scholarly journals A working memory intervention weakens the reconsolidation of a threat memory and its biases processing towards threat

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Soledad Picco ◽  
Luz Bavassi ◽  
Rodrigo S. Fernández ◽  
María E. Pedreira
Keyword(s):  
Working Memory ◽  
Implicit Memory ◽  
Attentional Bias ◽  
Executive Control ◽  
Cognitive Biases ◽  
Memory Task ◽  
Behavioral Responses ◽  
Memory Retention ◽  
Experimental Psychopathology ◽  
Control Networks

ABSTRACTBACKGROUNDThreat-conditioning (TC) memory plays a central role in anxiety disorders, but not in a simple way. This memory impacts on complex cognitive systems by modifying behavioral responses with a bias to fearful stimuli and overestimating potential threats. In this study we proposed a global approach analyzing the scope of disrupting TC memory reconsolidation in the implicit memory, the declarative contingency and the cognitive biases.METHODSDay 1: Subjects were trained on TC. Day 2: after Threat-memory reactivation, one group performed a high demanding working memory task (HWM) and the other a low demanding working memory task (LWM). The last group, only performed the HWM task. Day 3: TC memory was tested by an extinction session followed by reinstatement. Finally, all subjects completed tasks targeting stimuli representation, valuation and attentional bias towards threat.RESULTSDisrupting reconsolidation of TC memory with a HWM weakened the implicit memory retention and faded the representation and valuation towards threat but it had no effect on attentional bias. Moreover, we revealed that subjects’ performance during the working memory task was specifically associated in TC memory retention.CONCLUSIONSOur findings reveal a strong impairment of the threat-memory restabilization and associated emotional biases. This may result from the competition between defensive survival and central-executive control networks. Our results fits with Experimental Psychopathology approach, disentangling the relation between the implicit memory, cognitive, valenced systems and the possibility to weaken both the threatening memory and the systems associated with the maintenance of anxiety profile.

scholarly journals Working Memory and the Suppression of Reflexive Saccades

2002 ◽  
Vol 14 (1) ◽  
pp. 95-103 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jason P. Mitchell ◽  
C. Neil Macrae ◽  
Iain D. Gilchrist
Keyword(s):  
Working Memory ◽  
Memory Load ◽  
Critical Role ◽  
Memory Task ◽  
Behavioral Responses ◽  
Error Rates ◽  
Antisaccade Task ◽  
Working Memory Load ◽  
Reflexive Saccades ◽  
Back Task

Conscious behavioral intentions can frequently fail under conditions of attentional depletion. In attempting to trace the cognitive origin of this effect, we hypothesized that failures of action control—specifically, oculomotor movement—can result from the imposition of fronto-executive load. To evaluate this prediction, participants performed an antisaccade task while simultaneously completing a working-memory task that is known to make variable demands on prefrontal processes (n-back task, see Jonides et al., 1997). The results of two experiments are reported. As expected, antisaccade error rates were increased in accordance with the fronto-executive demands of the n-back task (Experiment 1). In addition, the debilitating effects of working-memory load were restricted to the inhibitory component of the antisaccade task (Experiment 2). These findings corroborate the view that working memory operations play a critical role in the suppression of prepotent behavioral responses.

scholarly journals Shielding working-memory representations from temporally predictable external interference

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Daniela Gresch ◽  
Sage Boettcher ◽  
Freek van Ede ◽  
Anna C. Nobre
Keyword(s):  
Working Memory ◽  
Memory Performance ◽  
Memory Task ◽  
Memory Retention ◽  
Protective Effects ◽  
External Interference ◽  
Irrelevant Distractors ◽  
Temporal Predictability ◽  
Memory Representations ◽  
Memory Content

Protecting working-memory content from distracting external sensory inputs and intervening tasks is a ubiquitous demand in daily life. Here, we ask whether and how temporal expectations about external events can help mitigate effects of such interference during working-memory retention. We manipulated the temporal predictability of interfering items that occurred during the retention period of a visual working-memory task and report that temporal expectations reduce the detrimental influence of external interference on subsequent memory performance. Moreover, to determine if the protective effects of temporal expectations rely mainly on distractor suppression or also involve shielding of internal representations, we compared effects after irrelevant distractors that could be ignored vs. interrupters that required a response. Whereas distractor suppression may be sufficient to confer protection from predictable distractors, any benefits after interruption are likely to involve memory shielding. We found similar benefits of temporal expectations after both types of interference. We conclude that temporal expectations may play an important role in safeguarding behaviour based on working memory – acting, at least partly, through mechanisms that include the shielding of internal content from external interference.

Executive control processes in verbal and nonverbal working memory

2016 ◽  
Vol 6 (1-2) ◽  
pp. 147-170 ◽  
Author(s):  
Margot D. Sullivan ◽  
Yolanda Prescott ◽  
Devora Goldberg ◽  
Ellen Bialystok
Keyword(s):  
Working Memory ◽  
Proactive Interference ◽  
Executive Control ◽  
Flanker Task ◽  
Memory Task ◽  
Group Differences ◽  
Age Group ◽  
Counting Task ◽  
Control Processes

Abstract Studies across the lifespan have revealed modifications in executive control (EC) from bilingualism, but studies of working memory (WM), a key aspect of EC, have produced varied results. Healthy older (M = 71.0 years) and younger participants (M = 21.1 years) who were monolingual or bilingual, performed working memory tasks that varied in their demands for EC. Tasks included a star counting task, a flanker task, and a nonverbal recent probe memory task. Bilinguals performed similarly to monolinguals on the star counting task after controlling for differences in vocabulary. Monolinguals were faster than bilinguals on the flanker task with only age group differences significant for the WM manipulation. Bilinguals were faster than monolinguals on the nonverbal recent probe memory task, particularly for the condition that included proactive interference. The interpretation is that better bilingual performance in nonverbal working memory tasks is linked to the need for executive control.

scholarly journals Supramodal Theta, Gamma, and Sustained Fields Predict Modality-specific Modulations of Alpha and Beta Oscillations during Visual and Tactile Working Memory

2017 ◽  
Vol 29 (8) ◽  
pp. 1455-1472 ◽  
Author(s):  
Freek van Ede ◽  
Ole Jensen ◽  
Eric Maris
Keyword(s):  
Working Memory ◽  
Essential Feature ◽  
Memory Task ◽  
Sustained Load ◽  
Memory Retention ◽  
Primate Cognition ◽  
Neuronal Dynamics ◽  
Beta Oscillations ◽  
Flexible Control ◽  
Tactile Working Memory

Flexible control over currently relevant sensory representations is an essential feature of primate cognition. We investigated the neurophysiological bases of such flexible control in humans during an intermodal working memory task in which participants retained visual or tactile sequences. Using magnetoencephalography, we first show that working memory retention engages early visual and somatosensory areas, as reflected in the sustained load-dependent suppression of alpha and beta oscillations. Next, we identify three components that are also load dependent but modality independent: medial prefrontal theta synchronization, frontoparietal gamma synchronization, and sustained parietal event-related fields. Critically, these domain-general components predict (across trials and within load conditions) the modality-specific suppression of alpha and beta oscillations, with largely unique contributions per component. Thus, working memory engages multiple complementary frontoparietal components that have discernible neuronal dynamics and that flexibly modulate retention-related activity in sensory areas in a manner that tracks the current contents of working memory.

scholarly journals Association of Working Memory With Distributed Executive Control Networks in Schizophrenia

2019 ◽  
Vol 31 (4) ◽  
pp. 368-377 ◽  
Author(s):  
Korey P. Wylie ◽  
Josette G. Harris ◽  
Debashis Ghosh ◽  
Ann Olincy ◽  
Jason R. Tregellas
Keyword(s):  
Working Memory ◽  
Executive Control ◽  
Control Networks

scholarly journals Explaining the high working memory capacity of gifted children: 
 Contributions of processing skills and executive control

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alexandre Aubry ◽  
Corentin Gonthier ◽  
Béatrice Bourdin
Keyword(s):  
Working Memory ◽  
Executive Control ◽  
Memory Performance ◽  
Working Memory Capacity ◽  
Critical Role ◽  
Memory Task ◽  
Memory Capacity ◽  
Gifted Children ◽  
Executive Attention ◽  
Intellectually Gifted

Intellectually gifted children tend to demonstrate especially high working memory capacity, an ability that holds a critical role in intellectual functioning. What could explain the differences in working memory performance between intellectually gifted and non-gifted children? We investigated this issue by measuring working memory capacity with complex spans in a sample of 55 gifted and 55 nongifted children. Based on prior studies, we expected the higher working memory capacity of intellectually gifted children to be driven by more effective executive control, as measured with the Attention Network Test. The findings confirmed that intellectually gifted children had higher working memory capacity than typical children, as well as more effective executive attention. Surprisingly, however, working memory differences between groups were not mediated by differences in executive attention. Instead, differences in processing time in the working memory task contributed to the high working memory capacity of gifted children.

Executive control in fluent and lapsed bilinguals

2014 ◽  
Vol 18 (3) ◽  
pp. 561-567 ◽  
Author(s):  
CARI ANNE BOGULSKI ◽  
MICHAEL RAKOCZY ◽  
MICHELLE GOODMAN ◽  
ELLEN BIALYSTOK
Keyword(s):  
Working Memory ◽  
Executive Control ◽  
Flanker Task ◽  
Memory Task ◽  
The Other ◽  
Bilingual Advantage ◽  
Accurate Performance ◽  
High Level

Previous research showing a bilingual advantage on a variety of executive control tasks has typically compared monolinguals and fluent bilinguals. No study to date, however, has examined whether these effects endure for bilingual individuals who revert to monolingualism (‘lapsed bilinguals’). We investigated this question by testing monolinguals, full bilinguals, and lapsed bilinguals on a flanker task and a working memory task. Fully fluent bilinguals exhibited significantly more accurate performance than monolinguals on the working memory task, with lapsed bilinguals performing between the other two groups. Thus, continued bilingual experience appears necessary to maintain these cognitive advantages at a high level.

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