Naomi Langerock

Research and Teaching Fellow

I obtained my master’s degree in Experimental Psychology at the Catholic University of Leuven (Belgium). I then achieved a PhD at the University of Geneva (Switzerland) on binding within working memory. I worked as a post-doc at the University of Geneva, focusing on refreshing in working memory. Currently, I am a senior researcher, doing research on multiple projects concerning working memory development, the underlying representations of working memory, different measures of working memory, practical implications of working memory research, etc.

Research domains: working memory; cognitive development.

Teaching domains: cognitive development; sensory and motor development; critical thinking and open science practices; putting theoretical knowledge into practice

Twitter: @NLangerock

Ongoing projects

On the cognitive load effect

The cognitive load effect is one of the most prominent effects in working memory and corresponds to the observation that increasing the attentional demands of a concurrent processing tasks results in a decrease in memory performance. Plenty of studies have observed this effect, although there are also some studies that have not shown this effect. In this project, we investigate de boundary conditions of the cognitive load effect.

(in collaboration with Evie Vergauwe, Klaus Oberauer and Elena Throm)

How to improve the retention/execution of instructions in the classroom?

What makes that children remember the instructions in the classroom the teacher just gave them? Using an experimental design, we try to uncover the best ways to present instructions in order to increase their retention and execution.

(in collaboration with Evie Vergauwe and Marco Hessels)

Do adults and children rely on the same (domain-specific or domain-general) resources in working memory?

There is ongoing debate on the resources working memory relies on. While some believe domain-general attentional resources to be the main working memory resource, others attribute a predominant role to domain-general verbal and/or visuo-spatial resources. In this project we try to figure out both for adults and for children which kind of resources are involved in typical working memory tasks.

(in collaboration with Evie Vergauwe)

And many more collaborations

Publication List

14. Langerock, N, Sposito, G., Hautekiet, C., & Vergauwe, E. (2021). Inhibition-of-return-like effects in working memory? A preregistered replication study of Johnson et al. (2013). Royal Society Open Scienc, 8, 1-10.
Doi: 10.1098/rsos.210254

OA Link - PDF

13. Vergauwe, E., Besch, V., Latrèche, C., & Langerock, N. (2021). The use of attention to maintain information in working memory: A developmental investigation of spontaneous refreshing in school-aged children. Developmental Science (online first).
Doi: 10.1111/desc.13104

Link - PDF: on request

12. 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

Link: - PDF

11. Langerock, N., Vergauwe, E., Dirix, N., & Barrouillet, P. (2018). Is memory better for objects than for separate single features? The temporal hypothesis. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition, 44, 898-917.
Doi: doi.org/10.1037/xlm0000501

Link - PDF

10. Vergauwe, E., Langerock, N., Cowan, N. (2018). Evidence for spontaneous serial refreshing in verbal working memory? Psychonomic Bulletin and Review, 25, 674-680.
Doi: 10.3758/s13423-017-1387-4

Link - PDF

9. Langerock, N., Wisniewski, D., Brass, M., & Vergauwe, E. (2018). An examination of refreshing in between-category sequences. Annals of the New York Academy of Science, 1424, 190-201.
Doi: 10.1111/nyas.13702

Link: - PDF

8. Barrouillet, P., Uittenhove, K., Lucidi, A., & Langerock, N. (2017). On the sources of forgetting in working memory: The test of competing hypotheses. The Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology, 71, 1714-1733.
Doi: 10.1080/17470218.2017.1358293

Link - PDF: on request

7. Vergauwe, E., & Langerock, N. (2017). Attentional refreshing of information in working memory: Increased accessibility of just-refreshed representations. Journal of Memory and Language, 96, 23-35.

Doi: 10.1016/j.jml.2017.05.001

Link: - PDF: on request

6. Lucidi, A., Langerock, N., Horeau, V., Lemaire, B., Camos, V., & Barrouillet, P. (2016). Working memory still needs verbal rehearsal. Memory and cognition, 44, 197-206.
Doi: 10.3758/s13421-015-0561-z

Link: - PDF: on request

5. Vergauwe, E., Langerock, N., & Barrouillet, P. (2014). Maintaining information in visual working memory: Memory for bindings and memory for features are equally disrupted by increased attentional demands. Canadian journal of experimental psychology, 68, 68-158.
Doi: 10.1037/cep0000025

Link: - PDF: on request

4. Langerock, N., Vergauwe, E., & Barrouillet, P. (2014). The maintenance of cross-domain associations in the episodic buffer. Journal of experimental psychology: learning, memory and cognition, 40, 1096 – 1109.
Doi: 10.1037/a0035783

Link: - PDF

3. Langerock, N., van Hanswijck de Jonghe, L., Bickle Graz, M., Huppi, S., Borradori-Tolsa, C., & Barisnikov, K. (2013). Emotional reactivity in very preterm infants born at < 29 weeks of gestation. Infant behavior and development, 36, 289 – 297.
Doi: 10.1016/j.infbeh.2013.02.006

Link - PDF: on request

2. Barrouillet, P., De Paepe, A., & Langerock, N. (2012). Time causes forgetting in working memory. Psychonomic bulletin and review, 19, 87-92.
Doi: 10.3758/s13423-011-0192-8

Link - PDF: on request

1. Vergauwe, E., Dewaele, N., Langerock, N., & Barrouillet, P. (2012). Evidence for a central pool of general resources in working memory. Journal of cognitive psychology, 24, 359-366.
Doi: 10.1080/20445911.2011.640625

Link - PDF : on request