Visual and tactile working memory stores have independent capacity limitations

The author distinguishes two kinds of cognitive processes: automatic processes, which are mostly subconscious, are learned and changed slowly and are not subject to the capacity limitations of working memory, and strategic processes, which are conscious, are subject to capacity limitations, and can easily be adapted to situational circumstances. The perception of advertising and the way it influences brand evaluation involves both processes. Automatic processes govern the recognition of advertising stimuli, the relevance decision that determines further higher-level processing, the retrieval of information, and the provision of a heuristic for brand evaluation. Strategic processes govern learning and inference formation. The relative importance of both types of processes depends on product involvement. The distinction of these two types of processes leads to some conclusions that are at variance with current notions about advertising effects. For example, the attention span problem is relevant only for strategic processes. A certain amount of learning can occur with little conscious effort, and advertising's effect on brand evaluation may be more stable for low- than for high-involvement products.

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Children's long‐term retention is directly constrained by their working memory capacity limitations

Developmental Science ◽

10.1111/desc.13164 ◽

2021 ◽

Author(s):

Alicia Forsberg ◽

Dominic Guitard ◽

Eryn J. Adams ◽

Duangporn Pattanakul ◽

Nelson Cowan

Keyword(s):

Working Memory ◽

Working Memory Capacity ◽

Memory Capacity ◽

Capacity Limitations ◽

Term Retention ◽

Long Term Retention

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The effect of visual salience on memory-based choices

Journal of Neurophysiology ◽

10.1152/jn.00068.2013 ◽

2014 ◽

Vol 111 (3) ◽

pp. 481-487 ◽

Cited By ~ 7

Author(s):

Arezoo Pooresmaeili ◽

Dominik R. Bach ◽

Raymond J. Dolan

Keyword(s):

Working Memory ◽

Sensory Information ◽

Relevant Information ◽

Visual Selective Attention ◽

Visual Salience ◽

Perceptual Decision Making ◽

Capacity Limitations ◽

Course Of Action ◽

Task Irrelevant

Deciding whether a stimulus is the “same” or “different” from a previous presented one involves integrating among the incoming sensory information, working memory, and perceptual decision making. Visual selective attention plays a crucial role in selecting the relevant information that informs a subsequent course of action. Previous studies have mainly investigated the role of visual attention during the encoding phase of working memory tasks. In this study, we investigate whether manipulation of bottom-up attention by changing stimulus visual salience impacts on later stages of memory-based decisions. In two experiments, we asked subjects to identify whether a stimulus had either the same or a different feature to that of a memorized sample. We manipulated visual salience of the test stimuli by varying a task-irrelevant feature contrast. Subjects chose a visually salient item more often when they looked for matching features and less often so when they looked for a nonmatch. This pattern of results indicates that salient items are more likely to be identified as a match. We interpret the findings in terms of capacity limitations at a comparison stage where a visually salient item is more likely to exhaust resources leading it to be prematurely parsed as a match.

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Independent mechanisms of spatial attention in visual and tactile working memory

Journal of Vision ◽

10.1167/17.10.679 ◽

2017 ◽

Vol 17 (10) ◽

pp. 679

Author(s):

Tobias Katus ◽

Martin Eimer

Keyword(s):

Working Memory ◽

Spatial Attention ◽

Tactile Working Memory

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The offline stream of conscious representations

Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B Biological Sciences ◽

10.1098/rstb.2017.0349 ◽

2018 ◽

Vol 373 (1755) ◽

pp. 20170349 ◽

Cited By ~ 6

Author(s):

Claire Sergent

Keyword(s):

Working Memory ◽

Sensory Processing ◽

Psychological Refractory Period ◽

Conscious Experience ◽

Iconic Memory ◽

External Stimulation ◽

Capacity Limitations ◽

Sequence Of Events ◽

Cognitive Access ◽

Conscious Processing

When do we become conscious of a stimulus after its presentation? We would all agree that this necessarily takes time and that it is not instantaneous. Here, I would like to propose not only that conscious access is delayed relative to the external stimulation, but also that it can flexibly desynchronize from external stimulation; it can process some information ‘offline’, if and when it becomes relevant. Thus, in contrast with initial sensory processing, conscious experience might not strictly follow the sequence of events in the environment. In this article, I will review gathering evidence in favour of this proposition. I will argue that it offers a coherent framework for explaining a great variety of observations in the domain of perception, sensory memory and working memory: the psychological refractory period, the attentional blink, post-dictive phenomena, iconic memory, latent working memory and the newly described retro-perception phenomenon. I will integrate this proposition to the global neuronal workspace model and consider possible underlying brain mechanisms. Finally, I will argue that this capacity to process information ‘offline’ might have made conscious processing evolutionarily advantageous in spite of its sluggishness and capacity limitations. This article is part of the theme issue ‘Perceptual consciousness and cognitive access’.

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