Michael J. Kane

I am a cognitive psychologist studying the dynamic interaction between attention and memory, with special emphasis on individual differences. I use experimental and correlational methods to explore 4 central questions: 1. How do individuals control attention, in selectively processing goal-relevant information amidst distraction, in processing multiple information sources simultaneously, or in switching between different information sources or task objectives? 2. What are the consequences of attention-control failures for remembering, reasoning, and goal-directed action? 3. To what degree does maintaining information in active memory constrain our ability to focus attention and control action? 4. Why do “span” tests of working-memory capacity (WMC) do such a good job of predicting individual differences in general cognitive ability? In short, my research explores the nature of WMC's predictive power, in order to understand cognitive individual differences and the functioning of the core attention and memory processes that are broadly important to “real world” cognition.

There are 68 included publications by Michael J. Kane :

TitleDateViewsBrief Description
Age-related differences in mind-wandering in daily life 2018 3431 In recent years, several laboratory studies have indicated that healthy older adults exhibit a reduction in mind-wandering frequency compared with young adults. However, it is unclear if these findings extend to daily life settings. In the current st...
Aging ebbs the flow of thought: Adult age differences in mind wandering, executive control, and self-evaluation. 2013 3311 Two experiments examined the relations among adult aging, mind wandering, and executive-task performance, following from surprising laboratory findings that older adults report fewer task-unrelated thoughts (TUTs) than do younger adults (e.g., Giambr...
Bias versus bias: Harnessing hindsight to reveal paranormal belief change beyond demand characteristics 2010 8356 Psychological change is difficult to assess, in part because self-reported beliefs and attitudes may be biased or distorted. The present study probed belief change, in an educational context, by using the hindsight bias to counter another bias that g...
Carving executive control at its joints: Working memory capacity predicts stimulus–stimulus, but not stimulus–response, conflict 2015 1386 Three experiments examined the relation between working memory capacity (WMC) and 2 different forms of cognitive conflict: stimulus–stimulus (S-S) and stimulus–response (S-R) interference. Our goal was to test whether WMC’s relation to conflict-task ...
Cognitive predictors of a common multitasking ability: Contributions from working memory, attention control, and fluid intelligence 2016 3256 Previous research has identified several cognitive abilities that are important for multitasking, but few studies have attempted to measure a general multitasking ability using a diverse set of multitasks. In the final dataset, 534 young adult subjec...
A combined experimental and individual-differences investigation into mind wandering during a video lecture 2017 2052 A combined experimental-correlational study with a diverse sample (N = 182) from 2 research sites tested a set of 5 a priori hypotheses about mind wandering and learning, using a realistic video lecture on introductory statistics. Specifically, the s...
Conducting the Train of Thought: Working Memory Capacity, Goal Neglect, and Mind Wandering in an Executive-Control Task 2009 5267 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 atten...
Contribution of strategy use to performance on complex and simple span tasks. 2011 2353 Simple and complex span tasks are widely thought to measure related but separable memory constructs. Recently, however, research has demonstrated that simple and complex span tasks may tap, in part, the same construct because both similarly predict p...
The contributions of strategy use to working memory span: A comparison of strategy assessment methods 2006 3372 In two experiments, we tested whether individual differences in strategy production account for individual differences in performance on a working memory span task. We measured the strategies used during a standard experimenter-paced operation span (...
A Controlled-Attention View of Working-Memory Capacity 2001 9313 In 2 experiments the authors examined whether individual differences in working-memory (WM) capacity are related to attentional control. Experiment I tested high- and low-WM-span (high-span and low-span) participants in a prosaccade task, in which a ...
The Creative Mind in Daily Life: How Cognitive and Affective Experiences Relate to Creative Thinking and Behavior 2022 1005 Creativity has long been conceptually linked to experiences of emotion and mind wandering, yet these empirical relationships remain unclear, and few studies have explored the thoughts and emotions of creative people in daily life. To investigate how ...
Dealing with prospective memory demands while performing an ongoing task: Shared processing, increased on-task focus, or both? 2017 2813 Prospective memory (PM) is the cognitive ability to remember to fulfill intended action plans at the appropriate future moment. Current theories assume that PM fulfillment draws on attentional processes. Accordingly, pending PM intentions interfere w...
Determinants of Negative Priming 1995 2077 The negative priming task is widely used to investigate attentional inhibition. A critical review of the negative priming literature considers various parameters of the task (e.g., time course, relation to interference, level of occurrence, and susce...
Dispatching the wandering mind? Toward a laboratory method for cuing “spontaneous” off-task thought. 2013 2347 Cognitive psychologists and neuroscientists study most phenomena of attention by measuring subjects' overt responses to discrete environmental stimuli that can be manipulated to test competing theories. The mind wandering experience, however, cannot ...
Does Mind Wandering Reflect Executive Function or Executive Failure? Comment on Smallwood and Schooler (2006) and Watkins (2008) 2010 9169 In this comment, we contrast different conceptions of mind wandering that were presented in 2 recent theoretical reviews: Smallwood and Schooler (2006) and Watkins (2008). We also introduce a new perspective on the role of executive control in mind w...
Don’t Shoot the Messenger: Still No Evidence That Video-Game Experience Is Related to Cognitive Abilities—A Reply to Green et al. (2017) 2017 412 Green et al. (2017) raise two broad concerns with our two studies (Unsworth et al., 2015) showing little association between self-reported video-game experience and cognitive abilities: (a) Our analyses assumed linear gaming-cognition relationships a...
Drifting from slow to “D’oh!” Working memory capacity and mind wandering predict extreme reaction times and executive-control errors. 2012 3127 A combined experimental, individual-differences, and thought-sampling study tested the predictions of executive attention (e.g., Engle & Kane, 2004) and coordinative binding (e.g., Oberauer, Süß, Wilhelm, & Sander, 2007) theories of working memory ca...
Dual Mechanisms of Negative Priming 1997 2824 Three experiments examined whether negative priming is a dually determined effect produced by inhibitory mechanisms and by a memorial process. Younger adults (Experiment 1) and older adults (Experiments 1-3) were tested in procedures that varied the ...
An exploratory analysis of individual differences in mind wandering content and consistency 2020 1449 We conducted an exploratory study of adult individual differences in the contents of mind-wandering experiences and in the moment-to-moment consistency of that off-task thought content within tasks. This secondary analysis of a published dataset (Kan...
The Expression of Adult ADHD Symptoms in Daily Life: An Application of Experience Sampling Methodology 2008 4027 Objective: To use experience sampling method (ESM) to examine the impact of inattentive and hyperactive-impulsive ADHD symptoms on emotional well-being, activities and distress, cognitive impairment, and social functioning assessed in the daily lives...
The Family-Resemblances Framework for Mind-Wandering Remains Well Clad 2018 485 Christoff et al. [1] reject our family-resemblances framework for mind-wandering research [2] and instead seek to characterize mind-wandering with a necessary defining feature. As an example, they point to their ‘dynamic framework’ [3] that defines m...
A First Look at the Role of Domain-General Cognitive and Creative Abilities in Jazz Improvisation 2013 4269 The present study explored the associations among several cognitive and creative abilities and expert ratings of jazz improvisational quality. Ten male undergraduate jazz students (8 performance majors, 2 education majors; 5 winds, 3 strings, 1 piano...
For Whom the Mind Wanders, and When, Varies Across Laboratory and Daily-Life Settings 2017 2824 Undergraduates (N = 274) participated in a weeklong daily-life experience-sampling study of mind wandering after being assessed in the lab for executive-control abilities (working memory capacity; attention-restraint ability; attention-constraint abi...
For Whom the Mind Wanders, and When: An Experience- Sampling Study of Working Memory and Executive Control in Daily Life 2007 7021 An experience-sampling study of 124 under-graduates, pretested on complex memory-span tasks, examined the relation between working memory capacity (WMC) and the experience of mind wandering in daily life. Over 7 days, personal digital assistants sign...
The Generality of Working Memory Capacity: A Latent-Variable Approach to Verbal and Visuospatial Memory Span and Reasoning 2004 6753 A latent-variable study examined whether verbal and visuospatial working memory (WM) capacity measures reflect a primarily domain-general construct by testing 236 participants in 3 span tests each of verbal WM, visuospatial WM, verbal short-term memo...
Goal neglect and working memory capacity in 4- to 6-year-old children 2010 2254 Goal neglect is the phenomenon of failing to execute the momentary demands of a task despite understanding and being able to recall the task instructions. Successful goal maintenance is more likely to occur in adults with high working memory capacity...
A “Goldilocks zone” for mind-wandering reports? A secondary data analysis of how few thought probes are enough for reliable and valid measurement 2022 222 Mind-wandering assessment relies heavily on the thought probe technique as a reliable and valid method to assess momentary task-unrelated thought (TUT), but there is little guidance available to help researchers decide how many probes to include with...
Individual Differences in the Executive Control of Attention, Memory, and Thought, and Their Associations with Schizotypy 2016 1974 Reports an error in "Individual differences in the executive control of attention, memory, and thought, and their associations with schizotypy" by Michael J. Kane, Matt E. Meier, Bridget A. Smeekens, Georgina M. Gross, Charlotte A. Chun, Paul J. Silv...
Individual differences in task-unrelated thought in university classrooms 2021 607 This study investigated what academic traits, attitudes, and habits predict individual differences in task-unrelated thought (TUT)during lectures, and whether this TUT propensity mediates associations between academic individual differences and cours...
Individual differences in working memory capacity and visual search: The roles of top-down and bottom-up processing 2007 3448 Individual differences in working memory capacity (WMC) have been implicated in a variety of top-down, attention-control tasks: Higher WMC subjects better ignore irrelevant distractions and withhold habitual responses than do lower WMC subjects. Kane...
Inhibitory Attentional Mechanisms and Aging 1994 3199 Two experiments sought to elicit distractor suppression in older adults. Experiment 1 used a procedure that increased suppression in younger adults, thus creating a more sensitive measure of suppression in older adults. To compensate for older adults...
Interpolated retrieval effects on list isolation: Individual differences in working memory capacity 2019 1084 We examined the effects of interpolated retrieval from long-term memory (LTM) and short-term memory (STM) on list isolation in dual-list free recall and whether individual differences in working memory capacity (WMC) moderated those effects. Ninety-s...
Interpolated testing and content pretesting as interventions to reduce task-unrelated thoughts during a video lecture 2022 752 Considerable research has examined the prevalence and apparent consequences of task-unrelated thoughts (TUTs) in both laboratory and authentic educational settings. Few studies, however, have explored methods to reduce TUTs during learning; those few...
Is Playing Video Games Related to Cognitive Abilities? 2015 2116 The relations between video-game experience and cognitive abilities were examined in the current study. In two experiments, subjects performed a number of working memory, fluid intelligence, and attention-control measures and filled out a questionnai...
Keeping Creativity under Control: Contributions of Attention Control and Fluid Intelligence to Divergent Thinking 2022 518 Increasing research efforts are focused on explaining the cognitive bases of creativity. However, it remains unclear when and how cognitive factors such as intelligence and executive function uniquely contribute to performance on creative thinking ta...
Linking the Dynamics of Cognitive Control to Individual Differences in Working Memory Capacity: Evidence From Reaching Behavior 2021 750 We used a technique known as reach tracking to investigate how individual differences in working memory capacity (WMC) relate to the functioning of two processes proposed to underlie cognitive control: a threshold adjustment process that temporarily ...
Measuring working memory capacity with automated complex span tasks. 2012 8416 Individual differences in working memory capacity are related to a variety of behaviors both within and outside of the lab. Recently developed automated complex span tasks have contributed to increasing our knowledge concerning working memory capacit...
Mind-wandering as a natural kind: A family-resemblances view 2018 483 As empirical research on mind-wandering accelerates, we draw attention to an emerging trend in how mind-wandering is conceptualized. Previously articulated definitions of mind-wandering differ from each other in important ways, yet they also maintain...
No evidence of intelligence improvement after working memory training: A randomized, placebo-controlled study 2013 9416 Numerous recent studies seem to provide evidence for the general intellectual benefits of working memory training. In reviews of the training literature, Shipstead, Redick, and Engle (2010, 2012) argued that the field should treat recent results with...
On the time course of negative priming: Another look 1996 1538 In two experiments, the pattern of persistence of negative priming effects across delay intervals of 500 and 2,500 msec was assessed using a within-subjects, random sequencing of delays. Neill and Valdes (1992; Neill, Valdes, Terry, & Gorfein, 1992) ...
Premonitory Urges as "Attentional Tics" in Tourette's Syndrome 1994 5130 The author, a graduate student with Gilles de la Tourette's syndrome, proposes that pre-tic sensory experiences result from a specific attentional deficit. Based on his own introspective case study, the author argues that the premonitory urges that p...
Quantifying inhibitory control as externalizing proneness: A cross-domain model 2018 342 Recent mental health initiatives have called for a shift away from purely report-based conceptualizations of psychopathology toward a biobehaviorally oriented framework. The current work illustrates a measurement-oriented approach to challenges inher...
Robust prediction of individual creative ability from brain functional connectivity 2018 1402 People’s ability to think creatively is a primary means of technological and cultural progress, yet the neural architecture of the highly creative brain remains largely undefined. Here, we employed a recently developed method in functional brain imag...
The role of interference in memory span 1999 5775 In two experiments, we investigated the possibility that susceptibility to proactive interference (PI) affects performance on memory span measures. We tested both younger and older adults (older adults were tested because of the suggestion that they ...
The role of prefrontal cortex in working-memory capacity, executive attention, and general fluid intelligence: An individual-differences perspective 2002 9381 We provide an "executive-attention" framework for organizing the cognitive neuroscience research on the constructs of working-memory capacity (WMC), general fluid intelligence, and prefrontal cortex (PFC) function. Rather than provide a novel theory ...
Romantic partners’ working memory capacity facilitates relationship problem resolution through recollection of problem-relevant information 2020 1713 Intimates often discuss the causes of, and solutions to, their relationship problems with their partners, and this information can shape partners’ behavior and thus facilitate problem resolution. Partners’ ability to encode and later recall such disc...
SIISP: Self-Efficacy Intervention to Improve STEM Performance [Poster] 2018 407 Poster presented at the 2018 STEMM Equality Congress in Amsterdam, October 11-12, 2018. OBJECTIVES: • Develop, test, document, and disseminate a practical,scalable intervention to increase self-efficacy in university STEM students. • Develop and vali...
Testing the construct validity of competing measurement approaches to probed mind-wandering reports 2021 1125 Psychology faces a measurement crisis, and mind-wandering research is not immune. The present study explored the construct validity of probed mind-wandering reports (i.e., reports of task-unrelated thought [TUT]) with a combined experimental and indi...
Toward a Holistic Approach to Reducing Academic Procrastination With Classroom Interventions 2022 883 Although academic procrastination is prevalent, few interventions targeting it have been rigorously tested. We propose a novel approach to developing effective classroom interventions for academic procrastination, based on the ideas that changing com...
Tracking the train of thought from the laboratory into everyday life: An experience-sampling study of mind wandering across controlled and ecological contexts 2009 3458 In an experience-sampling study that bridged laboratory, ecological, and individual-differences approaches to mind-wandering research, 72 subjects completed an executive-control task with periodic thought probes (reported by McVay & Kane, 2009) and t...
Validating older adults’ reports of less mind-wandering: An examination of eye movements and dispositional influences 2015 2368 The Control Failures × Concerns theory perspective proposes that mind-wandering occurs, in part, because of failures to inhibit distracting thoughts from entering consciousness (McVay & Kane, 2012). Despite older adults (OAs) exhibiting poorer inhibi...
The validity of “conceptual span” as a measure of working memory capacity 2007 3938 Three experiments tested whether a modified version of the Clustered Conceptual Span task (H. J. Haarmann, E. J. Davelaar, & M. Usher, 2003), which ostensibly requires active maintenance of semantic representations, predicted individual differences i...
Who Shalt Not Kill? Individual Differences in Working Memory Capacity, Executive Control, and Moral Judgment 2008 7228 Recent findings suggest that exerting executive control influences responses to moral dilemmas. In our study, subjects judged how morally appropriate it would be for them to kill one person to save others. They made these judgments in 24 dilemmas tha...
Why does working memory capacity predict variation in reading comprehension? On the influence of mind wandering and executive attention. 2012 4499 Some people are better readers than others, and this variation in comprehension ability is predicted by measures of working memory capacity (WMC). The primary goal of this study was to investigate the mediating role of mind-wandering experiences in t...
Why does working memory span predict complex cognition? Testing the strategy affordance hypothesis 2008 3188 We introduce and empirically evaluate the strategy affordance hypothesis, which holds that individual dif-ferences in strategy use will mediate the relationship between performances on a working memory (WM) span task and another cognitive task only w...
Working memory capacity and the antisaccade task: A microanalytic–macroanalytic investigation of individual differences in goal activation and maintenance 2018 1660 The association between working memory capacity (WMC) and the antisaccade task, which requires subjects to move their eyes and attention away from a strong visual cue, supports the claim that WMC is partially an attentional construct (Kane, Bleckley,...
Working Memory Capacity and Fluid Intelligence Are Strongly Related Constructs : Comment on Ackerman, Beier, and Boyle (2005) 2005 8789 The authors agree with P. L. Ackerman, M. E. Beier, and M. O. Boyle (2005) that working memory capacity (WMC) is not isomorphic with general fluid intelligence (Gf) or reasoning ability. However, the WMC and Gf/reasoning constructs are more strongly ...
Working memory capacity and its relation to general intelligence 2003 714 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 result...
Working memory capacity and Stroop interference: Global versus local indices of executive control 2013 2849 Two experiments examined the relations among working memory capacity (WMC), congruency-sequence effects, proportion-congruency effects, and the color-word Stroop effect to test whether congruency-sequence effects might inform theoretical claims regar...
Working Memory Capacity and the Top-Down Control of Visual Search: Exploring the Boundaries of “Executive Attention” 2006 3597 The executive attention theory of working memory capacity (WMC) proposes that measures of WMC broadly predict higher order cognitive abilities because they tap important and general attention capabilities (R. W. Engle & M. J. Kane, 2004). Previous re...
Working memory capacity does not always support future-oriented mind wandering. 2013 3488 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...
Working memory capacity, mind wandering, and creative cognition: An individual-differences investigation into the benefits of controlled versus spontaneous thought 2016 2335 Should executive control, as indicated by working memory capacity (WMC) and mind-wandering propensity, help or hinder creativity? Sustained and focused attention should help guide a selective search of solution-relevant information in memory and help...
Working memory span tasks: A methodological review and user’s guide 2005 17828 Working memory (WM) span tasks—and in particular, counting span, operation span, and reading span tasks—are widely used measures of WM capacity. Despite their popularity, however, there has never been a comprehensive analysis of the merits of WM span...
Working Memory, Attention Control, and the N-Back Task: A Question of Construct Validity 2007 16367 The n-back task requires participants to decide whether each stimulus in a sequence matches the one that appeared n items ago. Although n-back has become a standard ?executive? working memory (WM) measure in cognitive neuroscience, it has been subjec...
Working-Memory Capacity and the Control of Attention: The Contributions of Goal Neglect, Response Competition, and Task Set to Stroop Interference 2003 11794 Individual differences in working-memory (WM) capacity predicted performance on the Stroop task in 5 experiments, indicating the importance of executive control and goal maintenance to selective attention. When the Stroop task encouraged goal neglect...
Working-memory capacity predicts the executive control of visual search among distractors: The influences of sustained and selective attention 2009 11624 Variation in working-memory capacity (WMC) predicts individual differences in only some attention-control capabilities. Whereas higher WMC subjects outperform lower WMC subjects in tasks requiring the restraint of prepotent but inappropriate response...
Working-Memory Capacity, Proactive Interference, and Divided Attention: Limits on Long-Term Memory Retrieval 2000 12396 Two experiments examined how individual differences in working-memory capacity (WM) relate -to proactive interference (PI) susceptibility. We tested high and low WM-span participants in a PI-buildup task under single-task or dual-task ("load") condit...
The worst performance rule, or the not-best performance rule? Latent-variable analyses of working memory capacity, mind-wandering propensity, and reaction time 2020 954 The worst performance rule (WPR) is a robust empirical finding reflecting that people’s worst task performance shows numerically stronger correlations with cognitive ability than their average or best performance. However, recent meta-analytic work h...