In this study, individuals with mild cognitive impairment (MCI) were tested to see if executive dysfunction impacts their implementation of expectancy biases in a priming task. Young adults, healthy older adults, and individuals with MCI made speed-related decisions to sequentially presented word pairs. The proportion of category related (e.g., apple-fruit) versus coordinate related (apple-pear) pairs was varied to create different expectancy biases. When the proportion of category pairs was high (80%), the control groups showed an expectancy bias: Significant inhibition was observed for coordinate pairs compared with category pairs. The MCI group also demonstrated an expectancy bias but with much larger costs for unexpected targets. The findings suggest that individuals with MCI are inordinately sensitive to expectancy violations, and these findings are discussed in terms of possible executive dysfunction.

Previous research has shown that separate information sources, activated closely together in time, can induce errors suggestive of memory blends. In Experiment 1, homophones were used to induce such memory errors. In a study task, participants made relatedness judgments to word pairs that included homophones (e.g., PAWS-BEAR). During this task, one group (study-similar) maintained memory loads with words that were orthographically similar to the presented homophones (e.g., JAWS). Another group (test-similar) maintained memory loads similar to those obtained for the study homophone's alternate spelling (e.g., CAUSE). A third group maintained no memory load during the task. In a surprise recognition test, participants were presented both previously viewed homophones (PAWS) and nonpresented alternate spellings (PAUSE). We hypothesized that partially activated alternate spellings, in conjunction with the orthographically similar memory words, would result in the creation of blended memories. The results followed suit: The test-similar condition produced significantly elevated false alarms, relative to both the study-similar and the no-load conditions. Experiment 2 replicated these results while including memory loads to control for potential orthographic confusions. The findings are discussed in terms of multiple, episodic memories later activated as single, blended memories.