EEG activity during the spatial span task in young men: Differences between short-term and working memory

Five experiments are reported in which subjects were asked to remember short, visually presented sequences of whole body movement patterns, words, and spatial positions. The items were recalled in order in a memory span paradigm. During presentation of the items to be remembered subjects simply watched, or they carried out a concurrent activity involving articulatory suppression, movement to external spatial targets, or body-related movement. When the movement patterns to be remembered were familiar to subjects, movement span was not disrupted by articulatory suppression or movement to spatial targets but was disrupted by body-related movement. This movement suppression task, however, did not interfere with performance on a spatial span task or on verbal span. It is concluded that the memory for patterns of limb movement differs from memory for movement to spatial targets and that accounts of visuo-spatial processes in working memory involve the latter type of movement.

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Distinction between Visuo-Spatial Short-Term-Memory and Working Memory Span Tasks

Swiss Journal of Psychology ◽

10.1024/1421-0185.65.1.37 ◽

2006 ◽

Vol 65 (1) ◽

pp. 37-55 ◽

Cited By ~ 6

Author(s):

Thierry Lecerf ◽

Jean-Luc Roulin

Keyword(s):

Working Memory ◽

Fluid Intelligence ◽

Short Term Memory ◽

Memory Span ◽

Item Difficulty ◽

Short Term ◽

Term Memory ◽

Spatial Span ◽

Span Test ◽

Span Tasks

Six experiments are presented that examined the constraints underlying performance in two visuo-spatial span tasks. In the Location Span Test (LST), participants have to memorize the cells of a 5×5 matrix containing arrows, while in the Direction Span Test (DST) they have to memorize the cells pointed at by arrows. The main objective was to assess whether both tasks were similarly influenced by experimental factors. Results showed that performance improved with longer encoding time (1-s. vs. 3-s) only for the DST. Maintenance interval (0-s vs. 5-s) and order of item difficulty (ascending vs. descending) have no effect either on the LST or on the DST. Another experiment indicated that the DST is a better predictor of fluid intelligence. These results seem to provide evidence that the LST and the DST relate to different constructs. Implications of these findings for the distinction between short-term and working memory span tasks are discussed.

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Working memory performance in expert and novice interpreters

Interpreting ◽

10.1075/intp.8.1.02kop ◽

2006 ◽

Vol 8 (1) ◽

pp. 1-23 ◽

Cited By ~ 64

Author(s):

Barbara Köpke ◽

Jean-Luc Nespoulous

Keyword(s):

Working Memory ◽

Articulatory Suppression ◽

Memory Performance ◽

Working Memory Capacity ◽

Stroop Test ◽

Span Task ◽

Short Term ◽

Significant Group ◽

Probe Task ◽

Term Retention

Simultaneous interpreting is generally assumed to be particularly demanding with respect to cognitive resources such as attention and working memory, which are thought to gradually increase with professional practice. Experimental data to corroborate this assumption is still rather sparse, however. Here we report an in-depth investigation of working memory capacity among 21 professional interpreters (experts), 18 second-year interpreting students (novices) and two control groups (20 multilinguals and 20 students). Tests involved either short-term retention alone; short-term retention and processing in a recall task with articulatory suppression, a listening span task, and a category and rhyme probe task; or attention alone in a unilingual and bilingual Stroop test. No between-group differences in simple span tasks and the Stroop test were found. Significant group effects were observed in free recall with articulatory suppression, in the category probe task and in the listening span task. The best performance was always produced by the novice interpreters rather than by the experts. These findings are discussed in relation to (a) the novice–expert distinction and the role of working memory in the development of interpreting skills, and (b) the nature of the task and possible strategies involved.

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Adaptive control in interpreters: Assessing the impact of training and experience on working memory

Bilingualism Language and Cognition ◽

10.1017/s1366728920000127 ◽

2020 ◽

Vol 23 (4) ◽

pp. 772-779 ◽

Cited By ~ 1

Author(s):

Soudabeh Nour ◽

Esli Struys ◽

Helene Stengers

Keyword(s):

Working Memory ◽

Adaptive Control ◽

Short Term Memory ◽

Digit Span ◽

Span Task ◽

Control Mechanisms ◽

Short Term ◽

Student Groups ◽

Control Hypothesis ◽

The Impact

AbstractThe adaptive control hypothesis predicts adaptation of control mechanisms as a response to intensive language use in bilinguals. The present study aims to investigate this hypothesis in two memory experiments with professional and student interpreters. In experiment 1, we compared a group of interpreting students to translation students using a reading span task to test working memory (WM) and a digit span task to test short-term memory (STM). In experiment 2, we added a group of professional interpreters and compared them with the participants in experiment 1. Training-related improvement was found for WM but not for STM, with no differences between both student groups. Professional interpreters with over 20 years of interpreting experience showed better performance than translation students but not than interpreting students both on WM and STM. The results are discussed in light of the framework of interpreting as a type of extreme bilingualism.

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The Effects of Cognitive Demand upon Relationships between Working Memory and Cognitive Skills

Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology ◽

10.1080/17470210601025505 ◽

2007 ◽

Vol 60 (10) ◽

pp. 1378-1388 ◽

Cited By ~ 10

Author(s):

Helen L. St Clair-Thompson

Keyword(s):

Working Memory ◽

Cognitive Skills ◽

Short Term Memory ◽

Cognitive Demand ◽

Span Task ◽

Short Term ◽

Memory Research ◽

Term Memory

The present study explored the effects of cognitive demand upon relationships between working memory and cognitive skills. Both children and adults were tested on a measure of short-term memory and three measures of counting span, which varied in cognitive demand. When statistically controlling for short-term memory and the speed of counting operations, the more demanding the counting-span task, the closer its relationship with cognitive skills. The results are discussed in terms of practical and theoretical implications for working memory research.

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Conceptual short-term memory (CSTM) supports core claims of Christiansen and Chater

Behavioral and Brain Sciences ◽

10.1017/s0140525x15000928 ◽

2016 ◽

Vol 39 ◽

Author(s):

Mary C. Potter

Keyword(s):

Working Memory ◽

Rapid Serial Visual Presentation ◽

Language Comprehension ◽

Short Term Memory ◽

Visual Presentation ◽

Long Term Memory ◽

Short Term ◽

Term Memory ◽

Use Of Knowledge

AbstractRapid serial visual presentation (RSVP) of words or pictured scenes provides evidence for a large-capacity conceptual short-term memory (CSTM) that momentarily provides rich associated material from long-term memory, permitting rapid chunking (Potter 1993; 2009; 2012). In perception of scenes as well as language comprehension, we make use of knowledge that briefly exceeds the supposed limits of working memory.

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Working, Declarative, and Procedural Memory in Children With Developmental Language Disorder

Journal of Speech Language and Hearing Research ◽

10.1044/2020_jslhr-20-00135 ◽

2020 ◽

Vol 63 (12) ◽

pp. 4162-4178

Author(s):

Emily Jackson ◽

Suze Leitão ◽

Mary Claessen ◽

Mark Boyes

Keyword(s):

Working Memory ◽

Short Term Memory ◽

Language Disorder ◽

Declarative Memory ◽

Memory Systems ◽

Procedural Memory ◽

Typically Developing ◽

Short Term ◽

Term Memory ◽

Visual Spatial

Purpose Previous research into the working, declarative, and procedural memory systems in children with developmental language disorder (DLD) has yielded inconsistent results. The purpose of this research was to profile these memory systems in children with DLD and their typically developing peers. Method One hundred four 5- to 8-year-old children participated in the study. Fifty had DLD, and 54 were typically developing. Aspects of the working memory system (verbal short-term memory, verbal working memory, and visual–spatial short-term memory) were assessed using a nonword repetition test and subtests from the Working Memory Test Battery for Children. Verbal and visual–spatial declarative memory were measured using the Children's Memory Scale, and an audiovisual serial reaction time task was used to evaluate procedural memory. Results The children with DLD demonstrated significant impairments in verbal short-term and working memory, visual–spatial short-term memory, verbal declarative memory, and procedural memory. However, verbal declarative memory and procedural memory were no longer impaired after controlling for working memory and nonverbal IQ. Declarative memory for visual–spatial information was unimpaired. Conclusions These findings indicate that children with DLD have deficits in the working memory system. While verbal declarative memory and procedural memory also appear to be impaired, these deficits could largely be accounted for by working memory skills. The results have implications for our understanding of the cognitive processes underlying language impairment in the DLD population; however, further investigation of the relationships between the memory systems is required using tasks that measure learning over long-term intervals. Supplemental Material https://doi.org/10.23641/asha.13250180

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Short-Term Auditory Memory, Oral Perception, and Experimental Sound Learning

Journal of Speech and Hearing Research ◽

10.1044/jshr.1201.185 ◽

1969 ◽

Vol 12 (1) ◽

pp. 185-192 ◽

Cited By ~ 11

Author(s):

John L. Locke

Keyword(s):

Memory Span ◽

Auditory Memory ◽

Span Task ◽

Short Term ◽

Learning Framework ◽

Sound Learning ◽

Oral Perception

Ten children with high scores on an auditory memory span task were significantly better at imitating three non-English phones than 10 children with low auditory memory span scores. An additional 10 children with high scores on an oral stereognosis task were significantly better at imitating two of the three phones than 10 children with low oral stereognosis scores. Auditory memory span and oral stereognosis appear to be important subskills in the learning of new articulations, perhaps explaining their appearance in the literature as “etiologies” of disordered articulation. Although articulation development and the experimental acquisition of non-English phones have certain obvious differences, they seem to share some common processes, suggesting that the sound learning framework may be an efficacious technique for revealing otherwise inaccessible information.

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