Memory for route and survey descriptions across the adult lifespan: The role of verbal and visuospatial working memory resources

2021 ◽  
Vol 78 ◽  
pp. 101712
Author(s):  
Ioanna Markostamou ◽  
Kenny Coventry
Keyword(s):  
Working Memory ◽  
Visuospatial Working Memory ◽  
Adult Lifespan ◽  
Memory Resources

Visual Search Facilitation in Repeated Displays Depends on Visuospatial Working Memory

2012 ◽  
Vol 59 (1) ◽  
pp. 47-54 ◽  
Author(s):  
Angela A. Manginelli ◽  
Franziska Geringswald ◽  
Stefan Pollmann
Keyword(s):  
Working Memory ◽  
Visual Search ◽  
Control Experiment ◽  
Memory Load ◽  
Contextual Cueing ◽  
Long Term Memory ◽  
Visuospatial Working Memory ◽  
Working Memory Load ◽  
Memory Resources

When distractor configurations are repeated over time, visual search becomes more efficient, even if participants are unaware of the repetition. This contextual cueing is a form of incidental, implicit learning. One might therefore expect that contextual cueing does not (or only minimally) rely on working memory resources. This, however, is debated in the literature. We investigated contextual cueing under either a visuospatial or a nonspatial (color) visual working memory load. We found that contextual cueing was disrupted by the concurrent visuospatial, but not by the color working memory load. A control experiment ruled out that unspecific attentional factors of the dual-task situation disrupted contextual cueing. Visuospatial working memory may be needed to match current display items with long-term memory traces of previously learned displays.

Working Memory Capacity and a Notorious Brain Teaser

2006 ◽  
Vol 53 (2) ◽  
pp. 123-131 ◽  
Author(s):  
Wim De Neys ◽  
Niki Verschueren
Keyword(s):  
Working Memory ◽  
Secondary Task ◽  
Working Memory Capacity ◽  
Memory Capacity ◽  
Task Load ◽  
Normative Reasoning ◽  
Monty Hall Dilemma ◽  
Monty Hall ◽  
Memory Resources

Abstract. The Monty Hall Dilemma (MHD) is an intriguing example of the discrepancy between people’s intuitions and normative reasoning. This study examines whether the notorious difficulty of the MHD is associated with limitations in working memory resources. Experiment 1 and 2 examined the link between MHD reasoning and working memory capacity. Experiment 3 tested the role of working memory experimentally by burdening the executive resources with a secondary task. Results showed that participants who solved the MHD correctly had a significantly higher working memory capacity than erroneous responders. Correct responding also decreased under secondary task load. Findings indicate that working memory capacity plays a key role in overcoming salient intuitions and selecting the correct switching response during MHD reasoning.

scholarly journals The Role of Phonological and Visual Working Memory in Carry Operations or Intermediate Solutions in Complex Mental Arithmetic

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
◽  
Wei Dai
Keyword(s):  
Working Memory ◽  
Change Detection ◽  
Visual Working Memory ◽  
Visual Processing ◽  
Mental Arithmetic ◽  
Arithmetic Operation ◽  
Phonological Working Memory ◽  
Mental Addition ◽  
Memory Resources

<p>The present research comprises four experiments designed to explore the role of visual and phonological working memory resources in carry operations or intermediate solutions in complex mental addition and multiplication. A special consideration was given to the effect of arithmetic operation on the relative involvement of visual and phonological resources in complex addition and multiplication.  A pilot study was conducted prior to the experiments, aiming to examine the suitability of visual and phonological stimuli for change detection and working memory capacity estimation. Two staff of Victoria University of Wellington with normal or corrected vision attended the pilot study as participants. Pilot Experiments 1 to 4 tested the suitability for probing visual working memory (VWM) capacity of two types of visual stimulus with different feature dimensions: bars of different orientations and Gabor patches with different orientations and spatial frequencies. A single-probe change-detection experimental paradigm was used, with participants making decisions about whether or not probe items were the same as memory items presented previously. Both presentation durations and set sizes were manipulated. Stable estimates of visual working memory capacities were found when Gabor patches with varied spatial frequencies were used, suggesting its utility as a probe for estimating visual working memory capacity. Pilot Experiment 5 was designed to examine the suitability of pronounceable consonant-vowel-consonant non-words as a probe of phonological working memory (PWM). Valid estimates of PWM capacity were found for both participants, suggesting the suitability of phonological non-words as phonological stimuli of assessing PWM capacities and interfering with information phonologically-represented and maintained in working memory.  Experiments 1 to 4 investigated the relative involvement of visual and phonological working memory resources in carry operations or intermediate solutions in mental addition and multiplication. Fifty-six undergraduate students of Victoria University of Wellington participated all experiments, and 48 of them provided valid data for final analysis. A dual-task interference paradigm was used in all experiments, with arithmetic tasks and visual/phonological change-detection tasks either performed alone, or simultaneously. For arithmetic tasks, double-digit addition problems and multiplication problems comprising one single-digit and one double-digit were presented horizontally and continuously, and participants reported the final solutions verbally. For visual change-detection tasks, study items were visually presented to participants for 1,000ms before they disappeared. After a 4000ms retention interval, a probe item was presented and participants judged whether the probe item was the same as one of the memory items. For phonological change-detection tasks, phonological nonwords were verbally presented to participants sequentially. After a 4000ms retention interval, a probe nonword was presented to participants, and they indicated whether or not the probe was the same as one of the study non-words. Both numbers of carry operations involved in the arithmetic problems (zero, one, and two) and levels of visual/phonological loads (low, medium, and high) were manipulated in all experiments.   For all experiments, the effect of the number of carry operations on calculation performance was observed: arithmetic problems involving more carry operations were solved less rapidly and accurately. This effect was enlarged by concurrent visual and phonological loads, evidenced by significant interactions between task conditions and number of carry operations observed in the accuracy analyses of the arithmetic tasks in all experiments except Experiment 2, in which multiplication problems were solved under visual loads. These findings suggest that both visual and phonological resources are required for the temporary storage of intermediate solutions or carry information in mental addition, while for mental multiplication, only evidence for a role of phonological representations in carry operations was found.  For all experiments, the greater performance impairment of carry problems than no-carry problems associated with the presence of working memory loads was not further increased by increasing load level: There were no significant three-way interactions between task conditions, number of carry operations and load levels in accuracy analyses of arithmetic tasks. One possible explanation for this absence of significant three-way interactions might be attributable to some participants switching between phonological and visual working memory for the temporary storage of carrier information or intermediate solutions as a result of decreasing amount of available phonological or visual working memory resources.  In conclusion, the findings of the present research provide support for a role of both visual and phonological working memory resources in carry operations in mental addition, and a role of phonological working memory resources in carry operation in mental multiplication. Thus, it can be concluded that solving mental arithmetic problems involving carry-operations requires working memory resources. However, these results contradict the prediction of the Triple Code Model, which assumes addition mainly relies on visual processing, and multiplication mainly relies on verbal processing, while complex mental arithmetic is solved with the aid of visual processing regardless of the arithmetic operation. Thus, these results challenge the operation-specific involvement of working memory resources in complex mental arithmetic. However, it should be noted that the same arithmetic problems were solved three times by the same participants, which might have encouraged more activation in phonological processing than visual processing due to the practice effect.</p>

scholarly journals Visuospatial working memory and the construction of a spatial situation model in listening comprehension: An examination using a spatial tapping task

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yun Lin ◽  
Norio Matsumi
Keyword(s):  
Working Memory ◽  
Spatial Information ◽  
Recall Performance ◽  
Situation Model ◽  
Verbal Working Memory ◽  
Concurrent Task ◽  
Visuospatial Working Memory ◽  
Impaired Performance ◽  
Dual Task Performance

AbstractThe present study investigated how visuospatial working memory (VSWM) is involved in the construction of a spatial situation model for spatial passages presented auditorily. A simple spatial tapping condition, a complex tapping condition as a target-tracking task, and a control condition, were used to analyze the role of VSWM. To understand how individuals who differ in verbal working memory (VWM) capacity (determined with a listening span test) process spatial text during dual-task performance, individual differences in VWM capacity were analyzed. In two experiments, the participants listened to a spatial text at the same time as performing a spatial concurrent task or no concurrent task. The results of the free recall test in Experiment 1 showed that there were no differences between the tapping conditions in the high VWM capacity group; the low VWM capacity group had a lower performance in both spatial tapping tasks compared to the control condition. The results of the map drawing test in Experiment 2 showed that complex spatial tapping impaired performance in comparison to simple spatial tapping and the control condition in the high VWM capacity group; in the low VWM capacity group, both spatial tapping tasks impaired recall performance. In addition, the participants with high VWM capacity demonstrated better performance. Overall, the results suggest that individuals with high VWM capacity have more resources to process verbal and spatial information than those with low VWM capacity, indicating that VWM capacity is related to the degree of the involvement of VSWM.

Relationships Between Working Memory and Academic Skills: Are There Differences Between Children With Intellectual Disabilities and Typically Developing Children?

2012 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
pp. 20-38 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sebastian Poloczek ◽  
Gerhard Büttner ◽  
Marcus Hasselhorn
Keyword(s):  
Working Memory ◽  
Intellectual Disabilities ◽  
Short Term Memory ◽  
Academic Skills ◽  
Typically Developing ◽  
Visuospatial Working Memory ◽  
Typically Developing Children ◽  
Mental Age ◽  
Calculation Skills ◽  
Memory Resources

In typically developing children, working memory is linked to academic skills. However, little is known about the role working memory plays for learning in children with intellectual disabilities (ID). Therefore, the aims of this study were to examine whether different working memory functions are related to reading, spelling, and calculating in children with ID of nonspecific etiology and whether these relationships are different from the ones found in typically developing children. Forty-seven children with mild-to-borderline ID and 47 children matched for mental age were tested. Although in typically developing children, only phonological short-term memory tasks were predictive for literacy, for children with ID, visuospatial working memory tasks also accounted for variance. In typically developing children, calculation skills were predicted by phonological working memory tasks, whereas visuospatial working memory resources were crucial for children with ID. Several possible explanations are discussed for discrepancies in prediction patterns.

Differential role of visuospatial working memory in the propensity toward uncertainty in patients with obsessive–compulsive disorder and in healthy subjects

2013 ◽  
Vol 44 (10) ◽  
pp. 2113-2124 ◽  
Author(s):  
V. Lambrecq ◽  
J.-Y. Rotge ◽  
N. Jaafari ◽  
B. Aouizerate ◽  
N. Langbour ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Working Memory ◽  
Obsessive Compulsive Disorder ◽  
Healthy Subjects ◽  
Memory Performance ◽  
Continuous Performance ◽  
Visuospatial Working Memory ◽  
Obsessive Compulsive ◽  
Compulsive Disorder ◽  
Temporal Direction

BackgroundObsessive–compulsive disorder (OCD) is associated with visuospatial working memory deficits. Intolerance of uncertainty is thought to be a core component of OCD symptoms. Recent findings argue for a possible relationship between abilities in visuospatial memory and uncertainty. However, this relationship remains unclear in both OCD patients and healthy subjects. To address this issue, we measured performance in visuospatial working memory and the propensity to express uncertainty during decision making. We assessed their relationship and the temporal direction of this relationship in both OCD patients and healthy subjects.MethodBaseline abilities in visuospatial working memory were measured with the Corsi block-tapping test. A delayed matching-to-sample task was used to identify explicit situations of certainty, uncertainty and ignorance and to assess continuous performance in visuospatial working memory. Behavioural variables were recorded over 360 consecutive trials in both groups.ResultsBaseline scores of visuospatial working memory did not predict the number of uncertain situations in OCD patients whereas they did in healthy subjects. Uncertain trials led to reduced abilities in visuospatial working memory to 65% of usual performance in OCD patients whereas they remained stable in healthy subjects.ConclusionsThe present findings show an opposite temporal direction in the relationship between abilities in working memory and uncertainty in OCD patients and healthy subjects. Poor working memory performance contributes to the propensity to feel uncertainty in healthy subjects whereas uncertainty contributes to decreased continuous performance in working memory in OCD patients.

scholarly journals Child-Like Adults: Dual-Task Effects on Collective vs. Distributive Sentence Interpretations

2021 ◽  
Vol 12 ◽  
Author(s):  
Anna M. B. de Koster ◽  
Petra Hendriks ◽  
Jennifer K. Spenader
Keyword(s):  
Working Memory ◽  
Dual Task ◽  
Cognitive Resources ◽  
Response Patterns ◽  
Conversational Implicature ◽  
Recent Proposal ◽  
Task Effects ◽  
Collective Preference ◽  
Memory Resources

In this work, we consider a recent proposal that claims that the preferred interpretation of sentences containing definite plural expressions, such as “The boys are building a snowman,” is not determined by semantic composition but is pragmatically derived via an implicature. Plural expressions can express that each member of a group acts individually (distributive interpretation) or that the group acts together (collective interpretation). While adults prefer collective interpretations for sentences that are not explicitly marked for distributivity by the distributive marker each, children do not show this preference. One explanation is that the adult collective preference for definite plurals arises due to a conversational implicature. If implicature calculation requires memory resources, children may fail to calculate the implicature due to memory limitations. This study investigated whether loading Dutch-speaking adults' working memory, using a dual task, would elicit more child-like distributive interpretations, as would be predicted by the implicature account. We found that loading WM in adults did lead to response patterns more similar to children. We discuss whether our results offer a plausible explanation for children's development of an understanding of distributivity and how our results relate to recent debates on the role of cognitive resources in implicature calculation.

scholarly journals When study-abroad experience fails to deliver: The internal resources threshold effect

2009 ◽  
Vol 30 (1) ◽  
pp. 79-99 ◽  
Author(s):  
GRETCHEN SUNDERMAN ◽  
JUDITH F. KROLL
Keyword(s):  
Working Memory ◽  
Study Abroad ◽  
English Learners ◽  
Recognition Task ◽  
Naming Task ◽  
Threshold Effect ◽  
Cognitive Resources ◽  
Internal Resources ◽  
Memory Resources

ABSTRACTSome second language (L2) learners return from study-abroad experiences (SAEs) with seemingly no change in their L2 ability. In this study we investigate whether a certain level of internal cognitive resources is necessary in order for individuals to take full advantage of the SAE. Specifically, we examine the role of working memory resources in lexical comprehension and production for learners who had or had not studied abroad. Participants included native English learners of Spanish. Participants completed a translation recognition task and a picture-naming task. The results suggest that individuals who lack a certain threshold of working memory resources are unable to benefit from the study-abroad context in terms of being able to produce accurately in the L2.

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