scholarly journals The limits of visual working memory in children: exploring prioritization and recency effects with sequential presentation

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ed David John Berry ◽  
Amanda Waterman ◽  
Alan D. Baddeley ◽  
Graham J. Hitch ◽  
Richard John Allen
Keyword(s):  
Working Memory ◽  
Serial Position ◽  
Visual Working Memory ◽  
Recency Effect ◽  
Sequential Presentation ◽  
Total N ◽  
Recency Effects ◽  
Final Item ◽  
And Performance ◽  
Automatic Memory

Recent research has demonstrated that, when instructed to prioritize a serial position in visual working memory, adults are able to boost performance for this selected item, at a cost to non-prioritized items (e.g. Hu et al., 2014). While executive control appears to play an important role in this ability, the increased likelihood of recalling the most recently presented item (i.e. the recency effect) is relatively automatic, possibly driven by perceptual mechanisms. In three experiments 7 to 10-year-old’s ability to prioritize items in working memory was investigated using a sequential visual task (total N = 208). The relationship between individual differences in working memory and performance on the experimental task was also explored. Participants were unable to prioritize the first (Experiments 1 & 2) or final (Experiment 3) item in a 3-item sequence, while large recency effects for the final item were consistently observed across all experiments. The absence of a priority boost across three experiments indicates that children may not have the necessary executive resources to prioritize an item within a visual sequence, when directed to do so. In contrast, the consistent recency boosts for the final item indicate that children show automatic memory benefits for the most recently encountered stimulus. Finally, for the baseline condition in which children were instructed to remember all three items equally, additional working memory measures predicted performance at the first and second but not the third serial position, further supporting the proposed automaticity of the recency effect in visual working memory.

scholarly journals The limits of visual working memory in children: Exploring prioritization and recency effects with sequential presentation.

2018 ◽  
Vol 54 (2) ◽  
pp. 240-253 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ed D. J. Berry ◽  
Amanda H. Waterman ◽  
Alan D. Baddeley ◽  
Graham J. Hitch ◽  
Richard J. Allen
Keyword(s):  
Working Memory ◽  
Visual Working Memory ◽  
Sequential Presentation ◽  
Recency Effects

Primacy and Recency Effects in Immediate Free Recall of Sequences of Spatial Positions

2007 ◽  
Vol 105 (2) ◽  
pp. 483-500 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rita Bonanni ◽  
Patrizio Pasqualetti ◽  
Carlo Caltagirone ◽  
Giovanni Augusto Carlesimo
Keyword(s):  
Free Recall ◽  
Serial Position ◽  
Serial Position Curve ◽  
Presentation Rate ◽  
Recency Effect ◽  
Primacy Effect ◽  
Spatial Position ◽  
Recency Effects ◽  
Task Requirement ◽  
Recall Paradigm

This study evaluated the serial position curve based on free recall of spatial position sequences. To evaluate the memory processes underlying spatial recall, some manipulations were introduced by varying the length of spatial sequences (Exp. 1) and modifying the presentation rate of individual positions (Exp. 2). A primacy effect emerged for all sequence lengths, while a recency effect was evident only in the longer sequences. Moreover, slowing the presentation rate increased the magnitude of the primacy effect and abolished the recency effect. The main novelty of the present results is represented by the finding that better recall of early items in a sequence of spatial positions does not depend on the task requirement of an ordered recall but it can also be observed in a free recall paradigm.

scholarly journals Intentional and incidental odour-colour binding in working memory

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Andrew Johnson ◽  
Richard John Allen
Keyword(s):  
Working Memory ◽  
Young Adults ◽  
Serial Position ◽  
Explicit Instruction ◽  
Feature Binding ◽  
Auditory Stimuli ◽  
Visual Feature ◽  
Limited Evidence ◽  
Recency Effects ◽  
Treat All

The question of how features are bound together in working memory has become a topic of much research in recent years. However, this is typically focused on visual and/or auditory stimuli. This study applies established feature binding procedures to investigate odour binding in working memory. Across three experiments, memory for intentionally and incidentally formed odour-colour pairings was tested. Experiment 1 showed that following explicit instruction to remember the odour-colour combinations, young adults can recall lists of 3-odour-colour pairings at levels above that of chance and exhibit a recency advantage for the last pairing in the list. In Experiment 2 participants were asked to prioritise the first pairing in the list or treat all list items equally. We observed only limited evidence of prioritisation affecting the serial position function. Experiment 3 explored whether odour-colour binding can be incidentally formed. Using a yes/no recognition procedure, accuracy did not differ for positive test probes that were presented in the same (bound) or different (unbound) colour to encoding (although some weak recency effects were shown with confidence ratings). Taken together, these findings suggest that odour-colour bindings can be formed in working memory, but functionality may be limited compared to that of visual feature binding.

scholarly journals Dissociation between MEG alpha modulation and performance accuracy on visual working memory task in obsessive compulsive disorder

2007 ◽  
Vol 28 (12) ◽  
pp. 1401-1414 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kristina T. Ciesielski ◽  
Matti S. Hämäläinen ◽  
Daniel A. Geller ◽  
Sabine Wilhelm ◽  
Timothy E. Goldsmith ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Working Memory ◽  
Obsessive Compulsive Disorder ◽  
Visual Working Memory ◽  
Memory Task ◽  
Obsessive Compulsive ◽  
Compulsive Disorder ◽  
Performance Accuracy ◽  
And Performance

scholarly journals Strategic prioritisation enhances young and older adults’ visual feature binding in working memory

2020 ◽  
pp. 174702182096071
Author(s):  
Richard J Allen ◽  
Amy L Atkinson ◽  
Louise A Brown Nicholls
Keyword(s):  
Older Adults ◽  
Working Memory ◽  
Serial Position ◽  
Visual Working Memory ◽  
Memory Performance ◽  
Feature Binding ◽  
Younger Adults ◽  
Age Related ◽  
Presentation Time ◽  
Benefits And Costs

Visual working memory for features and bindings is susceptible to age-related decline. Two experiments were used to examine whether older adults are able to strategically prioritise more valuable information in working memory and whether this could reduce age-related impairments. Younger (18–33 years) and older (60–90 years) adults were presented with coloured shapes and, following a brief delay, asked to recall the feature that had accompanied the probe item. In Experiment 1, participants were either asked to prioritise a more valuable object in the array (serial position 1, 2, or 3) or to treat them all equally. Older adults exhibited worse overall memory performance but were as able as younger adults to prioritise objects. In both groups, this ability was particularly apparent at the middle serial position. Experiment 2 then explored whether younger and older adults’ prioritisation is affected by presentation time. Replicating Experiment 1, older adults were able to prioritise the more valuable object in working memory, showing equivalent benefits and costs as younger adults. However, processing speed, as indexed by presentation time, was shown not to limit strategic prioritisation in either age group. Taken together, these findings demonstrate that, although older adults have poorer visual working memory overall, the ability to strategically direct attention to more valuable items in working memory is preserved across ageing.

SERIAL POSITION AND DISTANCE EFFECTS IN VISUAL WORKING MEMORY

2013 ◽  
Vol 55 (1) ◽  
pp. 67-82 ◽  
Author(s):  
Barbara DOLENC ◽  
◽  
Jurij BON ◽  
Grega REPOVŠ ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Working Memory ◽  
Serial Position ◽  
Visual Working Memory ◽  
Distance Effects

scholarly journals The Asymmetric Mixed-Category Advantage in Visual Working Memory: An Attentional, Not Perceptual (Face-Specific) Account

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rotem Avital-Cohen ◽  
Nurit Gronau
Keyword(s):  
Working Memory ◽  
Visual Working Memory ◽  
Attentional Bias ◽  
Category Effect ◽  
Sequential Presentation ◽  
Task Relevance ◽  
Social And Emotional ◽  
Specific Category ◽  
Bias Attention ◽  
Central Resource

The mixed-category advantage in visual working memory refers to improved memory for an image in a display containing two different categories relative to a display containing only one category (Cohen et al., 2014). Jiang et al. (2016) found that this advantage characterizes mainly faces and suggested that face-only displays suffer from enhanced interference due to the unique configural nature of faces. Faces, however, possess social and emotional significance that may bias attention toward them in mixed-category displays at the expense of their counterpart category. Consequently, the counterpart category may suffer from little/no advantage, or even an inversed effect. Using a change-detection task, we showed that a category that demonstrated a mixed-category disadvantage when paired with faces, demonstrated a mixed-category advantage when paired with other non-facial categories. Furthermore, manipulating the likelihood of testing a specific category (i.e., changing its task-relevance) in mixed-category trials, altered its advantaged/disadvantaged status, suggesting that the effect may be mediated by attention. Finally, to control for perceptual exposure factors, a sequential presentation experimental version was conducted. Whereas faces showed a typical mixed-category advantage, this pattern was again modulated (yielding an advantage for a non-facial category) when inserting a task-relevance manipulation. Taken together, our findings support a central resource allocation account, according to which the asymmetric mixed-category effect likely stems from an attentional bias to one of the two categories. This attentional bias is not necessarily spatial in its nature, and it presumably affects processing stages subsequent to the initial perceptual encoding phase in working memory.

scholarly journals Extended Visual Sequence Learning Leaves a Local Trace in the Spontaneous EEG

2021 ◽  
Vol 15 ◽  
Author(s):  
Serena Ricci ◽  
Elisa Tatti ◽  
Aaron B. Nelson ◽  
Priya Panday ◽  
Henry Chen ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Working Memory ◽  
Motor Learning ◽  
Visual Working Memory ◽  
Learning Task ◽  
Memory Test ◽  
Theta Power ◽  
Motor Test ◽  
Beta Power ◽  
And Performance ◽  
Declarative Learning

We have previously demonstrated that, in rested subjects, extensive practice in a motor learning task increased both electroencephalographic (EEG) theta power in the areas involved in learning and improved the error rate in a motor test that shared similarities with the task. A nap normalized both EEG and performance changes. We now ascertain whether extensive visual declarative learning produces results similar to motor learning. Thus, during the morning, we recorded high-density EEG in well rested young healthy subjects that learned the order of different visual sequence task (VSEQ) for three one-hour blocks. Afterward, a group of subjects took a nap and another rested quietly. Between each VSEQ block, we recorded spontaneous EEG (sEEG) at rest and assessed performance in a motor test and a visual working memory test that shares similarities with VSEQ. We found that after the third block, VSEQ induced local theta power increases in the sEEG over a right temporo-parietal area that was engaged during the task. This local theta increase was preceded by increases in alpha and beta power over the same area and was paralleled by performance decline in the visual working memory test. Only after the nap, VSEQ learning rate improved and performance in the visual working memory test was restored, together with partial normalization of the local sEEG changes. These results suggest that intensive learning, like motor learning, produces local theta power increases, possibly reflecting local neuronal fatigue. Sleep may be necessary to resolve neuronal fatigue and its effects on learning and performance.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document