scholarly journals Working-memory disruption by task-irrelevant talkers depends on degree of talker familiarity

2019 ◽  
Vol 81 (4) ◽  
pp. 1108-1118 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jens Kreitewolf ◽  
Malte Wöstmann ◽  
Sarah Tune ◽  
Michael Plöchl ◽  
Jonas Obleser
Keyword(s):  
Working Memory ◽  
Memory Disruption ◽  
Task Irrelevant ◽  
Talker Familiarity

scholarly journals Working-memory disruption by task-irrelevant talkers depends on degree of talker familiarity

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jens Kreitewolf ◽  
Malte Wöstmann ◽  
Sarah Tune ◽  
Michael Plöchl ◽  
Jonas Obleser
Keyword(s):  
Working Memory ◽  
Family Members ◽  
Serial Order ◽  
Irrelevant Speech ◽  
Speech Comprehension ◽  
Memory Retention ◽  
Statistics Course ◽  
Memory Disruption ◽  
Task Irrelevant ◽  
Talker Familiarity

AbstractWhen listening, familiarity with an attended talker’s voice improves speech comprehension. Here, we instead investigated the effect of familiarity with a distracting talker. In an irrelevant-speech task, we assessed listeners’ working memory for the serial order of spoken digits when a task-irrelevant, distracting sentence was produced by either a familiar or an unfamiliar talker (with rare omissions of the task-irrelevant sentence). We tested two groups of listeners using the same experimental procedure. The first group were undergraduate psychology students (N=66) who had attended an introductory statistics course. Critically, each student had been taught by one of two course instructors, whose voices served as familiar and unfamiliar task-irrelevant talkers. The second group of listeners were family members and friends (N=20) who had known either one of the two talkers for more than ten years. Students, but not family members and friends, made more errors when the task-irrelevant talker was familiar versus unfamiliar. Interestingly, the effect of talker familiarity was not modulated by the presence of task-irrelevant speech: students experienced stronger working-memory disruption by a familiar talker irrespective of whether they heard a task-irrelevant sentence during memory retention or merely expected it. While previous work has shown that familiarity with an attended talker benefits speech comprehension, our findings indicate that familiarity with an ignored talker deteriorates working memory for target speech. The absence of this effect in family members and friends suggests that the degree of familiarity modulates memory disruption.

scholarly journals Auditory Working Memory Load Impairs Visual Ventral Stream Processing: Toward a Unified Model of Attentional Load

2010 ◽  
Vol 22 (3) ◽  
pp. 437-446 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jane Klemen ◽  
Christian Büchel ◽  
Mira Bühler ◽  
Mareike M. Menz ◽  
Michael Rose
Keyword(s):  
Working Memory ◽  
Cognitive Control ◽  
Cognitive Load ◽  
Human Performance ◽  
Memory Load ◽  
Matching Task ◽  
Load Theory ◽  
Attentional Load ◽  
Relevant Task ◽  
Task Irrelevant

Attentional interference between tasks performed in parallel is known to have strong and often undesired effects. As yet, however, the mechanisms by which interference operates remain elusive. A better knowledge of these processes may facilitate our understanding of the effects of attention on human performance and the debilitating consequences that disruptions to attention can have. According to the load theory of cognitive control, processing of task-irrelevant stimuli is increased by attending in parallel to a relevant task with high cognitive demands. This is due to the relevant task engaging cognitive control resources that are, hence, unavailable to inhibit the processing of task-irrelevant stimuli. However, it has also been demonstrated that a variety of types of load (perceptual and emotional) can result in a reduction of the processing of task-irrelevant stimuli, suggesting a uniform effect of increased load irrespective of the type of load. In the present study, we concurrently presented a relevant auditory matching task [n-back working memory (WM)] of low or high cognitive load (1-back or 2-back WM) and task-irrelevant images at one of three object visibility levels (0%, 50%, or 100%). fMRI activation during the processing of the task-irrelevant visual stimuli was measured in the lateral occipital cortex and found to be reduced under high, compared to low, WM load. In combination with previous findings, this result is suggestive of a more generalized load theory, whereby cognitive load, as well as other types of load (e.g., perceptual), can result in a reduction of the processing of task-irrelevant stimuli, in line with a uniform effect of increased load irrespective of the type of load.

scholarly journals The effect of visual salience on memory-based choices

2014 ◽  
Vol 111 (3) ◽  
pp. 481-487 ◽  
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.

scholarly journals Perturbing Neural Representations of Working Memory with Task-irrelevant Interruption

2020 ◽  
Vol 32 (3) ◽  
pp. 558-569 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nicole Hakim ◽  
Tobias Feldmann-Wüstefeld ◽  
Edward Awh ◽  
Edward K. Vogel
Keyword(s):  
Working Memory ◽  
Memory Task ◽  
Relevant Information ◽  
Alpha Power ◽  
Neural Signals ◽  
Neural Representations ◽  
Contralateral Delay Activity ◽  
The Face ◽  
Task Irrelevant ◽  
The Impact

Working memory maintains information so that it can be used in complex cognitive tasks. A key challenge for this system is to maintain relevant information in the face of task-irrelevant perturbations. Across two experiments, we investigated the impact of task-irrelevant interruptions on neural representations of working memory. We recorded EEG activity in humans while they performed a working memory task. On a subset of trials, we interrupted participants with salient but task-irrelevant objects. To track the impact of these task-irrelevant interruptions on neural representations of working memory, we measured two well-characterized, temporally sensitive EEG markers that reflect active, prioritized working memory representations: the contralateral delay activity and lateralized alpha power (8–12 Hz). After interruption, we found that contralateral delay activity amplitude momentarily sustained but was gone by the end of the trial. Lateralized alpha power was immediately influenced by the interrupters but recovered by the end of the trial. This suggests that dissociable neural processes contribute to the maintenance of working memory information and that brief irrelevant onsets disrupt two distinct online aspects of working memory. In addition, we found that task expectancy modulated the timing and magnitude of how these two neural signals responded to task-irrelevant interruptions, suggesting that the brain's response to task-irrelevant interruption is shaped by task context.

scholarly journals Task-Irrelevant Features in Visual Working Memory Influence Covert Attention: Evidence from a Partial Report Task

Vision ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 3 (3) ◽  
pp. 42 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rebecca M. Foerster ◽  
Werner X. Schneider
Keyword(s):  
Working Memory ◽  
Visual Working Memory ◽  
Shape Matching ◽  
Target Location ◽  
Covert Attention ◽  
Partial Report ◽  
Target Color ◽  
Color Target ◽  
Irrelevant Color ◽  
Task Irrelevant

Selecting a target based on a representation in visual working memory (VWM) affords biasing covert attention towards objects with memory-matching features. Recently, we showed that even task-irrelevant features of a VWM template bias attention. Specifically, when participants had to saccade to a cued shape, distractors sharing the cue’s search-irrelevant color captured the eyes. While a saccade always aims at one target location, multiple locations can be attended covertly. Here, we investigated whether covert attention is captured similarly as the eyes. In our partial report task, each trial started with a shape-defined search cue, followed by a fixation cross. Next, two colored shapes, each including a letter, appeared left and right from fixation, followed by masks. The letter inside that shape matching the preceding cue had to be reported. In Experiment 1, either target, distractor, both, or no object matched the cue’s irrelevant color. Target-letter reports were most frequent in target-match trials and least frequent in distractor-match trials. Irrelevant cue and target color never matched in Experiment 2. Still, participants reported the distractor more often to the target’s disadvantage, when cue and distractor color matched. Thus, irrelevant features of a VWM template can influence covert attention in an involuntarily object-based manner when searching for trial-wise varying targets.

scholarly journals Not All Distraction Is Bad: Working Memory Vulnerability to Implicit Socioemotional Distraction Correlates with Negative Symptoms and Functional Impairment in Psychosis

2014 ◽  
Vol 2014 ◽  
pp. 1-6
Author(s):  
Quintino R. Mano ◽  
Gregory G. Brown ◽  
Heline Mirzakhanian ◽  
Khalima Bolden ◽  
Kristen S. Cadenhead ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Working Memory ◽  
Functional Status ◽  
Functional Impairment ◽  
Global Assessment ◽  
Negative Symptoms ◽  
Role Functioning ◽  
Global Assessment Of Functioning ◽  
Match To Sample ◽  
Task Irrelevant ◽  
Load Size

This study investigated implicit socioemotional modulation of working memory (WM) in the context of symptom severity and functional status in individuals with psychosis (N=21). A delayed match-to-sample task was modified wherein task-irrelevant facial distracters were presented early and briefly during the rehearsal of pseudoword memoranda that varied incrementally in load size (1, 2, or 3 syllables). Facial distracters displayed happy, sad, or emotionally neutral expressions. Implicit socioemotional modulation of WM was indexed by subtracting task accuracy on nonfacial geometrical distraction trials from facial distraction trials. Results indicated that the amount of implicit socioemotional modulation ofhighWM load accuracy was significantly associated with negative symptoms (r=0.63,P<0.01), role functioning (r=−0.50,P<0.05), social functioning (r=−0.55,P<0.01), and global assessment of functioning (r=−0.53,P<0.05). Specifically,greaterattentional distraction ofhighWM load was associated withlesssevere symptoms and functional impairment. This study demonstrates the importance of the WM-socioemotional interface in influencing clinical and psychosocial functional status in psychosis.

scholarly journals No evidence for binding of items to task-irrelevant backgrounds in visual working memory

2017 ◽  
Vol 45 (7) ◽  
pp. 1144-1159 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rob Udale ◽  
Simon Farrell ◽  
Christopher Kent
Keyword(s):  
Working Memory ◽  
Visual Working Memory ◽  
Task Irrelevant

Counteracting Implicit Conflicts by Electrical Inhibition of the Prefrontal Cortex

2016 ◽  
Vol 28 (11) ◽  
pp. 1737-1748 ◽  
Author(s):  
Philipp Alexander Schroeder ◽  
Roland Pfister ◽  
Wilfried Kunde ◽  
Hans-Christoph Nuerk ◽  
Christian Plewnia
Keyword(s):  
Working Memory ◽  
Direct Current ◽  
Transcranial Direct Current Stimulation ◽  
Number Line ◽  
Irrelevant Information ◽  
Snarc Effect ◽  
Direct Current Stimulation ◽  
Magnitude Processing ◽  
Automatic Activation ◽  
Task Irrelevant

Cognitive conflicts and distractions by task-irrelevant information often counteract effective and goal-directed behaviors. In some cases, conflicting information can even emerge implicitly, without an overt distractor, by the automatic activation of mental representations. For instance, during number processing, magnitude information automatically elicits spatial associations resembling a mental number line. This spatial–numerical association of response codes (SNARC) effect can modulate cognitive-behavioral performance but is also highly flexible and context-dependent, which points toward a critical involvement of working memory functions. Transcranial direct current stimulation to the PFC, in turn, has been effective in modulating working memory-related cognitive performance. In a series of experiments, we here demonstrate that decreasing activity of the left PFC by cathodal transcranial direct current stimulation consistently and specifically eliminates implicit cognitive conflicts based on the SNARC effect, but explicit conflicts based on visuospatial distraction remain unaffected. This dissociation is polarity-specific and appears unrelated to functional magnitude processing as classified by regular numerical distance effects. These data demonstrate a causal involvement of the left PFC in implicit cognitive conflicts based on the automatic activation of spatial–numerical processing. Corroborating the critical interaction of brain stimulation and neurocognitive functions, our findings suggest that distraction from goal-directed behavior by automatic activation of implicit, task-irrelevant information can be blocked by the inhibition of prefrontal activity.

scholarly journals Testing the Attention-Distractibility Trait

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Matt Ethan Meier
Keyword(s):  
Working Memory ◽  
Working Memory Capacity ◽  
Memory Capacity ◽  
Mind Wandering ◽  
Open Science ◽  
Hyperactivity Disorder ◽  
Science Framework ◽  
Thought Probes ◽  
Task Irrelevant ◽  
And Task

Forster and Lavie (2014, 2016) found that task-irrelevant distraction correlated positively with a measure of mind-wandering and a report of Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) symptomology. Based primarily on these results, Forster and Lavie claimed to establish an attention-distractibility trait. Here, I sought to replicate the associations among measures of task-irrelevant distraction, mind wandering, and ADHD symptomology, and to test if these associations could be distinguished from associations with working memory capacity and task-relevant distraction. With data collected from two hundred and twenty-six subjects (ns differ among analyses), the results from the current study suggest that the measure of task-irrelevant distraction is not (or only very weakly) associated with measures of mind wandering (measured both with a stand-alone questionnaire and in-task thought probes) and ADHD symptomology. Additionally, the measure of irrelevant-distraction exhibited low internal consistency suggesting that (as measured) it is not capable of being a an individual differences measure. [Preregistration, data, analysis scripts and output are available via the Open Science Framework: https://osf.io/bhs24/].

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document