Working-Memory Laboratory

Email

CowanN at missouri dot edu

Webpage

https://psychology.missouri.edu/people/cowan

Office

18 McAlester Hall
phone: 573-882-4232
fax: 573-882-7710

Mailing Address

University of Missouri-Columbia
Department of Psychological Sciences
210 McAlester Hall
Columbia, MO 65211-2500

Current Position:

Curators' Distinguished Professor Emeritus, University of Missouri, Columbia

Research Specializations: 

1.  Short-term or working memory, including sensory and abstract components
2.  Childhood development of short-term or working memory
3.  Relations between working memory and selective attention in information processing

Education:

Ph.D.  1980,  University of Wisconsin, Madison (Psychology)
M.S.   1977,  University of Wisconsin, Madison (Psychology)
B.S.   1973,  University of Michigan, Ann Arbor (Independent Major, Neurosciences)

Keynote Addresses

Psychonomic Society, New York, 2024

Details, https://www.psychonomic.org/general/custom.asp?page=2024keynote

Video, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CjgWeBNG2Xo

Empirical Studies in Psychology, Belgrade, Serbia, 2024
Max Planck School of Cognition, Cognition Academy, Dresden, Germany, 2022
Association for Research on Memory, Attention, Decision-Making, Intelligence, Learning, Language, and Organization (ARMADILLO), San Antonio, TX, 2019
Cognitive Psychology Section and Developmental Psychology Section Joint Conference, British Psychological Society, Stoke on Trent, UK, 2019
Conference on Working Memory, NYU Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates, 2017
Twenty-fifth International Symposium on Attention and Performance (Attention and Performance XXV).  Saint-Hippolyte, Canada, 2013
Beyond the retention of list sequences. A workshop focusing on links between long-term memory and immediate memory. Lancaster, UK, 2008
Second European Working Memory Symposium (EWOMS-2), Dijon, France, 2004
Mathematics, Statistics, and Computing Section of the British Psychological Society, London, UK, 2000
Cognitive Psychology Section of the British Psychological Society, Essex, England, UK, 2000

Research Summary

    My broad interests are in human consciousness (e.g., Cowan et al., 2025, Psychological Review,  “Theories of consciousness from the perspective of an embedded processes view”) and in associated cognitive processes (e.g., Cowan et al., 2024, Annual Review of Psychology, “The relation between attention and memory”) and their childhood development (e.g., Cowan, 2022, Cognition, “Working memory development: A 50-year assessment of research and underlying theories;” Superbia-Guimarães & Cowan, 2023, Developmental Review, “Disentangling processing and storage accounts of working memory development in childhood.”  As these summaries show, the work has led to the embedded-processes model of working memory. In it, there is a temporarily-activated portion of the memory system, including rapid new learning, and a subset of the activated information that is in a capacity-limited focus of attention allowing the formation of new associations between concurrently-held chunks of information.

          For many years, the field of working memory emphasized decay and mnemonic processing speeds as the basic limits on performance. I helped shift the field to revive an interest in capacity limits, but with new care to distinguish between a core limit of 3-4 items and additional items retained using mnemonic strategies (e.g., Cowan, 2001, Behavioral and Brain Sciences & 2012, Psychological Review). Childhood developmental work funded by NIH showed that there are separate retrieval and rehearsal speeds related to memory span (Cowan et al., Journal of Experimental Psychology, General, 1998), but training children to speed up did not improve their span (Cowan et al., Psychological Science, 2006). Developmental increases in capacity were found to occur in the elementary school years even under conditions in which rehearsal and refreshing of items during their presentation are prevented. Such conditions, for example, include those in which spoken lists of digits were unattended during their presentation until an occasional post-list recall cue (e.g., Cowan et al., Child Development, 1999), and retention of series of non-musical tones that are difficult to rehearse (Clark et al., Developmental Psychology, 2018). Our subsequent research has shown that working memory capacity increased in the elementary school years even after we experimentally equated the contributions of knowledge, filtering out of irrelevant items, encoding speed, and rehearsal (for a review, see Cowan, 2016, Perspectives on Psychological Science). Our recent research shows which control processes contribute to the developmental change in capacity. These appear to include children’s growing ability to off-load one set of items to memory, in order to free up attention to encode another set (Cowan et al., 2018, Developmental Science); to share attention between storage and processing, rather than cease refreshing the stored information (Cowan et al., 2021, Developmental Psychology); and to become aware of their own capacity limits, gaining meta-working memory knowledge (Forsberg et al., 2021, Developmental Psychology). Our recent research also shows that the sharing of attention between multiple common objects in an array predicts degraded long-term recognition of the objects (Forsberg et al., Psychonomic Bulletin & Review, 2021). Our findings also indicate that, although working memory increases across childhood and diminishes in the elderly, the working- to long-term memory ratio of the information remains constant across ages; working memory capability predicts long-term learning (Forsberg et al., Developmental Science, 2022, two articles). I have pursued various practical collaborations applying our theoretical understanding of working memory to language impairment, dyslexia, Williams and Down Syndromes, challenges of bilingualism, attention in autism, psychometric testing, alcohol intoxication, and dense amnesia due to dementia, stroke, or accidents.

Honors and Awards:

    Red Chalk Award for Fall, 2023. (Outstanding Research Faculty Mentor)
    Lifetime Achievement Award, American Psychological Association, Division 3, Society for Experimental Psychology and Cognitive Science, 2020
    Editor’s Choice Award (with Dominic Guitard), Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance, 2023.
    Senior author with Alicia Forsberg (first author), Developmental Science Early Career Researcher Prize, 2021.
    Doctor Honoris Causa (honorary doctorate), Université de Liège, Belgium, to be conferred 28 March, 2015.
    Fellow, AAAS, 2012
    President’s Faculty Award for Sustained Excellence, University of Missouri System, 2011
    Charter Fellow, Midwestern Psychological Association, 2009
Fellow, Society of Experimental Psychologists, Elected 2007
Curators’ Distinguished Professor, University of Missouri.  Appointment beginning Sept., 2004.  
    Doctor of Philosophy honoris causa (honorary doctorate), University of Helsinki (Nov. 22, 2002; conferred June 6, 2003)
Charter Fellow, Association for Psychological Science, 1998 (formerly the American Psychological Society)
Fellow, American Psychological Association, 1999       
Fellow, American Psychological Association, Division 3 (Experimental Psychology), 1998
Chancellor’s Award for Outstanding Faculty Research and Creative Activity in the Behavioral and Social Sciences, University of Missouri (1998)
Middlebush Professor of the Social Sciences, University of Missouri (1995-)
(Awarded to 1 professor at MU every 5 years, for research and teaching quality)  (above)
Golden Chalk Award, for graduate teaching and education, University of Missouri  (1999)
Editor’s Award (with R. Gillam & J. Marler), American Speech, Language, and Hearing Association, for Gillam et al. (1998, Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research)
Distinguished visiting professorships, Univ. of Bristol and Univ. of Western Australia (above)
New Investigator Research Award (1984)
Phi Kappa Phi Honor Society, University of Wisconsin Chapter
Sigma Xi, The Scientific Research Society
Sloan Scholar, University of Michigan, 1969-1973

Editorial and Professional Activities:

     Editor, Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 2017-2021 (outgoing year 2022)
President, American Psychological Association, Division 3 (Experimental Psychology), August 2008-09
Chair, External Review Committee, Department of Psychology, Iowa State University, 2013
Liaison from the Psychonomic Society to the U.S. National Committee for Psychological Science, 2012
Elected member of the Governing Board, Psychonomic Society, 2006-            2011
Editor-in-Chief (with co-editor David A. Balota) of book series, Frontiers in Cognitive Psychology, Psychology Press
Guest Editor (with Robert Logie), 2014, Memory & Cognition, special issue on working memory
Guest Editor (with Ilke Öztekin), 2013, Frontiers in Human Neuroscience, Special issue:  Representational states in memory: Where do we stand?
Associate Editor, European Journal of Cognitive Psychology, 2005 – 2007
Associate Editor, Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology (A), 2001 - 2004
Associate Editor, Journal of Experimental Psychology:  Learning, Memory, and Cognition, 1995-1999
Section Editor (Experimental Psychology), UNESCO, Encyclopedia of Life-Support Systems
Elected Member at Large, Executive Committee of Division 3 of the American Psychological Association (2004-2007)
Program Committee, Chair of Cognitive Section, Midwestern Psychological Association, 1998 - 2000
Program Committee, Chair of Cognitive Section, American Psychological Society, 1999 - 2001
Program Committee, Chair of Division 3 (Experimental), American Psychological Association, 2003 Meeting
Scientific Program Committee Member for the Second International Conference on Working Memory (ICWM-2), Kyoto, Japan, 2004.
Scientific Advisory Committee Member for NIH center grant, Albert Einstein College of Medicine, "Clinical research center for communicative disorders," 1997 -

Selected Grant Awards

Cowan, N., PI. 2 R01 HD021338-30 through -34.  Competing continuation, Mechanisms of working memory capacity limits and their development.  NICHD, 5/08/2019 – 4/30/2025.  (This is the same project that began in 1984 as a New Investigator Research Award.)

Cowan, N., Co-I. (Cowan PI for MU subcontract). Gray, Shelley., PI. NIDCD, Profiles of Working Memory for Educational Research, July 1, 2018 - June 30, 2024.  2 R01 DC010784-06. (This followed from a previous R01 award.)

Cowan, N., Co-I.  NSF Bio 0039720.  REU Site: Summer Research Projects in Neuroscience.  National Science Foundation, 1/15/2021-12/31/2023.  (Funded summer research experiences for undergraduates from other universities.) PI:  Satish S. Nair, University of Missouri. (This followed many previous years of funding.)

Logie, R.L., PI. (with V. Camos, P. Barrouillet, N. Cowan, and M. Naveh-Benjamin, co-PIs).  Working memory across the adult lifespan: An adversarial collaboration.   Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC, Grant # ES/N010728/1), United Kingdom.  3/1/2016-2/29/2020

Books:

Logie, R.H., Wen, Z., Gathercole, S., Cowan, N., & Engle, R. (Eds.) (2023), Memory in Science for Society: There is nothing as practical as a good theory. Oxford University Press.

Courage, M.L., & Cowan, N. (eds) (2022). The development of memory in infancy and childhood.  2nd Edition. Routledge. 

Logie, R.H., Camos, V., & Cowan, N. (eds) (2021). Working Memory: State of the Science, Oxford University Press.

Cowan, N. (2016).  Working memory capacity.  Psychology Press and Routledge Classic Edition. New York:  Routledge. [Original edition 2005. New Foreword to the Classic Edition.]

Courage, M.L., & Cowan, N. (eds.)  (2009).  The development of memory in infancy and childhood.  Hove, U.K.:  Psychology Press. 

Cowan, N. (2005).  Working memory capacity.  Hove, East Sussex, UK:  Psychology Press. [Psychology Press and Routledge Classic Edition with new foreword, 2016]

Cowan, N. (ed.) (1997).  The development of memory in childhood.  Hove, East Sussex, UK:  Psychology Press. (Paperback edition:  1997)

Cowan, N. (1995).  Attention and memory:  An integrated framework.  Oxford Psychology Series, No. 26.  New York: Oxford University Press.  (Paperback edition:  1997)

Selected Journal Articles (for a complete list see C.V. attached at top of web page)

Approximate reverse chronological order

Bao, C., Li, Y., & Cowan, N. (2025). Object- and feature-based working memory limits for pairs of complex objects and their development during the school years. Cognition, 262, 106163. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cognition.2025.106163

Gaspelin, N., & Cowan, N. (2025). Restoring a top-down control assumption: salience effects in working memory are overcome with time. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 154 (8), 2301-2317. https://doi.org/10.1037/xge0001776

Cowan, N., & Guitard, D. (2025). Similar working memory outcomes with successive versus concurrent presentation of tones and colors. Attention, Perception & Psychophysics, 87, 884–898. https://doi.org/10.3758/s13414-025-03036-3

Forsberg, A., Guitard, D., Greene, N.R., Naveh-Benjamin, M., & Cowan, N. (2025). Differential information transfer and loss between working memory and long-term memory across serial positions. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition, 51(8), 1191–1212. https://doi.org/10.1037/xlm0001437

Cissne, M.N., Bellesheim, K.R., Cowan, N., & Christ, S.E. (2024). Visual working memory in adolescents with autism spectrum disorder. Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders. Online ahead of print. doi: 10.1007/s10803-024-06600-2

Cowan, N., Ahmed, N.I., Bao, C., Cissne, M.N., Flores, R.D., Gutierrez, R.M., Hayse, B., Musich, M.L., Nourbakhshi, H., Nuraini, N., Schroeder, E.E., Sfeir, N., Sparrow, E., & Superbia-Guimarães, L. (2025). Theories of consciousness from the perspective of an embedded processes view. Psychological Review, 132(1), 76-106. https://doi.org/10.1037/rev0000510

Cowan, N., & Guitard, D. (2024). Encoding colors and tones into working memory concurrently: A developmental investigation. Developmental Science, e13552. https://doi.org/10.1111/desc.13552

Greene, N., Forsberg, A., Guitard, G., Naveh-Benjamin, M., & Cowan, N. (2024). A lifespan study of the confidence-accuracy relation in working memory and episodic long-term memory. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 153, 1336–1360.https://doi.org/10.1037/xge0001551

Superbia-Guimarães, L., & Cowan, N. (2023).  Disentangling processing and storage accounts of working memory development in childhood.  Developmental Review, 69, 101089. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.dr.2023.101089

Cowan, N., Bao, C., Bishop-Chrzanowski, B.M., Costa, A.N., Greene, N.R., Guitard, D.,  Li, C., Musich, M.L., & Ünal, Z.E. (2024). The relation between attention and memory. Annual Review of Psychology, 75,  183-214. https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev-psych-040723-012736

Naveh-Benjamin, M. & Cowan, N. (2023).  Age-related changes in working memory: Roles of attention, executive function, and knowledge. Nature Reviews Psychology, 2, 151-165.  https://doi.org/10.1038/s44159-023-00149-0. Viewable Link: https://rdcu.be/c39GP

Guitard, D., & Cowan, N. (2023). The tradeoff between item and order information in short-term memory does not depend on encoding time. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance, 49, 51–70. https://doi.org/10.1037/xhp0001074 [Editor’s Choice Award]

Barton, A.U., Valle-Inclán, F., Cowan, N., & Hackley, S. (2022). Unconsciously registered items reduce working memory capacity. Consciousness and Cognition, 105, 103399

Li, Y., & Cowan, N. (2022). Constraints of attention, stimulus modality, and feature similarity in working memory. Attention, Perception, & Psychophysics, 84, 2519–2539. https://doi.org/10.3758/s13414-022-02549-5

Guitard, D., & Cowan, N. (2023). Attention allocation between item and order information in short-term memory. Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology 76(6): 1391–1409. DOI: 10.1177/17470218221118451

Forsberg, A., Guitard, D., Greene, N.R., Naveh-Benjamin, M., & Cowan, N. (2022). The proportion of working memory items recoverable from long-term memory remains fixed despite adult aging. Psychology and Aging, 37, 777-786. https://doi.org/10.1037/pag0000703

Forsberg, A., Adams, E.J., & Cowan, N. (2023). Why does visual working memory ability improve with age: More objects, more feature detail, or both? A registered report. Developmental Science, 26, e13283, 1-18.  DOI: 10.1111/desc.13283

Cowan, N., & Elliott, E.M. (2023). Deconfounding serial recall: Response timing and the overarching role of grouping. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition, 49, 249-268. http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/xlm0001157

Cowan, N. (2022). Working memory development: A 50-year assessment of research and underlying theories. Cognition, 224, 105075. doi.org/10.1016/j.cognition.2022.105075

Ünal, Z.E., Forsberg, A., Geary, D.C., & Cowan, N. (2022). The Role of Domain-General Attention and Domain-Specific Processing in Working Memory in Algebraic Performance: An Experimental Approach. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition, 48, 348-374. https://doi.org/10.1037/xlm0001117

Gray, S., Levy, R., Alt, M., Hogan, T.P., & Cowan, N. (2022). Working memory predicts new word learning over and above existing vocabulary and nonverbal IQ. Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research, 65, 1044–1069. https://doi.org/10.1044/2021_JSLHR-21-00397
 
Guitard, D., Saint-Aubin, J., & Cowan, N. (2022). Tradeoffs between item and order information in short-term memory. Journal of Memory and Language, 122, 104300. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jml.2021.104300

Belletier, C., Doherty, J., Jaroslawska, A., Rhodes, S., Cowan, N., Naveh-Benjamin, M., Barrouillet, P., Camos, V., & Logie, R. (2023). Strategic adaptation to dual-task in verbal working memory:  Potential routes for theory integration. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition, 49, 51–77. doi: 10.1037/xlm0001106.

Forsberg, A., Adams, E.J., & Cowan, N. (2021). The Role of Working Memory in Long-Term Learning: Implications for Childhood Development. Psychology of Learning and Motivation, 74, 1-45.

Forsberg, A., Guitard, D.,  Adams, E. J., Pattanakul, D., & Cowan, N. (2022). Children's long-term retention is directly constrained by their working memory capacity limitations. Developmental Science, 25 (2), e13164. https://doi.org/10.1111/desc.13164 [Developmental Science Early Career Researcher Prize, 2021]

Cowan, N., Guitard, D., Greene, N.R., & Fiset, S. (2022). Exploring the use of phonological and semantic representations in working memory. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition, 48, 1638–1659.

Cowan, N., & Hardman, K.O. (2021).  Immediate recall of grouped serial numbers with or without multiple item repetitions. Memory, 29(6), 744-761 doi.org/10.1080/09658211.2021.1942920

Forsberg, A., Blume, C., and Cowan, N. (2021). The development of metacognitive accuracy in working memory across childhood. Developmental Psychology, 57, 1297-1317.  DOI: 10.1037/dev0001213

Elliott, E.M., Morey, C.C., AuBuchon, A.M., Adams, E. Attwood, M., Bayram, B., Beeler, S., Blakstvedt, T., Büttner, G., Castelain, T., Cave, S., Cowan, N. et al. (2021). Multi-lab direct replication of Flavell, Beach and Chinsky (1966): Spontaneous Verbal Rehearsal in a Memory Task as a Function of Age. Advances in Methods and Practices in Psychological Science, 4 (2), 1-20.

Cowan, N. (2021). Differentiation of two working memory tasks normed on a large U.S. sample of children 2 to 7 years old. Child Development, 92, 2268–2283. DOI: 10.1111/cdev.13562

Li, Y., & Cowan, N. (2021). Attention effects in working memory that are asymmetric across sensory modalities. Memory & Cognition, 49(5), 1050-1065. doi.org/10.3758/s13421-021-01142-9

Forsberg, A., Guitard, D., & Cowan, N. (2021). Working memory limits severely constrain long-term retention. Psychonomic Bulletin & Review, 28, 537–547. Doi: 10.3758/s13423-020-01847-z

Cowan, N., AuBuchon, A.M., Gilchrist, A.L., Blume, C.L., Boone, A.P., and Saults, J.S. (2021). Developmental change in the nature of attention allocation in a dual task. Developmental Psychology, 57, 33-46. Doi: 10.1037/dev0001134

Adams, E.J., & Cowan, N. (2021). The girl was watered by the flower: Effects of working memory loads on syntactic production in young children. Journal of Cognition and Development, 22, 125-148. doi.org/10.1080/15248372.2020.1844710

Guitard, D., Saint-Aubin, J., & Cowan, N. (2021). Asymmetrical interference between item and order information in short-term memory. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition, 47, 243-263DOI: 10.1037/xlm0000956

Röer, J.P., & Cowan, N. (2021). A preregistered replication and extension of the cocktail party phenomenon: One’s name captures attention, unexpected words do not. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition, 47, 234–242. https://doi.org/10.1037/xlm0000874

McGhee, J.D., Cowan, N., Beschin, N., Mosconi, C., & Della Sala, S. (2020). Wakeful rest benefits before and after encoding in anterograde amnesia. Neuropsychology, 34, 524-534.

Gray, S., Lancaster, H., Alt, M., Hogan, T., Green, S., Levy, R., & Cowan, N. (2020). The structure of word learning in young school-age children. Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research, 63, 1446-1466

Cowan, N., Belletier, C., Doherty, J.M., Jaroslawska, A.J., Rhodes, S., Forsberg, A., Naveh-Benjamin, M., Barrouillet, P. Camos, V., & Logie, R.H. (2020). How do scientific views change? Notes from an extended adversarial collaboration. Perspectives on Psychological Science, 15, 1011-1025. https://doi.org/10.1177/1745691620906415

Cowan, N., Adams, E.J., Bhangal, S., Corcoran, M., Decker, R., Dockter, C.E., Eubank, A.T., Gann, C.L., Greene, N.R., Helle, A.C., Lee, N., Nguyen, A.T., Ripley, K.R., Scofield, J.E., Tapia, M.A., Threlkeld, K.L., & Watts, A.L. (2019). Foundations of arrogance: A broad survey and framework for research. Review of General Psychology, 23, 425-443. https://doi.org/10.1177/1089268019877138

Bodner, K.E., Cowan, N., & Christ, S.E. (2019). Contributions of filtering and attentional allocation to working memory performance in individuals with autism spectrum disorder. Journal of Abnormal Psychology, 128, 881-891.

Cowan, N. (2019) Short-term memory based on activated long-term memory: A review in response to Norris (2017). Psychological Bulletin, 145, 822-847.  DOI: 10.1037/bul0000199

Ricker, T.J., Sandry, J., Vergauwe, E., & Cowan, N. (2020). Do familiar memory items decay? Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition, 46, 60-76. doi: 10.1037/xlm0000719

Rhodes, S., Jaroslawska, A.J., Doherty, J.M., Belletier, C., Naveh-Benjamin, M., Cowan, N., Camos, V., Barrouillet, P., & Logie, R.H.  (2019). Storage and processing in working memory: Assessing dual task performance and task prioritization across the adult lifespan. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 148, 1204-1227.

Doherty, J.M., Belletier, C., Rhodes, S., Jaroslawska, A.J., Barrouillet, P., Camos, V., Cowan, N., Naveh-Benjamin, M., & Logie, R.H. (2019). Dual-task costs in working memory: An adversarial collaboration. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition, 45, 1529-1551.

Cowan, N., & Rachev, N.R. (2018), Merging with the path not taken: Wilhelm Wundt’s work as a precursor to the embedded-processes approach to memory, attention, and consciousness. Consciousness and Cognition, 63, 228-238.

Vergauwe, E., Ricker, T.J., Langerock, N., & Cowan, N. (2019). What do people typically do between list items? The nature of attention-based mnemonic activities depends on task context. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition 45, 779-794. doi: 10.1037/xlm0000625

Gossaries, O., Yu, Q., LaRocque, J.J., Starrett, M.J., Rose, N.S., Cowan, N., & Postle, B.R. (2018). Parietal-occipital interactions underlying control- and representation-related processes in working memory for nonspatial visual features. Journal of Neuroscience, 38, 4357– 4366.

Oberauer, K., Lewandowsky, S., Awh, E., Brown, G.D.A., Conway, A., Cowan, N., Donkin, C., Farrell, S.,. Hitch, G.J., Hurlstone, M., Ma, W.J., Morey, C.C., Nee, D.E., Schweppe, J., Vergauwe, E., & Ward, G. (2018). Benchmarks for models of working memory. Psychological Bulletin, 144(9), 885-958. doi: 10.1037/bul0000153

Bartholow, B.D., Fleming, K.A., Wood, P.K., Cowan, N., Saults, J.S., Altamirano, L., Miyake, A., Martins, J., & Sher, K.J. (2018). Alcohol effects on response inhibition: Variability across tasks and individuals. Experimental and Clinical Psychopharmacology, 26(3), 251-267. doi: 10.1037/pha0000190

Cowan, N., Li, Y., Glass, B., & Saults, J.S. (2018). Development of the ability to combine visual and acoustic information in working memory. Developmental Science, 21, e12635, 1-14. doi: 10.1111/desc.12635.

Clark, K.M., Hardman, K., Schachtman, T.R., Saults, J.S., Glass, B.A., & Cowan, N. (2018). Tone series and the nature of working memory capacity development. Developmental Psychology, 54, 663-676. DOI: 10.1037/dev0000466

Vergauwe, E., Langerock, N., & Cowan, N. (2018). Evidence for spontaneous serial refreshing in verbal working memory? Psychonomic Bulletin & Review, 25, 674-680.

Majerus, S., Péters, F., Bouffier, M., Cowan, N., & Phillips, C. (2018). The dorsal attention network reflects both encoding load and top-down control during working memory.  Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience, 30, 144-159. DOI: 10.1162/jocn_a_01195

Rhodes, S., Cowan, N., Hardman, K.O., & Logie, R.H. (2018). Informed guessing in change detection. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition. 44, 1023-1035.

Cowan, N., Hogan, T.P., Alt, M., Green, S., Cabbage, K.L., Brinkley, S., & Gray, S. (2017). Short-term memory in childhood dyslexia:  Deficient serial order in multiple modalities. Dyslexia, 23, 209-233.

Cowan, N. (2017). Mental objects in working memory:  Development of basic capacity or of cognitive completion? Advances in Child Development and Behavior, 52, 81-104. doi: 10.1016/bs.acdb.2016.12.001

Cowan, N. (2017). The many faces of working memory and short-term storage.  Psychonomic Bulletin & Review, 24, 1158–1170. DOI: 10.3758/s13423-016-1191-6

Gray, S., Green, S., Alt, M., Hogan, T., Kuo, T., Brinkley, S., & Cowan, N. (2017). The structure of working memory in young school-age children and its relation to intelligence. Journal of Memory and Language, 92, 183-201. DOI: 10.1016/j.jml.2016.06.004

Chekaf, M., Cowan, N., & Mathy, F. (2016). Chunk formation in immediate memory and how it relates to data compression. Cognition, 155, 96-107

Vergauwe, E., Hardman, K.O., Rouder, J.N., Roemer, E. McAllaster, S. & Cowan, N. (2016).  Searching for serial refreshing in working memory: Using response times to track the content of the focus of attention over time. Psychonomic Bulletin & Review, 23, 1818-1824.

Cowan, N. (2016).  Working memory maturation: Can we get at the essence of cognitive growth?  Perspectives on Psychological Science, 11, 239-264. DOI: 10.1177/1745691615621279

Hardman, K.O., & Cowan, N. (2016).  Reasoning and memory: People make varied use of the information available in working memory.  Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition, 42, 700-722.

Cowan, N., Hardman, K., Saults, J.S., Blume, C.L., Clark, K.M., & Sunday, M.A. (2016).  Detection of the number of changes in a display in working memory.  Journal of Experimental Psychology:  Learning, Memory, and Cognition, 42, 169-185. doi: 10.1037/xlm0000163

Cowan, N. (2015).  George Miller’s magical number of immediate memory in retrospect:  Observations on the faltering progression of science. Psychological Review, 122, 536-41.

Vergauwe, E.A., & Cowan, N. (2015).  Working memory units are all in your head: Factors that influence whether features or objects are the favored units.  Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition, 41, 1404-16.

Vergauwe, E.A., & Cowan, N. (2015).  Attending to items in working memory: Evidence that refreshing and memory search are closely related.  Psychonomic Bulletin & Review, 22, 1001-1006.

Ricker, T.J., Vergauwe, E., Hinrichs, G.A., Blume, C.L., & Cowan, N. (2015).  No recovery of memory when cognitive load is decreased.  Journal of Experimental Psychology:  Learning, Memory, and Cognition, 41, 872-880.

Li, D., Christ, S.E., & Cowan, N. (2014).  Domain-general and domain-specific functional networks in working memory.  Neuroimage, 102, 646-656.

Majerus, S., Cowan, N., Péters, F., Van Calster, L., Phillips, C., & Schrouff, J. (2016).  Cross-modal decoding of neural patterns associated with working memory:  Evidence for attention-based accounts of working memory.  Cerebral Cortex, 26, 166-179. DOI: 10.1093/cercor/bhu189

Hardman, K., & Cowan, N. (2015).  Remembering complex objects in visual working memory: Do capacity limits restrict objects or features?  Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition, 41, 325-347. DOI: 10.1037/xlm0000031

Gilchrist, A.L., & Cowan, N. (2014).  A two-stage search of visual working memory: Investigating speed in the change-detection paradigm.  Attention, Perception, & Psychophysics, 76, 2031–2050.

Cowan, N., Ricker, T.J., Clark, K.M., Hinrichs, G.A., & Glass, B.A. (2015).  Knowledge cannot explain the developmental growth of working memory capacity.  Developmental Science, 18, 132-145. doi: 10.1111/desc.12197

Cowan, N., Saults, J.S., & Blume, C.L. (2014).  Central and peripheral components of working memory storage.  Journal of Experimental Psychology:  General, 143, 1806-1836. DOI: 10.1037/a0036814

Naveh-Benjamin, M., Kilb, A., Maddox, G., Thomas, J., Fine, H., Chen, T., & Cowan, N. (2014).  Older adults don’t notice their names: A new twist to a classic attention task.  Journal of Experimental Psychology:  Learning, Memory, and Cognition, 40, 1540-1550

Ricker, T.J., Spiegel, L.R., & Cowan, N. (2014).  Time-based loss in visual short-term memory is from trace decay, not temporal distinctiveness.  Journal of Experimental Psychology:  Learning, Memory, and Cognition, 40, 1510-1523.

Cowan, N.  (2014). Working memory underpins cognitive development, learning, and education.  Educational Psychology Review, 26, 197-223.  DOI: 10.1007/s10648-013-9246-y.

Ricker, T.J., & Cowan, N. (2014).  Differences between presentation methods in working memory procedures: A matter of working memory consolidation.  Journal of Experimental Psychology:  Learning, Memory, and Cognition, 40, 417-428.

Cowan, N., Donnell, K., & Saults, J.S. (2013).  A list-length constraint on incidental item-to-item associations.  Psychonomic Bulletin & Review, 20, 1253-1258.

Chen, Z., & Cowan, N. (2013).  Working memory inefficiency: Minimal information is utilized in visual recognition tasks.  Journal of Experimental Psychology:  Learning, Memory, & Cognition, 39, 1449-1462.

Li, D., Cowan, N., & Saults, J.S. (2013).  Estimating working memory capacity for lists of nonverbal sounds.  Attention, Perception, & Psychophysics, 75, 145-160.

Cowan, N., Blume, C.L., & Saults, J.S.  (2013).  Attention to attributes and objects in working memory. Journal of Experimental Psychology:  Learning, Memory, and Cognition, 39, 731-747.  https://doi/org/10.1037/a0029687

Cowan, N., & Saults, J.S.  (2013).  When does a good working memory counteract proactive interference?  Surprising evidence from a probe recognition task.  Journal of Experimental Psychology:  General, 142, 12-17. 

Cowan, N., Rouder, J.N., Blume, C.L., & Saults, J.S. (2012).  Models of verbal working memory capacity:  What does it take to make them work? Psychological Review, 119, 480-499. doi: 10.1037/a0027791

Dewar, M., Alber, J., Butler, C., Cowan, N., & Della Sala, S. (2012).  Brief wakeful resting boosts new memories over the long term.  Psychological Science, 23, 955-960.

Dewar, M., Pesallaccia, M., Cowan, N., Provinciali, L., & Della Sala, S. (2012).  Insights into spared memory capacity in amnestic MCI and Alzheimer’s Disease via minimal interference.  Brain and Cognition, 78, 189-199.

Gilchrist, A.L., & Cowan, N. (2011).  Can the focus of attention accommodate multiple separate items?  Journal of Experimental Psychology:  Learning, Memory, and Cognition, 37, 1484-1502.  PMC3197943

Cowan, N., AuBuchon, A.M., Gilchrist, A.L., Ricker, T.J., & Saults, J.S. (2011).  Age differences in visual working memory capacity:  Not based on encoding limitations.  Developmental Science, 14, 1066-1074. doi: 10.1111/j.1467-7687.2011.01060.x

Cowan, N.  (2011). The focus of attention as observed in visual working memory tasks:  Making sense of competing claims.  Neuropsychologia, 49, 1401-1406. PMC3095706

Rouder, J.N., Morey, R.D., Morey, C.C., & Cowan, N. (2011).  How to measure working-memory capacity in the change-detection paradigm.  Psychonomic Bulletin & Review, 18, 324-330. PMC3070885

Cowan, N., Li, D., Moffitt, A., Becker, T.M., Martin, E.A., Saults, J.S., & Christ, S.E. (2011).  A neural region of abstract working memory.  Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience, 23, 2852-2863.  DOI: 10.1162/jocn.2011.21625

Morey, C.C., Cowan, N., Morey, R.D., & Rouder, J.N.  (2011).  Flexible attention allocation to visual and auditory working memory tasks:  Manipulating reward induces a tradeoff.  Attention, Perception, & Psychophysics, 73, 458–472.  DOI: 10.3758/s13414-010-0031-4

Cowan, N., Hismjatullina, A., AuBuchon, A.M., Saults, J.S., Horton, N., Leadbitter, K., & Towse, J. (2010).  With development, list recall includes more chunks, not just larger ones.  Developmental Psychology, 46, 1119-1131.

Lee, E., Cowan, N., Vogel, E.K., Rolan, T., Valle-Inclán, F., & Hackley, S.A. (2010). Visual working memory deficits in Parkinson’s patients are due to both reduced storage capacity and impaired ability to filter out irrelevant information.  Brain, 133, 2677-2689.

Ricker, T.J., & Cowan, N. (2010).  Loss of visual working memory within seconds:  The combined use of refreshable and non-refreshable features.  Journal of Experimental Psychology:  Learning, Memory, and Cognition, 36, 1355-1368.  PMCID: PMC2970679

Ricker, T.J., Cowan, N., & Morey, C.C. (2010).  Visual working memory is disrupted by covert verbal retrieval.  Psychonomic Bulletin & Review, 17,  516-521. PMC3050528

Dewar, M., Della Sala, S., Beschin, N., & Cowan, N.  (2010).  Profound retroactive interference in anterograde amnesia:  What interferes?  Neuropsychology, 24, 357-367.

Cowan, N. (2010).  Multiple concurrent thoughts:  The meaning and developmental neuropsychology of working memory.  Developmental Neuropsychology, 35, 447-474.

Gilchrist, A.L., Cowan, N., & Naveh-Benjamin, M. (2009).  Investigating the childhood development of working memory using sentences:  New evidence for the growth of chunk capacity.  Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, 104, 252-265.  doi:10.1016/j.jecp.2009.05.006 

Chen, Z., & Cowan, N.  (2009). How verbal memory loads consume attention.  Memory & Cognition, 37, 829-836. PMCID: PMC2804027

Cowan, N. (2010).  The magical mystery four:  How is working memory capacity limited, and why?  Current Directions in Psychological Science, 19, 51-57.

Dewar, M., Fernandez Garcia, Y., Cowan, N., & Della Sala, S. (2009).  Delaying interference enhances memory consolidation in amnesic patients.  Neuropsychology, 23, 627–634.

Cowan, N., & Rouder, J.N. (2009).  Comment on “Dynamic shifts of limited working memory resources in human vision.”  Science, 323 (no. 5916), 877. PMC2730043

Cowan, N., Morey, C.C., AuBuchon, A.M., Zwilling, C.E.,  & Gilchrist, A.L. (2010).  Seven-year-olds allocate attention like adults unless working memory is overloaded.  Developmental Science, 13, 120-133. doi: 10.1111/j.1467-7687.2009.00864.x.

Chen, Z., & Cowan, N.  (2009). Core verbal working memory capacity:  The limit in words retained without covert articulation.  Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology, 62, 1420-1429. doi: 10.1080/17470210802453977

Gilchrist, A.L., Cowan, N., & Naveh-Benjamin, M.  (2008). Working memory capacity for spoken sentences decreases with adult ageing:  Recall of fewer, but not smaller chunks in older adults.  Memory, 16, 773-787.  doi: 10.1080/09658210802261124.

Rouder, J.N., Morey, R.D., Cowan, N., Zwilling, C.E., Morey, C.C., & Pratte, M.S. (2008).  An assessment of fixed-capacity models of visual working memory.  Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), 105, 5975-5979. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.0711295105

Bunting, M.F., Cowan, N., & Colflesh, G.H. (2008).  The deployment of attention in short-term memory tasks:  Tradeoffs between immediate and delayed deployment.  Memory & Cognition, 36, 799-812. PMC2667108

Towse, J.N., Cowan, N., Horton, N.J., & Whytock, S.  (2008).  Task experience and children’s working memory performance: A perspective from recall timing.  Developmental Psychology, 44, 695-706.

Saults, J., Cowan, N., Sher, K.J., & Moreno, M.V.  (2007). Differential effects of alcohol on working memory: Distinguishing multiple processes.  Experimental and Clinical Psychopharmacology, 15, 576-587.

Cowan, N., & AuBuchon, A.M.  (2008).  Short-term memory loss over time without retroactive stimulus interference.  Psychonomic Bulletin & Review, 15, 230-235. PMC2662695

Saults, J.S., & Cowan, N. (2007).  A central capacity limit to the simultaneous storage of visual and auditory arrays in working memory.  Journal of Experimental Psychology:  General, 136, 663-684. doi: 10.1037/0096-3445.136.4.663

Cowan, N.  (2008).  What are the differences between long-term, short-term, and working memory?  In W. Sossin, J.-C. Lacaille, V.F. Castellucci & S. Belleville (eds.), "The essence of memory."  Progress in Brain Research, Vol. 169.  Amsterdam:  Elsevier / Academic Press. (pp. 323-338)

Halford, G.S., Cowan, N., & Andrews, G. (2007).  Separating cognitive capacity from knowledge:  A new hypothesis.  Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 11, 236-242.  doi: 10.1016/j.tics.2007.04.001

Cowan, N., & Morey, C.C. (2007).  How can dual-task working memory retention limits be investigated?  Psychological Science, 18, 686-688. doi: 10.1111/j.1467-9280.2007.01960.x
   
Bunting, M.F., Cowan, N., & Saults, J.S. (2006).  How does running memory span work?  Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology, 59, 1691-1700.

Dewar, M.T., Cowan, N., & Della Sala, S. (2007).  Forgetting due to retroactive interference: A fusion of Müller and Pilzecker’s (1900) early insights into everyday forgetting and recent research on anterograde amnesia.  Cortex, 43, 616-634.

Cowan, N., Saults, J.S., & Morey, C.C. (2006).  Development of working memory for verbal-spatial associations.  Journal of Memory and Language, 55, 274-289.

Naveh-Benjamin, M., Cowan, N., Kilb, A., & Chen, Z. (2007).  Age-related differences in immediate serial recall:  Dissociating chunk formation and capacity.  Memory & Cognition, 35, 724-737.  PMC1995413

Cowan, N., Fristoe, N.M., Elliott, E.M., Brunner, R.P., & Saults, J.S. (2006).  Scope of  attention, control of attention, and intelligence in children and adults.  Memory & Cognition, 34, 1754-1768. doi: 10.3758/bf03195936

Cowan, N., Naveh-Benjamin, M., Kilb, A., &  Saults, J.S. (2006).  Life-Span development of visual working memory:  When is feature binding difficult?  Developmental Psychology, 42, 1089-1102. PMC1635970

Cowan, N., Elliott, E.M., Saults, J.S., Nugent, L.D., Bomb, P., & Hismjatullina, A. (2006).  Rethinking speed theories of cognitive development:  Increasing the rate of recall without affecting accuracy.  Psychological Science, 17, 67-73. DOI: 10.1111/j.1467-9280.2005.01666.x

Chen, Z., & Cowan, N. (2005).  Chunk limits and length limits in immediate recall:  A reconciliation.  Journal of Experimental Psychology:  Learning, Memory, and Cognition, 31, 1235-1249.

Cowan, N., Elliott, E.M., Saults, J.S., Morey, C.C., Mattox, S., Hismjatullina, A., & Conway, A.R.A. (2005).  On the capacity of attention:  Its estimation and its role in working memory and cognitive aptitudes.  Cognitive Psychology, 51, 42-100. doi: 10.1016/j.cogpsych.2004.12.001

Cowan, N., Johnson, T.D., & Saults, J.S. (2005).  Capacity limits in list item recognition:  Evidence from proactive interference.  Memory, 13, 293-299.

Morey, C.C., & Cowan, N. (2005).  When do visual and verbal memories conflict?  The importance of working-memory load and retrieval.  Journal of Experimental Psychology:  Learning, Memory, and Cognition, 31, 703-713.

Elliott, E.M., & Cowan, N. (2005).  Coherence of the irrelevant-sound effect: Individual profiles of short-term memory and susceptibility to task-irrelevant materials. Memory & Cognition, 33, 664-675.

Jarrold, C., Cowan, N., Hewes, A.K., & Riby, D.M. (2004).  Speech timing and verbal short-term memory:  Evidence for contrasting deficits in Down syndrome and Williams syndrome.  Journal of Memory and Language, 51, 365-380.

Cowan, N., Beschin, N., & Della Sala, S.  (2004).  Verbal recall in amnesiacs under conditions of diminished retroactive interference.  Brain, 127, 825-834.

Cowan, N., Saults, J.S., & Brown, G.D.A. (2004).  On the auditory modality superiority effect in serial recall:  Separating input and output factors.  Journal of Experimental Psychology:  Learning, Memory, and Cognition, 30, 639-644.

Rouder, J.N., Morey, R.D., Cowan, N., & Pfaltz, M. (2004).  Learning in a unidimensional absolute identification task.  Psychonomic Bulletin & Review, 11, 938-944.

Cowan, N., Chen, Z., & Rouder, J.N. (2004).  Constant capacity in an immediate serial-recall task:  A logical sequel to Miller (1956).  Psychological Science, 15, 634-640. DOI: 10.1111/j.0956-7976.2004.00732.x

Morey, C.C., & Cowan, N.  (2004).  When visual and verbal memories compete:  Evidence of cross-domain limits in working memory.  Psychonomic Bulletin & Review, 11, 296-301. doi: 10.1037/0278-7393.31.4.703

Della Sala, S., Cowan, N., Beschin, N., & Perini, M. (2005).  Just lying there, remembering:  Improving recall of prose in amnesic patients with mild  cognitive impairment by minimizing interference.  Memory, 13, 435-440.

Cowan, N., Towse, J.N., Hamilton, Z., Saults, J.S., Elliott, E.M., Lacey, J.F., Moreno, M.V., & Hitch, G.J. (2003).  Children’s working-memory processes:  A response-timing analysis.  Journal of Experimental Psychology:  General, 132, 113-132.

Cowan, N., Baddeley, A.D., Elliott, E.M., & Norris, J.  (2003).  List composition and the word length effect in immediate recall:  A comparison of localist and globalist assumptions.  Psychonomic Bulletin & Review, 10, 74-79.

Winkler, I., Korzyukov, O., Gumenyuk, V., Cowan, N., Linkenkaer-Hansen, K., Ilmoniemi, R.J., Alho, K., & Näätänen, R. (2002).  Temporary and longer term retention of acoustic information.  Psychophysiology, 39, 530-534.

Conway, A.R.A., Cowan, N., Bunting, M.F., Therriault, D.J., & Minkoff, S.R.B. (2002).  A latent variable analysis of working memory capacity, short-term memory capacity, processing speed, and general fluid intelligence. Intelligence, 30, 163-183.

Cowan, N., Elliott, E.M., & Saults, J.S.. (2002).  The search for what is fundamental in the development of working memory.  In R. Kail & H. Reese (Eds.), Advances in Child Development and  Behavior, 29, 1-49. doi.org/10.1016/S0065-2407(02)80050-7

Cowan, N., Saults, J.S., Elliott, E.M., & Moreno, M.  (2002).  Deconfounding serial recall.  Journal of Memory and Language, 46, 153-177.  https://doi.org/10.1006/jmla.2001.2805

Cowan, N. (2001).  The magical number 4 in short-term memory:  A reconsideration of mental storage capacity.  Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 24, 87-185.  DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/S0140525X01003922

Elliott, E.M., & Cowan, N.  (2001).  Habituation to auditory distractors in a cross-modal, color-word interference task.  Journal of Experimental Psychology:  Learning, Memory, & Cognition, 27, 654-667.

Conway, A.R.A., Cowan, N., & Bunting, M.F. (2001).  The cocktail party phenomenon revisited: The importance of working memory capacity.  Psychonomic Bulletin & Review, 8, 331-335. DOI: 10.3758/bf03196169  

Winkler, I., Schröger, E., & Cowan, N. (2001).  The role of large-scale memory organization in the mismatch negativity event-related brain potential.  Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience, 13, 59-71.

Cowan, N. (2000/01).  Processing limits of selective attention and working memory:  Potential implications for interpreting.  Interpreting, 5, 117-146. 

Cowan, N., Nugent, L.D., Elliott, E.M., & Saults, J.S. (2000).  Persistence of memory for ignored lists of digits:  Areas of developmental constancy and change.  Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, 76, 151-172.

Cowan, N. (1999).  An embedded-processes model of working memory.  In A. Miyake & P. Shah (eds.), Models of Working Memory:  Mechanisms of active maintenance and executive control.  Cambridge, U.K.:  Cambridge University Press. (pp. 62-101)

Rinne, T., Gratton, G., Fabiani, M., Cowan, N., Maclin, E., Stinard, A., Sinkkonen, J., Alho, K., & Näätänen, R.  (1999).  Scalp-recorded optical signals make sound processing in the auditory cortex visible.  Neuroimage, 10, 620-624.

Ritter, W., Sussman, E., Deacon, D., Cowan, N., & Vaughan, H.G.  (1999).  Two cognitive systems simultaneously prepared for opposite events.  Psychophysiology, 36, 835-838.

Cowan, N. (1999).  The differential maturation of two processing rates related to digit span.  Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, 72, 193-209.

Hulme, C., Newton, P., Cowan, N., Stuart, G., & Brown, G. (1999).  Think before you speak:  pause, memory search and trace redintegration processes in verbal memory span. Journal of Experimental Psychology:  Learning, Memory, and Cognition, 25, 447-463. doi.org/10.1037/0278-7393.25.2.447

Cowan, N., Nugent, L.D., Elliott, E.M., Ponomarev, I., & Saults, J.S. (1999).  The role of attention in the development of short-term memory:  Age differences in the verbal span of apprehension.  Child Development, 70, 1082-1097. DOI: 10.1111/1467-8624.00080

March, L., Cienfuegos, A., Goldbloom, L., Ritter, W., Cowan, N., & Javitt, D.C.  (1999).  Normal time course of auditory recognition in schizophrenia, despite impaired precision of the auditory sensory (“echoic”) memory code.  Journal of Abnormal Psychology, 108, 69-75.

Gomes, H., Sussman, E., Ritter, W., Kurtzberg, D., Cowan, N., & Vaughan Jr., H.G. (1999).  Electrophysiological evidence of developmental changes in the duration of auditory sensory memory.  Developmental Psychology, 35, 294-302.

Ritter, W., Gomes, H., Cowan, N., Sussman, E., & Vaughan, H.G., Jr.  (1998).  Reactivation of a dormant representation of an auditory stimulus feature.  Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience, 10, 605-614.

Gillam, R., Cowan, N., & Marler, J. (1998).  Information processing by school-age children with specific language impairment:  Evidence from a modality effect paradigm. Journal of Speech, Language and Hearing Research, 41, 913-926. [Editor Award]

Cowan, N., Wood, N.L., Wood, P.K., Keller, T.A., Nugent, L.D., & Keller, C.V. (1998) .  Two separate verbal processing rates contributing to short-term memory span. Journal of Experimental Psychology:  General, 127, 141-160.   DOI: 10.1037//0096-3445.127.2.141

Elliott, E.M., Cowan, N., & Valle-Inclan, F. (1998).  The nature of cross-modal, color-word interference effects.  Perception & Psychophysics, 60, 761-767.

Cowan, N., Saults, J.S., & Nugent, L.D. (1997).  The role of absolute and relative amounts of time in forgetting within immediate memory:  The case of tone pitch comparisons.  Psychonomic Bulletin & Review, 4, 393-397.  http://www.psychonomic.org/psp/publications-resources.html

Wood, N.L., Stadler, M.A., & Cowan, N.  (1997).  Is there implicit memory without attention?  A re-examination of task demands in Eich’s (1984) procedure.  Memory & Cognition, 25, 772-779. DOI: 10.1037//0096-3445.124.3.243  

Cowan, N., Wood, N.L., Nugent, L.D., & Treisman, M. (1997).  There are two word length effects in verbal short-term memory:  Opposed effects of duration and complexity.  Psychological Science, 8, 290-295.

Javitt, D.C., Strous, R., Grochowski, S., Ritter, W., & Cowan, N. (1997).  Impaired precision, but normal retention, of auditory sensory (“echoic”) memory information in schizophrenia.  Journal of Abnormal Psychology, 106, 315-324.

Cowan, N., & Stadler, M.A. (1996).  Estimating unconscious processes:  Implications of a general class of models.  Journal of Experimental Psychology:  General, 125, 195-200.

Saults, J.S., & Cowan, N.  (1996).  The development of memory for ignored speech.  Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, 63, 239-261.

Multhaup, K.S., Balota, D.A., & Cowan, N. (1996).  Implications of aging, lexicality, and item length for the mechanisms underlying memory span.  Psychonomic Bulletin & Review, 3, 112-120.

Winkler, I., Cowan, N., Csépe, V., Czigler, I., & Näätänen, R. (1996).  Interactions between transient and long-term auditory memory as reflected by the mismatch negativity. Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience, 8, 403-415.

Wood, N., & Cowan, N. (1995).  The cocktail party phenomenon revisited:  Attention and memory in the classic selective listening procedure of Cherry (1953).  Journal of Experimental Psychology:  General, 124, 243-262. DOI: 10.1037//0096-3445.124.3.243

Cowan, N., & Greenspahn, E. (1995).  Timed reactions to an object in apparent motion:  Evidence on Cartesian and non-Cartesian perceptual hypotheses.  Perception & Psychophysics, 57, 546-554.

Keller, T.A., Cowan, N., & Saults, J.S. (1995).  Can auditory memory for tone pitch be rehearsed?  Journal of Experimental Psychology:  Learning, Memory, & Cognition, 21, 635-645.

Gillam, R.B., Cowan, N., & Day, L.S. (1995).  Sequential memory in children with and without language impairment.  Journal of Speech & Hearing Research, 38, 393-402.

Wood, N., & Cowan, N. (1995).  The cocktail party phenomenon revisited:  How frequent are attention shifts to one's name in an irrelevant auditory channel?  Journal of Experimental Psychology:  Learning, Memory, & Cognition, 21, 255-260. 

Keller, T.A., & Cowan, N. (1994).  Developmental increase in the duration of memory for tone pitch.  Developmental Psychology, 30, 855-863.

Cowan, N., Keller, T., Hulme, C., Roodenrys, S., McDougall, S., & Rack, J. (1994).  Verbal memory span in children:  Speech timing clues to the mechanisms underlying age and word length effects.  Journal of Memory and Language, 33, 234-250.

Cowan, N., Wood, N.L., & Borne, D.N. (1994).  Reconfirmation of the short-term storage concept.  Psychological Science, 5, 103-106.

Braine, M.D.S., Brooks, P.J., Cowan, N., Samuels, M.C., & Tamis-LeMonda, C. (1993).  The Development of categories at the semantics/syntax interface.  Cognitive Development, 8, 465-494.

Cowan, N., Winkler, I., Teder, W., & Näätänen, R. (1993).  Memory prerequisites of the mismatch negativity in the auditory event-related potential (ERP).  Journal of Experimental Psychology:  Learning, Memory, & Cognition, 19, 909-921.

Massaro, D.W., & Cowan, N. (1993).  Information processing models:  Microscopes of the mind.  Annual Review of Psychology, 44, 383-425.

Cowan, N. (1993).  Activation, attention, and short-term memory.  Memory & Cognition, 21, 162-167. 

Cowan, N. (1992).  Verbal memory span and the timing of spoken recall.  Journal of Memory and Language, 31, 668-684. doi.org/10.1016/0749-596X(92)90034-U

Cowan, N., Day, L., Saults, J.S., Keller, T.A., Johnson, T., & Flores, L. (1992).  The role of verbal output time in the effects of word length on immediate memory.  Journal of Memory and Language, 31, 1-17.

Cowan, N. (1991).  Recurrent speech patterns as cues to the segmentation of multisyllabic sequences.  Acta Psychologica, 77, 121-135.

Cowan, N., Saults, J.S., Winterowd, C., & Sherk, M.  (1991).  Enhancement of 4-year-old children's memory span for phonologically similar and dissimilar word lists.  Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, 51, 30-52.

Balota, D.A., Cowan, N., & Engle, R.W. (1990).  Suffix interference in the recall of linguistically coherent speech.  Journal of Experimental Psychology:  Learning, Memory, & Cognition, 16, 446-456.      

Cowan, N., Lichty, W., & Grove, T.R. (1990).  Properties of memory for unattended spoken syllables.  Journal of Experimental Psychology:  Learning, Memory, & Cognition, 16, 258-269.      

Cowan, N. (1989).  Acquisition of Pig Latin:  A Case Study.  Journal of Child Language, 16, 365-386.

Cowan, N. (1988).  Evolving conceptions of memory storage, selective attention, and their mutual constraints within the human information processing system.  Psychological Bulletin, 104, 163-191. https://doi.org/10.1037/0033-2909.104.2.163

Cowan, N., Cartwright, C., Winterowd, C., & Sherk, M. (1987).  An adult model of preschool children's speech memory.  Memory and Cognition, 15, 511-517.

Cowan, N., & Barron, A. (1987).  Cross-modal, auditory-visual Stroop interference and possible implications for speech memory.  Perception & Psychophysics, 41, 393-401.

Cowan, N., & Leavitt, L. A. (1987).  The developmental course of two children who could talk backward five years ago.  Journal of Child Language, 14, 393-395.

Cowan, N. (1987).  Auditory sensory storage in relation to the growth of sensation and acoustic information extraction.  Journal of Experimental Psychology:  Human Perception and Performance, 13, 204-215.

Cowan, N., & Kielbasa, L. (1986).  Temporal properties of memory for speech in preschool children.  Memory & Cognition, 14, 382-390.

Cowan, N., & Morse, P. A. (1986).  The use of auditory and phonetic memory in vowel discrimination.  Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, 79, 500-507.

Cowan, N., Braine, M. D. S., & Leavitt, L. A. (1985).  The phonological and metaphonological representation of speech:  Evidence from fluent backward  talkers.  Journal of Memory and Language, 24, 679-698.

Cowan, N. (1984).  On short and long auditory stores.  Psychological Bulletin, 96, 341-370.

Goodsitt, J., Morse, P., Ver Hoeve, J., & Cowan, N. (1984).  Infant speech recognition in multisyllabic contexts.  Child Development, 55, 903-910.

Cowan, N., Suomi, K., & Morse, P. A. (1982).  Echoic storage in infant perception.  Child Development, 53, 984-990.

Petrovich-Bartell, N., Cowan, N., & Morse, P. A. (1982).  Mothers' perceptions of infant distress vocalizations.  Journal of Speech and Hearing Research, 25, 371-376.

Cowan, N., Leavitt, L. A., Massaro, D. W., & Kent, R. D. (1982).  A fluent  backward talker.  Journal of Speech and Hearing Research, 25, 48-53. 

Cowan, N., & Leavitt, L. A. (1982).  Talking backward:  Exceptional speech play in late childhood.  Journal of Child Language, 9, 481-495.

Richardson, J. S., Cowan, N., Hartman, R., & Jacobowitz, D. M. (1974). On the behavioral and neurochemical actions of 6-hydroxydopa and 5, 6- dihydroxytryptamine in rats.  Research Communications in Chemical Pathology and Pharmacology, 8, 29-44.

Mentoring Activity

Doctoral Students

J. Scott Saults, Ph.D., 1992 (Graduate Student Excellence Award)
Emeritus, Research Associate, University of Missouri

Timothy A. Keller, Ph.D., 1994
Senior Research Associate, Carnegie Mellon University
 
Linda S. Day, Ph.D., 1995
Research Associate Professor Emerita, Communication Sciences and Disorders, University of Missouri

Noelle Wood, Ph.D., 1996 (Graduate Student Excellence Award)
Project Manager, Rhode Island Department of Mental Health

Emily M. Elliott, Ph.D., 2001  (Several MU Awards and Alumnus Lecture)
Professor, Louisiana State University

Anna Hismjatullina, Ph.D., 2006 
Chair, Department of Applied Behavior Analysis, Moscow Institute of Psychoanalysis

Candice C. Morey, Ph.D., 2007.
Currently Senior Lecturer, University of Cardiff, UK
     (Predoctoral NRSA, NIH, Cowan sponsor; In 2008, one of 2 winners of the Outstanding Ph.D. Dissertation Award at the University of Missouri. 2017 winner of Psychonomic Society Early Career Award.)

Zhijian (David) Chen, Ph.D., 2009
Lab Manager, Laboratory of Cognitive and Brain Development, Wayne State University

Amanda L. Gilchrist, Ph.D., 2011
Associate Professor, Cottey College, Nevada, Missouri
      (Graduate Student Excellence Awards from the Department of Psychological Sciences and from Life Sciences.  In 2011, winner of award for best dissertation on campus.)

Angela M. AuBuchon, Ph.D., 2012
Director, Working Memory and Language Laboratory, Boys Town National Research Hospital, Omaha, Nebraska

Timothy J. Ricker, Ph.D., 2013
Assistant Professor, University of South Dakota
(2012 Departmental Graduate Student Excellence Award; Predoctoral NRSA, NIMH, 2011-2013, Cowan sponsor). 

Dawei Li, Ph.D,  2013
Postdoctoral Associate, Department of Psychology and Neuroscience, Duke University 
    
Gerly Kukk (now Tamm), Ph.D.
2013-2015, visiting student from University of Tartu, Estonia

Kyle Hardman, Ph.D. 2017
(Life Sciences Fellowship; 2013 Department of Psychological Sciences Outstanding Master's Thesis Award)

Christopher L. Blume, Ph.D., 2018
     Trains tutors for a private tutoring company in California.

Eryn Adams, Ph.D., 2021
     Health Science Policy Analyst, NICHD
     Formerly Postdoctoral Scientist, Baby’s First Years project and University of New Orleans
     (Ridgel Fellowship; Diversity Award, Cognitive Development Society, 2019; Outstanding Graduate Instructor Award, 2020)

Present Students:

Chenye Bao, M.S. 2025 Psychonomic Society J. Frank Yates Student Travel Award
Kellen Hendrix 2025 Object Perception, Attention, and Memory (OPAM) Professional Development Award
Hamid Nourbakhshi

Postdoctoral Fellows and Their Subsequent Positions

Emily Elliott, Ph.D. (Postdoc 2001-2002 in Cowan lab following MU Ph.D. in Cowan lab) (Several MU Awards and Alumnus Lecture) Professor, Louisiana State University

Michael Bunting, Ph.D. (Postdoc 2003-2005) 
Assistant Dean for Research, College of Engineering and Computing and Director of Research Development for National Security, George Mason University (Winner of APA’s 2006 Young Investigator Award for the Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition)

Tina Miyake, Ph.D. (Postdoc 2007-2009)
Supervision shared with Jeff Rouder and Moshe Naveh-Benjamin
Visiting Assistant Professor, Idaho State University

Amanda L. Gilchrist, Ph.D. (Postdoc 2011)
Professor, Cottey College, Navada, MO

Evie Vergauwe, Ph.D. (Postdoc 2012-2015)         
Associate Professor and SNSF Eccellenza fellow at the University of Geneva, Switzerland
Postdoc funded by the Swiss National Science Foundation
(Select Speaker Award, Psychonomic Society, 2014
Rising Star Award, Association for Psychological Science, 2015)

Steven Rhodes, Ph.D., Postdoctoral Fellow supported by ESRC grant from U.K. (Postdoc 2016-2018). Former Postdoctoral Associate, Rotman Research Institute, Toronto, CA. Currently  Statistician, Urology Institute, Cleveland.   

Qiang Jiang, Ph.D. (Postdoc 2016-2018)
     Psychological Scientist and Educator, Hui Xiu Education and Technology Co.,Ltd
     Shang Hai, China

     Alicia Forsberg, Ph.D. (Postdoc 2019-2021) Currently Lecturer, University of Sheffield, U.K. Equivalent of Assistant Professor in U.S.)(Women in Cognitive Science Networking Award for Junior Scientists, 2020; University of Missouri Postdoctoral Research Award, and Department of Psychological Sciences Postdoctoral Research Excellence Award, 2021; Developmental Science Early Career Researcher Prize, 2021; Journal of Intelligence Young Investigator Award, 2022.

Dominic Guitard, Ph.D., 2021, Université de Moncton, Canada (Postdoc at University of Missouri 2021-2022). Currently Lecturer, Cardiff University, U.K. (equivalent of Assistant Professor in U.S.) Dominic was a visiting student from Moncton University, Canada, Fall 2019. Postdoctoral fellow (Cowan, sponsor:  Postdoctoral Fellowships from Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada, 2021-2022). Awards:  2021 Governor General’s Gold Medal from Université de Moncton for best dissertation; Academic excellence certificate from the Canadian Psychology Association. Canadian Journal of Experimental Psychology best article award of 2020. 2020 President's award from Université de Moncton for best student publication. Award for best doctoral dissertation, 2022. Editor’s Choice Award for Guitard & Cowan (2023, Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance). APS Rising Star Award, 2024. 

Luísa Superbia-Guimarães, Ph.D. (2022, University of Fribourg, Switzerland; postdoc in Cowan lab at the University of Missouri 2022 until March, 2024). Beginning March, 2024, Lecturer (Assistant Professor), School of Psychology, University of Leeds, U.K.

Samsad Himi, Ph.D. Professor, Jagannath University. 2024-2025, Fulbright Scholar at the University of Missouri under the direction of Nelson Cowan. (2025: Editorial Fellow, Journal of Experimental Psychology: General)

(Updated February, 2023)
For a more complete CV and reprints click the CV button above

Research Specializations

• Short-term / working memory
• Childhood development of short-term / working memory
• Relations between working memory and selective attention

Some Professional Activities

• Editor, Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 2017-2021
• Honorary doctorates, University of Helsinki (2003) and University of Liège (2015)
• Lifetime Achievement Award, American Psychological Association, Division 3, Society for Experimental Psychology and Cognitive Science, 2020
• Fellow, American Association for the Advancement of Science, 2012; Fellow, APA, APS
• President, American Psychological Association, Division 3 (Experimental Psychology), 2008-09
• Former Member of the Governing Board of the Psychonomic Society
• Former associate editor of Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition; Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology; and European Journal of Psychology
• Keynote addresses at Attention and Performance XXV; Association for Research on Memory, Attention, Decision-Making, Intelligence, Learning, Language, and Organization (ARMADILLO); Second European Working Memory Society; British Psychological Society Developmental, Cognitive, and Quantitative areas; Conference on Working Memory in Dubai; Knowles Hearing Center, Evanston, IL; addresses at APA and APS.

Public Issues

• American Psychological Association:  Can working memory be trained?  A workout for working memory
• Times of India: Humas can remember 4 things at once
• Los Angeles Times: Story on life-altering memory lapses
• Live Science:  Mind’s limit found: 4 things at once
• New York Times: Simple ways to be better at remembering
• Science News, The spectrum of arrogance identified

Statement of Research Interests and Orientation

My research always has been driven by basic philosophical questions about the human mind, concerned with the most basic elements of conscious experience. What mechanisms allow human beings to experience the world as they do? Experiments on memory, attention, perception, and cognitive development address this question. The research on working memory capacity and its childhood development and relation to selective attention has been a focused interest, funded by NICHD since 1984, and it is portrayed below.

Working memory capacity and its development. Over the past 40 years, I have contributed to our knowledge of a previously unknown basic capacity limit in working memory and attention that is valid across modalities, its lifetime developmental course (e.g., Cowan et al., 1999, Child Development; 2005, Cognitive Psychology), and its brain representation. These efforts have been of help also in clarifying the nature of language impairment, dyslexia, autism, and schizophrenia in collaborative work. In a 2001 Behavioral and Brain Sciences article, I assembled evidence from many procedures showing that, when mnemonic strategies cannot be applied, young adults typically remember 3 to 5 separate items, and that other age groups retain less. Several key articles showed that this constant limitation in capacity applies not only to simple items, but also to well-learned word pairs and triplets, as summarized in a 2012 article (Cowan et al., Psychological Review). It is one of the few constancies known in cognition.

I showed that although young children repeat items from a list of digits much more slowly than adults (Cowan, Journal of Memory and Language, 1992), training an adult-like rate of recall does not improve memory (Cowan et al., Psychological Science, 2006). Instead, capacity is the basic limiting factor. This is the case even after experimentally controlling for knowledge (Cowan et al., Developmental Science, 2015) and other factors including encoding, rehearsal, and attention allocation (for a summary see Cowan, Perspectives on Psychological Science, 2016; Advances in Child Development and Behavior, 2017). More recent work suggests that what does change to allow a larger working memory capacity in older children is an increasing ability to memorize patterns that reduce the load on attention (Cowan et al., Developmental Science, 2018; Cowan, Child Development, 2021; Forsberg et al., Developmental Science, 2021), an increasing ability to adopt a proactive stance that takes into account information that is not needed presently but soon will be needed (Cowan et al., Developmental Science, 2021), and an increasing metacognitive understanding of what working memory failures are likely to occur and must be compensated for (Forseberg et al., Developmental Science, 2021).

The developmental of long-term memory ability appears to owe a great deal to the improved quality of encoding of the information through working memory (Forsberg et al., Developmental Science, 2022). In collaborative work, we have found that working memory capacity predicts language development and reading in ways unaccounted for by standardized tests (Cowan et al., Dyslexia, 2017; Gillam et al., Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research, 1995, 1998; Gray et al., Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research, 2022). For a review of these factors described above in light of major themes in the field of cognitive development across the past 50 years, see Cowan (Cognition, 2022).

Working memory and attention. The core working memory, limited to several items, also appears to be needed for attentional processing. When two sets of items are to be remembered, one verbal and one visual, they still compete for attention (Cowan et al., Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 2014). Children in the early school years fail to allocate attention to the most relevant items when under a too-large memory load (Cowan et al., 2010, Developmental Science) and apparently do not find ways to memorize items rapidly to free up attention as well as older participants do (Cowan et al., 2018, Developmental Science, 2018).

We have shown a relation between working memory capacity and mind-wandering, in that young adults with a relatively low memory load more often notice their name spoken in an unattended channel in selective listening compared to high-span participants (Conway et al., Psychonomic Bulletin & Review, 2001; Röer & Cowan, Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition, 2020). The basis of older adults’ lowered span is different, with their attention limits leading to not noticing events in an unattended channel, despite their reduced span (Naveh-Benjamin et al., 2014, Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition).

Clinical applications. Through collaborations, my research methods have been applied to clinical topics, including dyslexia (e.g., Cowan et al., 2017, Dyslexia; Gray et al., 2019, Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research), language impairment (e.g., Gray et al., 2019; Gillam et al., 1998, Journal of Speech and Hearing Research), autism (e.g., Bodner et al., 2019, Journal of Abnormal Psychology), schizophrenia (e.g., Javitt et al., 1997, Journal of Abnormal Psychology), Parkinson’s disease (e.g., Lee et al., Brain, 2010), and acute alcohol intoxication (e.g., Saults et al., Experimental and Clinical Psychopharmacology).

Important insights have been gained into dense amnesia in collaborative research with Sergio Della Sala. Attention is used to overcome interference when forming new memories; amnesic patients who ordinarily cannot memorize new information at all showed much more ability when the memoranda were presented with no surrounding interference, a finding of clinical as well as theoretical value (Cowan et al., Brain, 2004; Dewar et al., 2009, 2010, Neuropsychology; McGhee et al., Neuropsychology, 2020).

Brain Research. Collaborative brain research using fMRI and electrophysiology has been done with colleagues in the U.S. (Missouri, Wisconsin), Finland, Hungary, Germany, the U.K., and Belgium. In several collaborative brain imaging projects (including Cowan et al., 2011, Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience and Majerus et al., 2016, Cerebral Cortex), the capacity-limited focus of attention as reflected by activity in the intraparietal sulcus is shown to be used to retain information from both visual and verbal modalities, and to link to item representations in the posterior cortex. Electrophysiological work with colleagues (e.g., Cowan et al., 1993, Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition) has shown that activated long-term memory outside of attention is part of the neural model of the environment used to detect changes and relevant events.

Contributions to Science (adapted from NIH Biosketch)

1. Identification of the core capacity limit of working memory.  History: Based on George Miller’s 1956 seminal work, it is commonly believed that people can hold in working memory about seven meaningful objects or ideas (chunks) at once. Miller, however, provided no theoretical basis for this limit. Central findings: When people are unable to combine the presented items to form larger units or chunks, normal young adults retain in working memory only 3-4 items on average. The same thing is found with larger units when chunking is controlled; for example, people can retain 3-4 learned word pairs. The intraparietal sulcus seems to be involved in holding pointers to the brain representations of items in this core working memory. Influence:  Many neural deficits result in impaired working memory, which affects the ability to carry out high-level cognitive tasks such as math, reading comprehension, and problem-solving. Distinguishing the contributions of attention (limited to several chunks) versus mnemonic strategies should allow better management of various disorders. Role: I was the lead investigator on studies showing the systematic nature of the capacity literature and providing the most-often-used formula to estimate capacity from array recognition tasks (Cowan, 2001, cited over 3,500 times); showing how to control chunking, which led to a relatively constant estimate of capacity even when chunking occurred (e.g., Cowan et al., 2004, 2012); and showing that a brain area previously said to reflect visual working memory capacity actually reflected working memory capacity more generally, across both verbal and nonverbal stimuli (Cowan et al., 2011). 
   1. Cowan, N. (2001).  The magical number 4 in short-term memory:  A reconsideration of mental storage capacity.  Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 24, 87-185. PMID:11515286
   2. Cowan, N., Chen, Z., & Rouder, J.N. (2004).  Constant capacity in an immediate serial-recall task:  A logical sequel to Miller (1956).  Psychological Science, 15, 634-640. PMID:15327636
   3. Rouder, J.N., Morey, R.D., Cowan, N., Zwilling, C.E., Morey, C.C., & Pratte, M.S. (2008).  An assessment of fixed-capacity models of visual working memory.  Proceedings of the National Academy of Science (PNAS), 105(16), 5975–5979. PMC2329704
   4. Cowan, N., Rouder, J.N., Blume, C.L., & Saults, J.S. (2012).  Models of verbal working memory capacity:  What does it take to make them work? Psychological Review, 119, 480-499. PMC3618891
2. Examining the sharing of attention in working memory across modalities and materials.  History: At least since the work of Alan Baddeley and Graham Hitch (1974), it has been shown that there are modest tradeoffs between visual and verbal items in working memory, as one would expect if there is a central capacity for all stimuli supplemented by some means to hold different types of materials in storage devices with little cross-materials interference (i.e., peripheral storage).  The amounts of each type of storage were, however, difficult to quantify. Central findings: The capacity estimation techniques of Cowan (2001) and subsequent papers make it possible to obtain data indicating the capacity of central storage in chunks and to assess peripheral contributions. Results of Cowan et al. (2014), reporting about 10 experiments, suggest that several items from a set (e.g., an array of simple visual objects) are encoded into the focus of attention and then off-loaded (though remaining accessible) to allow encoding of another, different type of set (e.g., a verbal list during suppression of verbal rehearsal), with only about 1 item of interference between different sets.  Influence:  Research on practical topics such as phone conversations while driving show that people are not as good at sharing attention and working memory between tasks as they think they are. Public safety, education, and cognitive processing in normal and disabled individuals depends on good information about the limits of multi-tasking.  Role: Chen and Morey were my graduate students when some of this research was pursued.  I took the lead on several other articles to analyze and integrate findings and provide a theoretical synthesis.
   1. Morey, C.C., & Cowan, N. (2005).  When do visual and verbal memories conflict?  The importance of working-memory load and retrieval.  Journal of Experimental Psychology:  Learning, Memory, and Cognition, 31, 703-713. PMC2610475
   2. Chen, Z., & Cowan, N.  (2009). How verbal memory loads consume attention.  Memory & Cognition, 37, 829-836. PMC2804027
   3. Cowan, N., Li, D., Moffitt, A., Becker, T.M., Martin, E.A., Saults, J.S., & Christ, S.E. (2011).  A neural region of abstract working memory.  Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience, 23, 2852-2863. PMC3138911
   4. Cowan, N., Saults, J.S., & Blume, C.L. (2014).  Central and peripheral components of working memory storage.  Journal of Experimental Psychology:  General, 143, 1806-1836. PMC4172497
3. Childhood development of working memory capacity.  History: Developmental psychologists have proposed many different bases of the developmental improvement in working memory.  NeoPiagetians proposed that the basic number of items that can be retained increases with maturity but others have proposed that the developmental improvement in performance can be explained solely through the development of knowledge, encoding efficiency, or mnemonic strategies. Central findings: In a series of studies beginning in 1999, we have found that working memory capacity increases during the elementary school years on direct working memory tasks (e.g., as opposed to the looking-time tasks used with infants) and that this increase can be seen even with materials for which knowledge, encoding efficiency, and mnemonic strategies are controlled across age groups. There are processing factors that do help to explain the increase in capacity, including the ability to encode patterns that relieve the load on attention, a proactive stance toward the need to remember information, and increasing metacognitive understanding of working memory capacity limits. Influence: Given that most cognitive tasks depend on working memory and its capacity is highly correlated with cognitive aptitude, understanding the basis of working memory development is important for an understanding of the potential basis of developmental disabilities that involve working memory. Role: I have taken the lead on a number of studies in my laboratory in which we have examined working memory capacity with other factors controlled and have gone beyond this to find out what does cause working memory capacity to improve with age.
   1. Cowan, N. (2022). Working memory development: A 50-year assessment of research and underlying theories. Cognition, 224, 105075. doi.org/10.1016/j.cognition.2022.105075
   2. Cowan, N., Elliott, E.M., Saults, J.S., Morey, C.C., Mattox, S., Hismjatullina, A., & Conway, A.R.A. (2005).  On the capacity of attention:  Its estimation and its role in working memory and cognitive aptitudes.  Cognitive Psychology, 51, 42-100. PMC2673732
   3. Cowan, N., Li, Y., Glass, B., & Saults, J.S. (2018). Development of the ability to combine visual and acoustic information in working memory. Developmental Science, 21, e12635, 1-14. doi: 10.1111/desc.12635.
   4. Cowan, N., Morey, C.C., AuBuchon, A.M., Zwilling, C.E., & Gilchrist, A.L. (2010).  Seven-year-olds allocate attention like adults unless working memory is overloaded.  Developmental Science, 13, 120-133. PMC2819460
   5. Cowan, N., AuBuchon, A.M., Gilchrist, A.L., Ricker, T.J., & Saults, J.S. (2011).  Age differences in visual working memory capacity:  Not based on encoding limitations.  Developmental Science, 14, 1066-1074. PMC3177168
   6. Cowan, N., AuBuchon, A.M., Gilchrist, A.L., Blume, C.L., Boone, A.P., and Saults, J.S. (2021). Developmental change in the nature of attention allocation in a dual task. Developmental Psychology, 57, 33-46. Doi: 10.1037/dev0001134
   7. Cowan, N. (2021). Differentiation of two working memory tasks normed on a large U.S. sample of children 2 to 7 years old. Child Development, 92, 2268–2283. DOI:10.1111/cdev.13562
   8. Cowan, N., Ricker, T.J., Clark, K.M., Hinrichs, G.A., & Glass, B.A. (2015).  Knowledge cannot explain the developmental growth of working memory capacity.  Developmental Science, 18, 132-145. PMC4270959
   9. Forsberg, A., Adams, E.J., & Cowan, N. (2022). Why does visual working memory ability improve with age: More objects, more feature detail, or both? A registered report. Developmental Science, e13283, 1-18. DOI: 10.1111/desc.13283
   10. Forsberg, A., Guitard, D., Adams, E. J., Pattanakul, D., & Cowan, N. (2022). Children's long-term retention is directly constrained by their working memory capacity limitations. Developmental Science, 25 (2), e13164. https://doi.org/10.1111/desc.13164
   11. Forsberg, A., Blume, C., and Cowan, N. (2021). The development of metacognitive accuracy in working memory across childhood. Developmental Psychology, 57, 1297-1317. DOI: 10.1037/dev0001213
   12. Gray, S., Green, S., Alt, M., Hogan, T., Kuo, T., Brinkley, S., & Cowan, N. (2017). The structure of working memory in young school-age children and its relation to intelligence. Journal of Memory and Language, 92, 183-201. DOI: 10.1016/j.jml.2016.06.004
4. Role of time in memory.  History. The passage of time has been of interest since the beginning of experimental psychology because of the risk of forgetting over time, but also because of the opportunity to retrieve information or consolidate it over time. Recently, Klaus Oberauer and Steve Lewandowsky have published work suggesting that working memory does not decay over time, even in the absence of covert rehearsal or refreshing. Central findings: Throughout my career I have carried out studies clarifying the role of time.  In one series of studies beginning with Cowan (1992), we showed that the timing of verbal recall depends on the speed of searching through the list items, from which the current response must be identified. Some of our other work has showed that working memory decay does occur when material cannot be adequately consolidated (e.g., when it consists of briefly-presented unfamiliar characters). Still other work shows that during dark, silent periods uninterrupted by any interfering stimuli, many densely amnesic individuals surprisingly can consolidate new information into memory. Influence: The work speaks to the importance of avoiding interruption of attention, in order to maximize consolidation and retrieval from both working memory and long-term memory. This information could soon be applied to allow better learning and memory in the elderly and people with cognitive challenges. Role: The work on retrieval and forgetting from working memory was carried out by my students (e.g., Timothy Ricker), research assistants, and myself.  The work on avoiding interruption for consolidation in aging adults and amnesic individuals has been conducted in collaboration with Sergio Della Sala and Michaela Dewar in Edinburgh, Scotland, UK but I conceived of the first study in the series and carried it to completion (Cowan et al., 2004, below). 
   1. Cowan, N. (1992).  Verbal memory span and the timing of spoken recall.  Journal of Memory and Language, 31, 668-684.
   2. Cowan, N., Saults, J.S., & Nugent, L.D. (1997).  The role of absolute and relative amounts of time in forgetting within immediate memory:  The case of tone pitch comparisons.  Psychonomic Bulletin & Review, 4, 393-397.
   3. Cowan, N., Beschin, N., & Della Sala, S.  (2004). Verbal recall in amnesiacs under conditions of diminished retroactive interference.  Brain, 127, 825-834. PMID:14749294
   4. Ricker, T.J., & Cowan, N. (2014).  Differences between presentation methods in working memory procedures: A matter of working memory consolidation.  Journal of Experimental Psychology:  Learning, Memory, and Cognition, 40, 417-428. PMC4056671
5. Working memory, attention, and binding.  History: For many years (e.g., Cowan, 1988, Psychological Bulletin) I have suggested that an important role of the human focus of attention is to allow the parts of an object or concept to be bound together to form a new concept (e.g., a tiger is a large, striped cat; if one feature is forgotten a young child might label as a tiger what is actually a house cat, lion, or zebra). Central findings: In a task in which locations and printed names had to be associated, Cowan et al. (2006) found that adults and older children (but not children 8-10 years old) develop a strategy in which verbal and spatial series are separately retained and then combined as necessary (e.g., verbal Item 3 goes with visual Item 3). The younger children could not use this method and thus had to hold the associations in a more attention-intensive manner.  The pattern looked that way also for adults when rehearsal was prevented.  Our recent studies show that there is not only a limited number of objects that can be entered into working memory, but also a limited number of features per object; if colored shapes are presented, adults can retain about 3 objects but if both features are required, some color information is lost and/or some shape information is lost, compared to when only one feature is needed. Influence: The work on binding is beginning to show that there are dual ways in which attention limits come into play in working memory: during the encoding of objects and again during their retention. This information is likely to be important to understand classroom learning in multimodal situations, and to understand distraction in such situations (e.g., driving). Role: I have done this work with my students, including some advanced mathematical modeling with Kyle Hardman. The role of the intraparietal sulcus in helping to bind together information in the focus of attention has been shown in fMRI studies with my former graduate student, Dawei Li (Neuroimage, 2014), and with Steve Majerus in Belgium (see below). 
   1. Cowan, N., Saults, J.S., & Morey, C.C. (2006).  Development of working memory for verbal-spatial associations.  Journal of Memory and Language, 55, 274-289. PMC1832114
   2. Cowan, N., Blume, C.L., & Saults, J.S.  (2013). Attention to attributes and objects in working memory. Journal of Experimental Psychology:  Learning, Memory, and Cognition, 39, 731-747. PMC3825193
   3. Majerus, S., Cowan, N., Péters, F., Van Calster, L., Phillips, C., & Schrouff, J. (2016).  Cross-modal decoding of neural patterns associated with working memory:  Evidence for attention-based accounts of working memory.  Cerebral Cortex, 26, 166-179. PMID:25146374
   4. Hardman, K., & Cowan, N. (2015).  Remembering complex objects in visual working memory: Do capacity limits restrict objects or features?  Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition, 41, 325-347. PMC4317397

Some of the products of inter-university collaborations:

Cowan, N., Adams, E.J., Bhangal, S., Corcoran, M., Decker, R., Dockter, C.E., Eubank, A.T., Gann, C.L.,  Greene, N.R., Helle, A.C., Lee, N., Nguyen, A.T., Ripley, K.R., Scofield, J.E., Tapia, M.A., Threlkeld, K.L., & Watts, A.L. (2019). Foundations of arrogance: A broad survey and framework for research. Review of General Psychology, 23, 425-443.

Cowan, N., Belletier, C., Doherty, J.M., Jaroslawska, A.J., Rhodes, S., Forsberg, A., Naveh-Benjamin, M., Barrouillet, P. Camos, V., & Logie, R.H. (2020). How do scientific views change? Notes from an extended adversarial collaboration. Perspectives on Psychological Science, 15, 1011-1025.

Cowan, N., Beschin, N., & Della Sala, S.  (2004).  Verbal recall in amnesiacs under conditions of diminished retroactive interference.  Brain, 127, 825-834.

Cowan, N., Hogan, T.P., Alt, M., Green, S., Cabbage, K.L., Brinkley, S., & Gray, S. (2017). Short-term memory in childhood dyslexia:  Deficient serial order in multiple modalities. Dyslexia, 23, 209-233.

Cowan, N., & Rachev, N.R. (2018), Merging with the path not taken: Wilhelm Wundt’s work as a precursor to the embedded-processes approach to memory, attention, and consciousness. Consciousness and Cognition, 63, 228-238.

Cowan, N., Winkler, I., Teder, W., & Näätänen, R. (1993).  Memory prerequisites of the mismatch negativity in the auditory event-related potential (ERP).  Journal of Experimental Psychology:  Learning, Memory, & Cognition, 19, 909-921.

Gillam, R., Cowan, N., & Marler, J. (1998).  Information processing by school-age children with specific language impairment:  Evidence from a modality effect paradigm. Journal of Speech, Language and Hearing Research, 41, 913-926.  

Gossaries, O., Yu, Q., LaRocque, J.J., Starrett, M.J., Rose, N.S., Cowan, N., & Postle, B.R. (2018). Parietal-occipital interactions underlying control- and representation-related processes in working memory for nonspatial visual features. Journal of Neuroscience, 38, 4357– 4366.

Gray, S., Green, S., Alt, M., Hogan, T., Kuo, T., Brinkley, S., & Cowan, N. (2017). The structure of working memory in young school-age children and its relation to intelligence. Journal of Memory and Language, 92, 183-201.

Javitt, D.C., Strous, R., Grochowski, S., Ritter, W., & Cowan, N. (1997).  Impaired precision, but normal retention, of auditory sensory (“echoic”) memory information in schizophrenia.  Journal of Abnormal Psychology, 106, 315-324.

Majerus, S., Cowan, N., Péters, F., Van Calster, L., Phillips, C., & Schrouff, J. (2016).  Cross-modal decoding of neural patterns associated with working memory:  Evidence for attention-based accounts of working memory. Cerebral Cortex, 26, 166-179.

McGhee, J.D., Cowan, N., Beschin, N., Mosconi, C., & Della Sala, S. (2020). Wakeful rest benefits before and after encoding in anterograde amnesia. Neuropsychology, 34, 524-534.

Rhodes, S., Jaroslawska, A.J., Doherty, J.M., Belletier, C., Naveh-Benjamin, M., Cowan, N., Camos, V., Barrouillet, P., & Logie, R.H.  (2019). Storage and processing in working memory: Assessing dual task performance and task prioritization across the adult lifespan. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 148, 1204-1227.

Winkler, I., Schröger, E., & Cowan, N. (2001).  The role of large-scale memory organization in the mismatch negativity event-related brain potential.  Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience, 13, 59-71.

My Story – Nelson Cowan

My grandfather in Boston changed our family name from Cohen to Cowan and I was born in 1951 in Washington, D.C. I have a brother a couple of years younger than me, with high-functioning autism (not diagnosed as such for 50 years), which I wondered about from a young age according to my mother, when I noticed special doctor appointments and asked if his brain was broken. I grew up from first grade in a suburb in Wheaton, Maryland. My father was a self-employed optometrist in Washington and, when I went in to work with him a few times, he showed me how to make a telescope out of one concave and one convex trial lens; that fascinated me. As a 10-year-old, I was interested when I read in the Washington Post about Francis Crick winning a Nobel Prize and saying, in an interview, that in the future he wanted to try to understand “how the brain works.” I did little science projects at home, and once (evading any supervision) hooked a toy telegraph to the line current in my bedroom, making it into a burglar alarm. When my father opened the door while I was asleep, it triggered a buzzing that was much like a school fire alarm, with no exaggeration, waking me into a dazed state and surely surprising us all.

In recent years I have realized that I was introduced in my early teens to cognitive concepts to which I returned later, as a researcher. My ninth-grade math teacher talked about a computer program that turns out to have been the Logic Theory Machine of Newell and Simon, a 1956 work in computer science in which the term working memory was introduced. On a television show called Watch Mr. Wizard, a child was asked to produce random numbers and the difficulty of doing so was pointed out.

My first seriously-pursued scientific interest, undertaken in high school during a research class, was in suspended animation, probably with hopes of eventual immortality. A teacher took me to the Bethesda Naval Hospital, where a Commander Perry showed me how to super-cool rotifers slowly in a dry ice solution and then bring them back to life. I was able to obtain dry ice several times at Gifford’s ice cream shop and the experiment succeeded! The teacher left the school before I could continue the project the next year, and I still wish we had entered it into a science fair. Also in high school, a friend of mine pointed me to a local library book detailing research on sleep and dreams, available perhaps because of our proximity to the National Institutes of Health (NIH) Bethesda campus. It sparked my curiosity about consciousness and the mind and I decided that, given the brevity of life, the best direction for a career would be studying consciousness in some way.

We lived close enough to NIH that I could volunteer and work there on brain research in the summers during college (home from the University of Michigan). I could ride a bike there, mostly on the Rock Creek Trail, drying my shirt out in the men’s room when I got there like a friend of mine also did. My first publication was in 1974 on a rat brain study that I suggested to the scientists at NIH. It took me a few days following instructions in the lab to realize that I was running the study I had suggested! Then, due to some miscommunication, though I was a co-author, I found out about that first publication only in 1979, when I called while in the process of constructing my first CV. That knowledge of authorship would have been uplifting during some frustrating times in graduate school struggling with an infant perception paradigm that wasn’t working well.

I applied to brain-related graduate school programs but ended up in a developmental program using physiological, heart rate measures of acoustic discrimination with a psychologist, Philip Morse, and a pediatrician, Lewis Leavitt, at the University of Wisconsin The developmental work led me to the study of working memory as a specialization but I could just as easily have ended up studying perception, reasoning, or language, or attention, insofar as each of them relates to consciousness. I have included all of them in some ways as aspects of my research on working memory and its childhood development.

I am truly a doctor of philosophy; my main motivation for my work is philosophical and theoretical, regarding the mind. However, I have always hoped and believed that the research can be of value in practical ways, and have collaborated with researchers of alcoholic intoxication, autism, schizophrenia, amnesia, Parkinson’s disease, language impairment, and dyslexia. 

In my free time, I am interested in many things that are relaxing, including reading, movies, friends, hiking, soccer, children, humor, and listening to music; but my professional life consumes a lot of time in ways that are usually pretty rewarding, so I do not try to achieve much in any of my hobbies in a focused sense.