scholarly journals Comparing Visual Memories to Novel Visual Input Risks Lasting Memory Distortion

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Joseph M. Saito ◽  
Katherine Duncan ◽  
Keisuke Fukuda
Keyword(s):  
Working Memory ◽  
Young Adults ◽  
Real World ◽  
Eyewitness Testimony ◽  
Long Term Memory ◽  
Memory Distortion ◽  
Term Memory ◽  
Memory Accuracy ◽  
Memory Distortions

Maintaining perceptual experiences in visual working memory (VWM) allows us to flexibly accomplish various tasks, but some tasks come at a price. For example, comparing VWM representations to novel perceptual inputs can induce inadvertent memory distortions. If these distortions persist, they may explain why everyday memories often become unreliable after people perform perceptual comparisons (e.g., eyewitness testimony). Here, we conducted two experiments to assess the consequences of perceptual comparisons using real-world objects that were temporarily maintained in VWM (n = 32) or recalled from long-term memory back into VWM (n = 30). In each experiment, young adults reported systematic memory distortions following perceptual comparisons. These distortions increased in magnitude with the delay between encoding and comparisons and were preserved when memories were retrieved again a day later. These findings suggest that perceptual comparisons play a mechanistic role in everyday memory distortions, including situations where memory accuracy is vital.

scholarly journals Working memory is not fixed capacity: More active storage capacity for real-world objects than simple stimuli

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Timothy F. Brady ◽  
Viola S. Störmer ◽  
George Alvarez
Keyword(s):  
Working Memory ◽  
Real World ◽  
Visual Information ◽  
Memory Task ◽  
Memory Systems ◽  
Long Term Memory ◽  
Term Memory ◽  
Active Storage ◽  
Working Memory Models

Visual working memory is the cognitive system that holds visual information active to make it resistant to interference from new perceptual input. Information about simple stimuli – colors, orientations – is encoded into working memory rapidly: in under 100ms, working memory ‘fills up’, revealing a stark capacity limit. However, for real-world objects, the same behavioral limits do not hold: with increasing encoding time, people store more real-world objects and do so with more detail. This boost in performance for real-world objects is generally assumed to reflect the use of a separate episodic long-term memory system, rather than working memory. Here we show that this behavioral increase in capacity with real-world objects is not solely due to the use of separate episodic long-term memory systems. In particular, we show that this increase is a result of active storage in working memory, as shown by directly measuring neural activity during the delay period of a working memory task using EEG. These data challenge fixed capacity working memory models, and demonstrate that working memory and its capacity limitations are dependent upon our existing knowledge.

scholarly journals Statistical Learning as a Reference Point for Memory Distortions: Swap and Shift Errors

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Paul S. Scotti ◽  
Yoolim Hong ◽  
Julie Golomb ◽  
Andrew B. Leber
Keyword(s):  
Working Memory ◽  
False Memory ◽  
Statistical Learning ◽  
Visual Working Memory ◽  
Reference Point ◽  
Memory Item ◽  
Long Term Memory ◽  
Memory Distortion ◽  
Term Memory

Humans use regularities in the environment to facilitate learning, often without awareness or intent. How might such regularities distort long-term memory? Here, participants studied and reported the colors of objects in a long-term memory paradigm, unaware that certain colors were sampled more frequently overall. When participants misreported an object’s color, these errors were often centered around the average studied color. We found that these swap errors reflected both false memory (where objects were misremembered as the average studied color) as well as biased guessing (where participants reported the average studied color when uncertain). Although less robust than swap errors, evidence was also observed for subtle shift errors towards or away from the average color dependent on the color distance between the memory item and the average studied color. These findings provide converging evidence for memory distortion mechanisms induced by a reference point, bridging a gap between visual working memory and visual long-term memory literature.

scholarly journals Adult age differences in refreshing and elaboration and their consequences for working memory and long-term memory

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lea Maria Bartsch ◽  
Klaus Oberauer
Keyword(s):  
Older Adults ◽  
Working Memory ◽  
Young Adults ◽  
Age Differences ◽  
Long Term Memory ◽  
Term Memory ◽  
Adult Age ◽  
Adult Age Differences

Older adults show a pronounced decline in long-term memory (LTM), but the source of this deficit is still debated. The present study investigated whether deficient engagement in refreshing and elaboration at the level of working memory (WM) causes this deficit. Our results show that the benefit of refreshing in WM was unaffected by age. Refreshing had no effect on LTM in both young and older adults. Elaboration benefited LTM in young adults, but not in older adults. Therefore, the LTM deficit of older adults might arise at least in part from a deficit in the process of elaboration.

scholarly journals Working memory is not fixed-capacity: More active storage capacity for real-world objects than for simple stimuli

2016 ◽  
Vol 113 (27) ◽  
pp. 7459-7464 ◽  
Author(s):  
Timothy F. Brady ◽  
Viola S. Störmer ◽  
George A. Alvarez
Keyword(s):  
Working Memory ◽  
Real World ◽  
Visual Information ◽  
Memory Task ◽  
Memory Systems ◽  
Long Term Memory ◽  
Term Memory ◽  
Active Storage ◽  
Working Memory Models

Visual working memory is the cognitive system that holds visual information active to make it resistant to interference from new perceptual input. Information about simple stimuli—colors and orientations—is encoded into working memory rapidly: In under 100 ms, working memory ‟fills up,” revealing a stark capacity limit. However, for real-world objects, the same behavioral limits do not hold: With increasing encoding time, people store more real-world objects and do so with more detail. This boost in performance for real-world objects is generally assumed to reflect the use of a separate episodic long-term memory system, rather than working memory. Here we show that this behavioral increase in capacity with real-world objects is not solely due to the use of separate episodic long-term memory systems. In particular, we show that this increase is a result of active storage in working memory, as shown by directly measuring neural activity during the delay period of a working memory task using EEG. These data challenge fixed-capacity working memory models and demonstrate that working memory and its capacity limitations are dependent upon our existing knowledge.

scholarly journals The Effects of Elaboration on Working Memory and Long-term Memory across Age

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lea Maria Bartsch ◽  
Klaus Oberauer
Keyword(s):  
Older Adults ◽  
Working Memory ◽  
Young Adults ◽  
Memory Deficit ◽  
Memory Test ◽  
Free Time ◽  
Long Term Memory ◽  
Time Intervals ◽  
Term Memory

Free time to attend to and process information in working memory is key in promotingimmediate and delayed retention. One candidate process to cause this benefit is elaboration. Weconducted three experiments with young adults – two of which included older adults – toinvestigate whether free time is used for elaboration, and whether elaboration causes the free-timebenefit. Participants remembered lists of nouns, interleaved with short or long free-time intervals,or with filler words connecting all the nouns into a meaningful sentence to assist elaboration. Foryoung adults, assisted elaboration through sentences, and the additional instruction to form amental image, benefited performance in a working-memory test as much as longer free time, butnot more. In contrast, for a delayed test of long-term memory, the benefits of sentence elaborationexceeded those of longer free time. Older adults did not benefit from assisted elaborations in thedelayed test, providing further evidence that the long-term memory deficit of older adults arises atleast in part from a deficit in elaboration. This elaboration deficit is not driven by a deficit ingenerating richer representations.

Conceptual short-term memory (CSTM) supports core claims of Christiansen and Chater

2016 ◽  
Vol 39 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mary C. Potter
Keyword(s):  
Working Memory ◽  
Rapid Serial Visual Presentation ◽  
Language Comprehension ◽  
Short Term Memory ◽  
Visual Presentation ◽  
Long Term Memory ◽  
Short Term ◽  
Term Memory ◽  
Use Of Knowledge

AbstractRapid serial visual presentation (RSVP) of words or pictured scenes provides evidence for a large-capacity conceptual short-term memory (CSTM) that momentarily provides rich associated material from long-term memory, permitting rapid chunking (Potter 1993; 2009; 2012). In perception of scenes as well as language comprehension, we make use of knowledge that briefly exceeds the supposed limits of working memory.

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

Depth of Processing Differentially Affects Working Memory and Long-Term Memory

2007 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nathan S. Rose ◽  
Joel Myerson ◽  
Henry L. Roediger ◽  
Sandra Hale
Keyword(s):  
Working Memory ◽  
Long Term Memory ◽  
Depth Of Processing ◽  
Term Memory

Evidence for a single mechanism gating perceptual and long-term memory information into working memory

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sam Verschooren ◽  
Yoav Kessler ◽  
Tobias Egner
Keyword(s):  
Working Memory ◽  
Long Term Memory ◽  
Sources Of Information ◽  
Term Memory ◽  
Source Selection ◽  
Single Mechanism ◽  
Gating Mechanism ◽  
Opening And Closing ◽  
Selection Of

An influential view of working memory (WM) holds that its’ contents are controlled by a selective gating mechanism that allows for relevant perceptual information to enter WM when opened, but shields WM contents from interference when closed. In support of this idea, prior studies using the reference-back paradigm have established behavioral costs for opening and closing the gate between perception and WM. WM also frequently requires input from long-term memory (LTM), but it is currently unknown whether a similar gate controls the selection of LTM representations into WM, and how WM gating of perceptual vs. LTM sources of information relate to each other. To address these key theoretical questions, we devised a novel version of the reference-back paradigm, where participants switched between gating perceptual and LTM information into WM. We observed clear evidence for gate opening and closing costs in both cases. Moreover, the pattern of costs associated with gating and source-switching indicated that perceptual and LTM information is gated into WM via a single gate, and rely on a shared source-selection mechanism. These findings extend current models of WM gating to encompass LTM information, and outline a new functional WM architecture.

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