Examining the Relation Among Subjective Age and Working Memory in Old Age on a High-Frequency Basis Across 7 Days

Abstract While increasing longitudinal evidence suggests that negative age views accelerate cognitive decline and increase dementia risk, we know little about such co-variance dynamics on a daily basis. We make use of subjective age and working memory performance data obtained six times a day over seven consecutive days as people went about their daily routines from 123 young-old (aged 66-69 years, 47.2% women) and 42 old-old (aged 86-90 years, 55.8% women) adults. Notably, multilevel models revealed considerably-sized short-term intra-individual variation of subjective age and working memory within days and these short-term within-day fluctuations in subjective age and working memory were coupled as expected. Hence, increased subjective age went along with lowered working memory confirming previous research. However, the respective between-day associations appeared reversed. Given this evidence of correlated short-term variability, we also discuss implications of different change dynamics that might explain moment-to-moment versus day-to-day associations between subjective age and working memory.

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The Dynamic-Processing Model of Working Memory

Current Directions in Psychological Science ◽

10.1177/0963721420922185 ◽

2020 ◽

Vol 29 (4) ◽

pp. 378-387

Author(s):

Nathan S. Rose

Keyword(s):

Working Memory ◽

Brain Activity ◽

Memory Performance ◽

Short Term ◽

Dynamic Activity ◽

Mind And Brain ◽

Latent Representations ◽

Dynamic Processing ◽

Conventional Models ◽

The Mind

Recent shifts in the understanding of how the mind and brain retain information in working memory (WM) call for revision to traditional theories. Evidence of dynamic, “activity-silent,” short-term retention processes diverges from conventional models positing that information is always retained in WM by sustained neural activity in buffers. Such evidence comes from machine-learning methods that can decode patterns of brain activity and the simultaneous administration of transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) to causally manipulate brain activity in specific areas and time points. TMS can “ping” brain areas to both reactivate latent representations retained in WM and affect memory performance. On the basis of these findings, I argue for a supplement to sustained retention mechanisms. Brain-decoding methods also reveal that dynamic levels of representational codes are retained in WM, and these vary according to task context, from perceptual (sensory) codes in posterior areas to abstract, recoded representations distributed across frontoparietal regions. A dynamic-processing model of WM is advanced to account for the overall pattern of results.

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Phonological short-term and working memory in bilinguals' native and second language

Applied Psycholinguistics ◽

10.1017/s0142716412000100 ◽

2012 ◽

Vol 34 (5) ◽

pp. 1005-1037 ◽

Cited By ~ 4

Author(s):

MARGARITA KAUSHANSKAYA ◽

JEEWON YOO

Keyword(s):

Working Memory ◽

Short Term Memory ◽

Memory Performance ◽

Judgment Task ◽

Nonword Repetition ◽

Executive Processes ◽

Short Term ◽

Specific Knowledge ◽

L1 And L2 ◽

Repetition Task

ABSTRACTThe goal of the current study was to examine bilinguals' phonological short-term and working memory performance in their native/first (L1) and second (L2) languages. Korean–English bilinguals were tested in both Korean (L1) and English (L2). Short-term memory (STM) was measured via a nonword repetition task, where participants repeated nonwords that increased in length. Working memory (WM) was measured via a complex task, where the nonword repetition task was combined with an animacy judgment task. In general, bilinguals performed better on the STM task than on the WM task, and with shorter nonwords than with longer nonwords. Results also revealed that L1 STM performance was superior to L2 STM performance, but only for the longest nonwords, whereas L1 WM performance was superior to L2 WM performance across all length levels. In addition, correlation analyses between bilinguals' L1 and L2 performance revealed stronger cross-linguistic associations for the WM task than for the STM task. Together, the findings suggest that WM tasks may engage domain-general central executive processes in bilinguals, whereas STM skills may depend on language-specific knowledge in the L1 and the L2.

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Deficits in Conditional Discrimination Learning in Children with ADHD are Independent of Delay Aversion and Working Memory

Journal of Clinical Medicine ◽

10.3390/jcm8091381 ◽

2019 ◽

Vol 8 (9) ◽

pp. 1381 ◽

Cited By ~ 1

Author(s):

Meyer ◽

Beckers ◽

Tripp ◽

van der Oord

Keyword(s):

Working Memory ◽

Discrimination Learning ◽

Conditional Discrimination ◽

Memory Performance ◽

Clinical Status ◽

Delay Aversion ◽

Behavioral Repertoire ◽

Short Term ◽

Children With Adhd ◽

Situational Demands

Adaptive behavior requires the adjustment of one’s behavioral repertoire to situational demands. The learning of situationally appropriate choice behavior can be operationalized as a task of Conditional Discrimination Learning (CDL). CDL requires the acquisition of hierarchical reinforcement relations, which may pose a particular challenge for children with Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD), particularly in light of documented deficits in short-term/working memory and delay aversion in ADHD. Using an arbitrary Delayed Matching-To-Sample task, we investigated whether children with ADHD (N = 46), relative to Typically Developing children (TD, N = 55), show a deficit in CDL under different choice delays (0, 8, and 16 seconds) and whether these differences are mediated by short-term/working memory capacity and/or delay aversion. Children with ADHD demonstrated poorer CDL than TD children under 8 and 16-second delays. Non-delayed CDL performance did not differ between groups. CDL differences were not mediated by short-term/working memory performance or delay aversion. Moreover, CDL performance under an 8-second delay was a better predictor of clinical status than short-term/working memory performance or delay aversion. CDL, under conditions of delay, is impaired in children with ADHD. This may lead to difficulties discriminating between different situational demands and adapting behavior according to the prevailing reward contingencies or expectations.

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Age differences in short-term memory binding are related to working memory performance across the lifespan.

Psychology and Aging ◽

10.1037/a0035347 ◽

2014 ◽

Vol 29 (1) ◽

pp. 140-149 ◽

Cited By ~ 30

Author(s):

Yana Fandakova ◽

Myriam C. Sander ◽

Markus Werkle-Bergner ◽

Yee Lee Shing

Keyword(s):

Working Memory ◽

Age Differences ◽

Short Term Memory ◽

Memory Performance ◽

Short Term ◽

Term Memory ◽

Memory Binding

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Verbal Short-Term Memory Disturbance in the Primary Progressive Aphasias: Challenges and Distinctions in a Clinical Setting

Brain Sciences ◽

10.3390/brainsci11081060 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 11 (8) ◽

pp. 1060

Author(s):

David Foxe ◽

Sau Chi Cheung ◽

Nicholas J. Cordato ◽

James R. Burrell ◽

Rebekah M. Ahmed ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Working Memory ◽

Verbal Memory ◽

Short Term Memory ◽

Memory Performance ◽

Primary Progressive Aphasia ◽

Cognitive Mechanisms ◽

Short Term ◽

Term Memory ◽

Primary Progressive ◽

Case Vignettes

Impaired verbal ‘phonological’ short-term memory is considered a cardinal feature of the logopenic variant of primary progressive aphasia (lv-PPA) and is assumed to underpin most of the language deficits in this syndrome. Clinically, examination of verbal short-term memory in individuals presenting with PPA is common practice and serves two objectives: (i) to help understand the possible mechanisms underlying the patient’s language profile and (ii) to help differentiate lv-PPA from other PPA variants or from other dementia syndromes. Distinction between lv-PPA and the non-fluent variant of PPA (nfv-PPA), however, can be especially challenging due to overlapping language profiles and comparable psychometric performances on verbal short-term memory tests. Here, we present case vignettes of the three PPA variants (lv-PPA, nfv-PPA, and the semantic variant (sv-PPA)) and typical Alzheimer’s disease (AD). These vignettes provide a detailed description of the short-term and working memory profiles typically found in these patients and highlight how speech output and language comprehension deficits across the PPA variants differentially interfere with verbal memory performance. We demonstrate that a combination of verbal short-term and working memory measures provides crucial information regarding the cognitive mechanisms underlying language disturbances in PPA. In addition, we propose that analogous visuospatial span tasks are essential for the assessment of PPA as they measure memory capacity without language contamination.

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Characteristics of Healthy Older Adults that Influence Self-rated Cognitive Function

Journal of the International Neuropsychological Society ◽

10.1017/s1355617717000613 ◽

2017 ◽

Vol 24 (1) ◽

pp. 57-66 ◽

Cited By ~ 9

Author(s):

Bryce P. Mulligan ◽

Colette M. Smart ◽

Sidney J. Segalowitz ◽

Stuart W.S. MacDonald

Keyword(s):

Older Adults ◽

Working Memory ◽

Cognitive Function ◽

Cognitive Decline ◽

Cognitive Performance ◽

Healthy Aging ◽

Memory Performance ◽

Short Term ◽

Healthy Older Adults ◽

Subjective Cognitive Function

AbstractObjectives: We sought to clarify the nature of self-reported cognitive function among healthy older adults by considering the short-term, within-person association (coupling) of subjective cognitive function with objective cognitive performance. We expected this within-person coupling to differ between persons as a function of self-perceived global cognitive decline and depression, anxiety, or neuroticism. Methods: This was an intensive measurement (short-term longitudinal) study of 29 older adult volunteers between the ages of 65 and 80 years without an existing diagnosis of dementia or mild cognitive impairment. Baseline assessment included neuropsychological testing and self-reported depression, anxiety, and neuroticism, as well as self- and informant-reported cognitive decline (relative to 10 years previously). Intensive within-person measurement occasions included subjective ratings of cognitive function paired with performance on a computerized working memory (n-back) task; each participant attended four or five assessments separated by intervals of at least one day. Statistical analysis was comprised of multilevel linear regression. Results: Comparison of models suggested that both neuroticism and self-rated cognitive decline explained unique variance in the within-person, across-occasion coupling of subjective cognitive function with objective working memory performance. Conclusions: Self-ratings of cognition may accurately reflect day-to-day variations in objective cognitive performance among older adults, especially for individuals lower in neuroticism and higher in self-reported cognitive decline. Clinicians should consider these individual differences when determining the validity of complaints about perceived cognitive declines in the context of otherwise healthy aging. (JINS, 2018, 24, 57–66)

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Short-term effects of video gaming on brain response during working memory performance

PLoS ONE ◽

10.1371/journal.pone.0223666 ◽

2019 ◽

Vol 14 (10) ◽

pp. e0223666

Author(s):

Shuyan Liu ◽

Christian Kaufmann ◽

Christian Labadie ◽

Andreas Ströhle ◽

Maxim S. Kuschpel ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Working Memory ◽

Memory Performance ◽

Video Gaming ◽

Brain Response ◽

Short Term ◽

Short Term Effects

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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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Is short-term storage correlated with fluid intelligence? Strategy use explains the apparent relationship between ‘number of remembered items’ and fluid intelligence

10.31234/osf.io/83ch4 ◽

2019 ◽

Author(s):

Zeljana Babic ◽

Mark Schurgin ◽

Timothy F. Brady

Keyword(s):

Working Memory ◽

Fluid Intelligence ◽

Storage Capacity ◽

Memory Performance ◽

Memory Task ◽

Short Term ◽

Structured Representations ◽

Short Term Storage ◽

Underlying Mechanisms ◽

Term Storage

Working memory is a core cognitive system that actively maintains information in an accessible state to support a variety of everyday tasks. Crucially, working memory performance has frequently been shown to strongly correlate with fluid intelligence. Traditionally when these correlations have been observed, the working memory tasks involved required a high degree of manipulation and executive function, as opposed to solely utilizing short-term storage capacity. However, recent work has claimed that simple storage capacity is also correlated with fluid intelligence, and that this is driven by a particularly special and dissociable component of capacity, the ‘number of items represented’ (rather than the precision of those representations). These results have been used to argue that investigating the underlying mechanisms of capacity limitations may be critical to understanding aspects of fluid intelligence. Here we demonstrate that such correlations do not arise solely or primarily from simple storage capacity (nor a single dissociable component of capacity), but are driven by the availability of strategic encoding of different kinds of visual representations. Specifically, a working memory task that decreased the utility of storing and making use of spatial ensemble information, while holding constant the number of items to be remembered and the exact changes participants needed to detect, significantly reduced the correlation between working memory performance and fluid intelligence. Thus, despite being probed on the same items, with the same foils, at the same set size, only working memory displays that allowed for the strategic use of both item and ensemble representations correlated with fluid intelligence. These results provide evidence against the hypothesis that simple storage alone is related to fluid intelligence. They also demonstrate that participants make use of more complex and structured representations rather than solely individual item representation, and that strategic utilization of these representations is what correlates strongly with fluid intelligence.

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The Dynamic Processing Model of Working Memory

10.31234/osf.io/975zk ◽

2020 ◽

Author(s):

Nathan Rose

Keyword(s):

Working Memory ◽

Short Term Memory ◽

Brain Activity ◽

Memory Performance ◽

Short Term ◽

Dynamic Activity ◽

Latent Representations ◽

Dynamic Processing ◽

Conventional Models ◽

The Mind

Recent shifts in the understanding of how the mind and brain retain information in working memory (WM) call for revision to traditional theories. Evidence for the existence of dynamic, “activity-silent” short-term retention processes in the brain diverge from conventional models that have argued that information is always retained in WM by sustained neural activity in buffers. Such evidence comes from the use of machine-learning analytic approaches to decode patterns of brain activity and the simultaneous administration of transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) to causally manipulate brain activity in specific areas and time-points. TMS has been used to 'ping' brain areas and reactivate latent representations retained in WM and affect memory performance. These findings argue for a supplement to the sustained retention mechanisms associated with attending to information in WM. Moreover, brain decoding methods reveal that dynamic levels of representational codes are retained in WM, which vary according to task context, from perceptual/sensory codes in posterior areas to more abstract, recoded representations distributed across frontal-parietal regions. A Dynamic Processing Model of WM is advanced to account for the overall pattern of results.Keywords: activity-silent, short-term memory, working memory, sensory-motor recruitment

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