results from three experiments revealed a significant positive correlation, such that participants with high WMC demonstrated a larger saving-enhanced memory effect than participants with low WMC. This finding provides new insight into the importance of control processes in the functioning of memory, suggesting that WMC enhances a person's ability to benefit from the use of saving as a form of cognitive offloading.

Criterion shifting reflects a complex interplay between cognitive strategies and external influences, yet individuals differ markedly in their tendency to adjust decision thresholds. While some readily adapt their criteria in response to task demands, others maintain more rigid thresholds, raising questions about the extent to which external pressures - such as social influence - can drive greater flexibility. Findings from social psychology reveal that social pressure can heavily impact individual decision-making, suggesting that such pressures may also impact individual criterion shifting tendencies. Two experiments were conducted to explore how different social contexts influence criterion shifting and memory performance during recognition tests. Experiment 1 sought to assess whether monetary rewards or social competition could alter criterion shifting strategies. However, neither manipulation significantly affected the extent of criterion shifting. In Experiment 2, participants were informed that their performance would affect other group members, which resulted in higher discriminability scores () but did not affect criterion shifting tendencies. These findings suggest that criterion shifting tendencies remain robust even in socially motivated contexts, further emphasising their stability across external influences.

How do we determine whether something that we do not remember actually occurred? People rely partially on judging memorability: when non-remembered events seem memorable, we infer that they did not happen, but when those events seem unmemorable, we might infer instead that they were forgotten. In five online experiments (total  = 1544) we examined whether memorability judgements are susceptible to false suggestions. Participants encoded pictures, then completed a test containing old and new pictures. Some test pictures were accompanied by feedback specifying whether they were old or new; however, in a small number of cases, new pictures were falsely identified as "old". For each picture, participants rated familiarity, subjective memorability, and made judgements of learning. A mega-analysis of Experiments 1-4 showed that participants rated new pictures as less memorable after they received false "old" feedback, compared to no feedback. Moreover, this small feedback effect was stronger for those pictures that people on average found more memorable: a finding replicated in Experiment 5. These findings provide initial empirical evidence that false suggestions, in some circumstances, could subtly shift some people from reasoning "I'd remember this, if it had happened" toward reasoning "I don't remember this, so maybe it's forgettable".