Cognitive Neuroscience of Visual Working Memory

2020 ◽  
pp. 333-357
Author(s):  
Bradley R. Postle
Keyword(s):  
Working Memory ◽  
Cognitive Neuroscience ◽  
Memory Performance ◽  
Oculomotor Control ◽  
Long Term Memory ◽  
Network Modelling ◽  
Active Representation ◽  
Multiple Regions ◽  
Important Challenge ◽  
The Moment

This chapter takes the perspective that ‘working memory’ refers to a class of behaviours that can be accomplished by the coordinated recruitment of sensory-, representational-, action-, and control-related mechanisms and representations. There is no working memory system, per se. This idea is illustrated with findings from cognitive neuroscience, with an emphasis on studies of human working memory with functional magnetic resonance imaging and electroencephalography, and on simulations of human behaviour with recurrent neural network modelling. Understanding principles of attention and oculomotor control are central to understanding the selection of stimulus information and its retention ‘in’ working memory, as well as for the moment-to-moment prioritization of subsets of the contents of working memory. Recent research from a dynamical systems perspective suggests a principled framework for understanding how, and under what circumstances, knowledge from long-term memory is recruited to support working memory performance. An important challenge for contemporary cognitive neuroscience is to develop an accepted procedure for assessing when multiple regions can be shown to represent stimulus-specific information, whether these regions are all supporting the same function, or perhaps different functions that nonetheless all entail the active representation of the same information.

Short- and long-term memory tasks predict working memory performance, and vice versa.

2019 ◽  
Vol 73 (2) ◽  
pp. 79-93 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ian Neath ◽  
Jean Saint-Aubin ◽  
Tamra J. Bireta ◽  
Andrew J. Gabel ◽  
Chelsea G. Hudson ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Working Memory ◽  
Memory Performance ◽  
Long Term Memory ◽  
Term Memory ◽  
Short And Long Term

scholarly journals Expert radiologists have improved memory performance for images with focal abnormalities

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hayden Schill ◽  
Jeremy Wolfe ◽  
Timothy F. Brady
Keyword(s):  
Working Memory ◽  
Prior Knowledge ◽  
Memory Performance ◽  
Memory Capacity ◽  
Current Work ◽  
Long Term Memory ◽  
Attentional Processing ◽  
Term Memory ◽  
Focal Abnormality

Memory capacity depends on prior knowledge, both in working memory and in long-term memory. For example, radiologists have improved long-term memory for medical images compared to novices. Furthermore, people tend to remember abnormal or surprising items best. This is often claimed to arise primarily because such items attract additional attention at encoding. How do expertise and abnormality interact when experts are actively searching for abnormalities; e.g. radiologists looking at mammograms? In the current work, we investigate whether expert radiologists (N=32) show improved memory performance for abnormal images compared to novice participants (N=60). We consider two types of “abnormality.” A mammogram can have a focal abnormality that can be localized or it could simply be the mammogram of a woman known to have cancer (e.g. the image of the breast contralateral to the focal abnormality). Must an image have a focal abnormality for additional attentional processing to be engaged? We found that experts have better memory for mammograms than novice participants and enhanced memory for abnormal images relative to normal images. Overall, radiologists showed no memory benefit for the contralateral-abnormal images and did not discriminate them from normal images, but had enhanced memory for images with focal abnormalities. Our results suggest that focal abnormalities play an important role in enhancing memory of expert observers.

Remembering Over the Short and Long Term

2020 ◽  
pp. 282-310
Author(s):  
Patricia A. Reuter-Lorenz ◽  
Alexandru D. Iordan
Keyword(s):  
Working Memory ◽  
Cognitive Neuroscience ◽  
Semantic Processing ◽  
Long Term Memory ◽  
Strategic Processing ◽  
Term Memory ◽  
Neuroscience Research ◽  
Short And Long Term ◽  
Time Courses

This chapter reviews evidence from behavioural and cognitive neuroscience research that supports a unitary view of memory whereby working memory and long-term memory phenomena arise from representations and processes that are largely shared when remembering over the short or long term. Using ‘false working memories’ as a case study, it highlights several paradoxes that cannot be explained by a multisystem view of memory in which working memory and long-term memory are structurally distinct. Instead, it is posited that behavioural memory effects over the short and long term relating to semantic processing, modality/domain-specificity, dual-task interference, strategic processing, and so on arise from the differences in activational states and availability of different representational features (e.g. sensory/perceptual, associative, action-based) that vary in their time courses and activity, attentional priority, and susceptibility to interference. Cognitive neuroscience evidence primarily from brain imaging methodologies that support this view is reviewed.

scholarly journals Maintaining fixation does not increase demands on working memory relative to free viewing

PeerJ ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 7 ◽  
pp. e6839 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael J. Armson ◽  
Jennifer D. Ryan ◽  
Brian Levine
Keyword(s):  
Working Memory ◽  
Eye Movements ◽  
Response Times ◽  
Memory Load ◽  
Memory Performance ◽  
Memory Task ◽  
Oculomotor System ◽  
Finger Tapping ◽  
Long Term Memory ◽  
Free Viewing

The comparison of memory performance during free and fixed viewing conditions has been used to demonstrate the involvement of eye movements in memory encoding and retrieval, with stronger effects at encoding than retrieval. Relative to conditions of free viewing, participants generally show reduced memory performance following sustained fixation, suggesting that unrestricted eye movements benefit memory. However, the cognitive basis of the memory reduction during fixed viewing is uncertain, with possible mechanisms including disruption of visual-mnemonic and/or imagery processes with sustained fixation, or greater working memory demands required for fixed relative to free viewing. To investigate one possible mechanism for this reduction, we had participants perform a working memory task—an auditory n-back task—during free and fixed viewing, as well as a repetitive finger tapping condition, included to isolate the effects of motor interference independent of the oculomotor system. As expected, finger tapping significantly interfered with n-back performance relative to free viewing, as indexed by a decrease in accuracy and increase in response times. By contrast, there was no evidence that fixed viewing interfered with n-back performance relative to free viewing. Our findings failed to support a hypothesis of increased working memory load during fixation. They are consistent with the notion that fixation disrupts long-term memory performance through interference with visual processes.

scholarly journals Is Long-Term Memory Used in a Visuo-Spatial Change-Detection Paradigm?

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Benjamin Goecke ◽  
Klaus Oberauer
Keyword(s):  
Working Memory ◽  
Change Detection ◽  
Memory Performance ◽  
Memory Task ◽  
Repetition Effect ◽  
Long Term Memory ◽  
Memory Representation ◽  
Term Memory ◽  
Hebb Repetition Effect

In tests of working memory with verbal or spatial materials repeating the same memory sets across trials leads to improved memory performance. This well-established “Hebb repetition effect” could not be shown for visual materials. This absence of the Hebb effect can be explained in two ways: Either persons fail to acquire a long-term memory representation of the repeated memory sets, or they acquire such long-term memory representations, but fail to use them during the working memory task. In two experiments, (N1 = 18 and N2 = 30), we aimed to decide between these two possibilities by manipulating the long-term memory knowledge of some of the memory sets used in a change-detection task. Before the change-detection test, participants learned three arrays of colors to criterion. The subsequent change-detection test contained both previously learned and new color arrays. Change detection performance was better on previously learned compared to new arrays, showing that long-term memory is used in change detection.

Interaction Between Working Memory and Long-Term Memory

2014 ◽  
Vol 222 (2) ◽  
pp. 90-99 ◽  
Author(s):  
Klara Marton ◽  
Naomi Eichorn
Keyword(s):  
Working Memory ◽  
Language Impairment ◽  
Specific Language Impairment ◽  
Task Complexity ◽  
Memory Performance ◽  
Poor Performance ◽  
Long Term Memory ◽  
Term Memory ◽  
Span Tasks

Individual differences in working memory have been related to interactions between working memory and long-term memory (LTM). The present study examined this interaction in children with and without language impairment. We used two listening span tasks and two nonword repetition tasks. The results suggest a strong interaction among age, language status, and task complexity. Children with specific language impairment showed consistently poor performance across tasks and indicated a weakness in using long-term knowledge to support working memory performance. The findings show that these children do not benefit from various manipulations designed to enhance working memory performance via LTM support due to a combination of inefficiencies in maintaining and updating items in working memory and retrieving information from LTM, in part because of their poor resistance to interference.

scholarly journals Is long-term memory used in a visuo-spatial change-detection paradigm?

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Benjamin Goecke ◽  
Klaus Oberauer
Keyword(s):  
Working Memory ◽  
Change Detection ◽  
Memory Performance ◽  
Memory Task ◽  
Repetition Effect ◽  
Long Term Memory ◽  
Memory Representation ◽  
Term Memory ◽  
Hebb Repetition Effect

AbstractIn tests of working memory with verbal or spatial materials, repeating the same memory sets across trials leads to improved memory performance. This well-established “Hebb repetition effect” could not be shown for visual materials in previous research. The absence of the Hebb effect can be explained in two ways: Either persons fail to acquire a long-term memory representation of the repeated memory sets, or they acquire such long-term memory representations, but fail to use them during the working memory task. In two experiments (N1 = 18 and N2 = 30), we aimed to decide between these two possibilities by manipulating the long-term memory knowledge of some of the memory sets used in a change-detection task. Before the change-detection test, participants learned three arrays of colors to criterion. The subsequent change-detection test contained both previously learned and new color arrays. Change detection performance was better on previously learned compared with new arrays, showing that long-term memory is used in change detection.

Predictive Pre-updating and Working Memory Capacity: Evidence from Event-related Potentials

2018 ◽  
Vol 30 (12) ◽  
pp. 1916-1938 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tal Ness ◽  
Aya Meltzer-Asscher
Keyword(s):  
Working Memory ◽  
Cognitive Neuroscience ◽  
Opposite Effect ◽  
Working Memory Capacity ◽  
Event Related Potentials ◽  
Memory Capacity ◽  
Long Term Memory ◽  
Single Word ◽  
Related Potentials

It was recently proposed that lexical prediction in sentence context encompasses two qualitatively distinct prediction mechanisms: “pre-activation,” namely, activating representations stored in long-term memory, and “pre-updating,” namely, updating the sentence's representation, built online in working memory (WM), to include the predicted content [Lau, E. F., Holcomb, P. J., & Kuperberg, G. R. Dissociating N400 effects of prediction from association in single-word contexts. Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience, 25, 484–502, 2013]. The current study sought to find evidence for pre-updating and test the influence of individual differences in WM capacity on the tendency to engage in this process. Participants read strongly and weakly constraining sentences. ERPs were measured on the predictable noun as well as on the preceding verb, where the prediction is generated. Increased P600 amplitude was observed at the verb in the strongly constraining sentences, reflecting integration of the predicted upcoming argument, thus providing evidence for pre-updating. This effect was greater for participants with higher WM capacity, indicating that the tendency to engage in pre-updating is highly affected by WM capacity. The opposite effect was observed at the noun, that is, for participants with higher WM span, a greater decrease in P600 amplitude in the strongly constraining sentences was observed, indicating that the integration of a pre-updated word was easier. We discuss these results in light of previous literature and propose a plausible architecture to account for the interplay between pre-activation and pre-updating, mediating the influence of factors such as WM capacity.

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