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30
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Introduction
Skills and Expertise
Current institution
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August 2018 - present
August 2017 - present
May 2016 - August 2016
Education
August 2018 - February 2023
Publications
Publications (30)
Mental speed theories of intelligence suggest that people are smarter because they are faster. We argue that attention control plays an important and fundamental role in mediating the relationship between basic sensory processes and more complex cognitive processes such as fluid intelligence. One of the most successful paradigms for establishing a...
Mental speed theories of intelligence suggest that people are smarter because they are faster. Weargue that attention control plays an important and fundamental role in mediating the relationshipbetween basic sensory processes and more complex cognitive processes such as fluidintelligence. One of the most successful paradigms for establishing a men...
Military selection tests leave room for improvement when predicting work‐relevant outcomes. We tested whether measures of attention control, working memory capacity, and fluid intelligence improved the prediction of training success above and beyond composite scores used by the U.S. Military. For student air traffic controllers, commonality analyse...
Mental speed theories of intelligence suggest that people are smarter because they are faster. Weargue that attention control plays an important and fundamental role in mediating the relationshipbetween basic sensory processes and more complex cognitive processes such as fluidintelligence. One of the most successful paradigms for establishing a men...
Individual differences in processing speed and executive attention have both been proposed as explanations for individual differences in cognitive ability, particularly general and fluid intelligence (Engle et al., 1999; Kail & Salthouse, 1994). Both constructs have long intellectual histories in scientific psychology. This article attempts to desc...
We compare the validity of personnel selection measures and novel tests of attention control for explaining individual differences in synthetic work performance, which required participants to monitor and complete multiple ongoing tasks. In Study 1, an online sample of young adults (N = 474, aged 18-35) based in the United States completed three-mi...
Individual differences in the ability to control attention are correlated with a wide range of important outcomes, from academic achievement and job performance to health behaviors and emotion regulation. Nevertheless, the theoretical nature of attention control as a cognitive construct has been the subject of heated debate, spurred on by psychomet...
Memory is essential for everyday life. The understanding and study of memory has continued to grow over the years, thanks to well controlled laboratory studies and theory development. However, major challenges arise when attempting to apply theories of memory function to practical problems in society. A theory might be robust in explaining experime...
Memory is essential for everyday life. The understanding and study of memory has continued to grow over the years, thanks to well controlled laboratory studies and theory development. However, major challenges arise when attempting to apply theories of memory function to practical problems in society. A theory might be robust in explaining experime...
Pending approval for public release.
Pending approval for public release.
Please visit https://osf.io/7q598/ to download the Engle Lab's Three-Minute Squared Tests of Attention Control: Stroop Squared, Flanker Squared, and Simon Squared.
We offer three versions of the program:
1) Windows standalone (no E-Prime needed)
2) Mac standalone (no E-Prime needed)
3) E-Prime 3.0 run files
Additionally, each download includes an...
Individual differences in the ability to control attention are correlated with a wide range of important outcomes, from academic achievement and job performance to health behaviors and emotion regulation. Nevertheless, the theoretical nature of attention control as a cognitive construct has been the subject of heated debate, spurred on by psychomet...
In this chapter, we discuss the measurement of working memory capacity and attention control. We begin by examining the origins of complex span measures of working memory capacity, which were created to better understand the cognitive processes underpinning language comprehension. We then review evidence for the executive attention theory of workin...
Process overlap theory provides a contemporary explanation for the positive correlations observed among cognitive ability measures, a phenomenon which intelligence researchers refer to as the positive manifold. According to process overlap theory, cognitive tasks tap domain-general executive processes as well as domain-specific processes, and corre...
A hallmark of intelligent behavior is rationality – the disposition and ability to think analytically to make decisions that maximize expected utility or follow the laws of probability. However, the question remains as to whether rationality and intelligence are empirically distinct, as does the question of what cognitive mechanisms underlie indivi...
Extant literature suggests that performance on visual arrays tasks reflects limited-capacity storage of visual information. However, there is also evidence to suggest that visual arrays task performance reflects individual differences in controlled processing. The purpose of this study is to empirically evaluate the degree to which visual arrays ta...
Process overlap theory provides a contemporary explanation for the positive correlations observed among cognitive ability measures, a phenomenon which intelligence researchers refer to as the positive manifold. According to process overlap theory, cognitive tasks tap domain-general executive processes as well as domain-specific processes, and corre...
A critical goal for psychological science in the 21st century is to foster diversity, equity, and inclusion in occupational contexts. One arena which will continue to benefit from a focus on equity is high-stakes testing, such as the assessments used for personnel selection and classification decisions. We define an equitable test as one that minim...
A hallmark of intelligent behavior is rationality—the disposition and ability to think analytically to make decisions that maximize expected utility or follow the laws of probability, and therefore align with normative principles of decision making. However, the question remains as to whether rationality and intelligence are empirically distinct, a...
This chapter outlines the executive attention theory of higher-order cognition, which argues that individual differences in the ability to maintain information in working memory and disengage from irrelevant information is inextricably linked to variation in the ability to deploy domain-free attentional resources in a goal-directed fashion. It also...
Working memory refers to how we keep track of what we are doing moment to moment throughout our waking lives. It allows us to remember what we have just done, focus on what we are doing now, to solve problems, be creative, think about what we will be doing in the next few seconds, and continually to update in our mind changes around us throughout t...
We evaluated the predictive value of the Armed Services Vocational Aptitude Battery (ASVAB) at the latent level, using multitasking as a proxy for real-world job performance. We also examined whether adding measures of attention control to the ASVAB could improve its predictive validity. To answer these questions, data were collected from 171 young...
Cognitive tasks that produce reliable and robust effects at the group level often fail to yield reliable and valid individual differences. An ongoing debate among attention researchers is whether conflict resolution mechanisms are task-specific or domain-general, and the lack of correlation between most attention measures seems to favor the view th...
**The uploaded manuscript is still in preparation** In this study, we tested the relationship between visual arrays tasks and working memory capacity and attention control. Specifically, we tested whether task design (selection or non-selection demands) impacted the relationship between visual arrays measures and constructs of working memory capaci...
Cognitive tasks that produce reliable and robust effects at the group level often fail to yield reliable and valid individual differences. An ongoing debate in the attention literature is whether conflict resolution mechanisms are task-specific or domain-general, and the lack of correlation between most attention measures seems to favor the view th...
Reaction time is believed to be a good indicator of the speed and efficiency of mental processes and is a ubiquitous variable in the behavioral sciences. Despite this popularity, there are numerous issues associated with using reaction time (RT), specifically in differential and developmental research. Here, we identify and focus on two main proble...
In this study, we investigated whether age-related deficits in cue–outcome associative learning (e.g., Mutter, Atchley, & Plumlee, 2012; Mutter, DeCaro, & Plumlee, 2009; Mutter, Haggbloom, Plumlee, & Schirmer, 2006; Mutter & Williams, 2004) might be due to a decline in older adults’ ability to modulate attention to relevant and irrelevant cues. In...
