Observers find a target item more quickly when they have foreknowledge of target-defining attributes, such as identity, color, or location. However, it is less clear whether foreknowledge of nontarget attributes can also speed search. Munneke, Van der Stigchel, and Theeuwes Acta Psychologica 129:101-107, (2008) found that observers found the target more quickly when they were cued to ignore a region of space where a target would not appear. Using a similar paradigm, we explored the effects of cueing nontarget features on search. We found that when we cued observers to ignore nontarget features, search was slowed. The results from a probe-dot detection task revealed that this slowing occurred because, paradoxically, observers initially selected an item appearing in the to-be-ignored color. Finally, we found that cueing nontarget features sped search when placeholders matching the location of the to-beignored color preceded presentation of the search display by at least 800 ms; thus, it appears that some limited inhibition of to-be-ignored items occurs following selection. Taken together, these results suggest that observers are unable to explicitly avoid selection of items matching known nontarget features. Instead, when nontarget features are cued, observers select the to-be-ignored feature or the locations of objects matching that feature early in search, and only inhibit them after this selection process.

A number of studies suggest a link between musical training and general cognitive abilities. Despite some positive results, there is disagreement about which abilities are improved. One line of research leads to the hypothesis that verbal abilities in general, and verbal memory in particular, are related to musical training. In the present article, we review this line of research and present newly collected data comparing trained musicians to non-musicians on a number of tasks that recruit verbal memory. The results showed an advantage for musicians' long-term verbal memory that disappeared when articulatory suppression was introduced. In addition, we found evidence for a greater verbal working memory span in musicians. Together, these results show that musical training may influence verbal working memory and long-term memory, and they suggest that these improved abilities are due to enhanced verbal rehearsal mechanisms in musicians.

The current study uses reach tracking to investigate how cognitive control is implemented during online performance of the Stroop task (Experiment 1) and the Eriksen flanker task (Experiment 2). We demonstrate that two of the measures afforded by reach tracking, initiation time and reach curvature, capture distinct patterns of effects that have been linked to dissociable processes underlying cognitive control in electrophysiology and functional neuroimaging research. Our results suggest that initiation time reflects a response threshold adjustment process involving the inhibition of motor output, while reach curvature reflects the degree of co-activation between response alternatives registered by a monitoring process over the course of a trial. In addition to shedding new light on fundamental questions concerning how these processes contribute to the cognitive control of behavior, these results present a framework for future research to investigate how these processes function across different tasks, develop across the lifespan, and differ among individuals.