To evaluate the claim that mind-wandering demands executive resources, and more specifically that people with better executive control will have the resources to engage in more future-oriented thought than will those with poorer executive control, we reanalyzed thought-report data from 2 independently conducted studies (J. C. McVay & M. J. Kane, 2012, Why does working memory capacity predict va...

The present study investigated the role of working memory capacity (WMC) in the control of recollection in young and older adults. We used electroencephalographic event-related potentials (ERPs) to examine the effects of age and of individual differences in WMC on the ability to prioritize recollection according to current goals. Targets in a recognition exclusion task were words encoded using ...

On the basis of the executive-attention theory of working memory capacity (WMC; e.g., M. J. Kane, A. R. A. Conway, D. Z. Hambrick, & R. W. Engle, 2007), the authors tested the relations among WMC, mind wandering, and goal neglect in a sustained attention to response task (SART; a go/no-go task). In 3 SART versions, making conceptual versus perceptual processing demands, subjects periodically in...

Early investigations of working memory capacity (WMC) and reasoning ability suggested that WMC might be the basis of Spearman's g. However, recent work has uncovered details about the basic processes involved in working memory tasks, which has resulted in a more principled approach to task development. As a result, claims now being made about the relation between WMC and g are more cautious. A ...

According to attentional control theory, high trait anxious individuals experience reduced attentional control as compared to low trait anxious individuals due to the imbalance between goal-directed and stimulus-driven attentional systems. One consequence is that high trait anxious individuals have difficulty resisting distraction, as compared to low trait anxious individuals. A separate line o...

One of the most challenging problems in wireless sensor networks is the design of scalable and efficient routing algorithms without location information. The use of specialized hardware and/or infrastructure support for localization is costly and in many deployment scenarios infeasible. In this study, the wave mapping coordinate (WMC) system to address the localization problem is introduced for...

Is there a relation between working memory (WM) and incidental sequence learning? Nearly all of the earlier investigations in the role of WM capacity (WMC) in sequence learning suggest no correlations in incidental learning conditions. However, the theoretical view of WM and operationalization of WMC made strong progress in recent years. The current study related performance in a coordination a...

Cognitive load theory states that improper cognitive loads may negatively affect learning. By identifying students’ working memory capacity (WMC), personalized scaffolding techniques can be used, either by teachers or adaptive systems to offer students individual recommendations of learning activities based on their individual cognitive load. WMC has been identified traditionally by dedicated t...

To further elucidate the relationship between working memory capacity (WMC) and long-term memory (LTM), the present study investigated how individual differences in WMC relate to strategic encoding and subsequent retrieval in a self-regulated value-directed remembering paradigm. Participants were given 2 min to study lists of words that varied in explicit value and then were asked to freely rec...

BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVES Avoidance behavior is central to several anxiety disorders. The current study tested whether avoidance behavior for spiders depends on a dynamic interplay between implicit and explicit processes, moderated by the availability to exert control through working memory capacity (WMC). METHODS A total of 63 participants completed an approach-avoidance task, an implicit as...