Positive and negative mood states do not influence cross-modal auditory distraction in the serial-recall paradigm

The aim of this study was to examine whether positive and negative mood states affect auditory distraction in a serial-recall task. The duplex-mechanism account differentiates two types of auditory distraction. The changing-state effect is postulated to be rooted in interference-by-process and to be automatic. The auditory-deviant effect is attributed to attentional capture by the deviant distractors. Only the auditory-deviant effect, but not the changing-state effect, should be influenced by emotional mood states according to the duplex-mechanism account. Four experiments were conducted to test how auditory distraction is affected by emotional mood states. Mood was induced by autobiographical recall (Experiments 1 and 2) or the presentation of emotional pictures (Experiments 3 and 4). Even though the manipulations were successful in inducing changes in mood, neither positive mood (Experiments 1 and 3) nor negative mood (Experiments 2 and 4) had any effect on distraction despite large samples sizes (N = 851 in total). The results thus are not in line with the hypothesis that auditory distraction is affected by changes in mood state. The results support an automatic-capture account according to which the auditory-deviant effect and the changing-state effect are mainly stimulus-driven effects that are rooted in the automatic processing of the to-be-ignored auditory stream.

Dissociation Between Speech and Emotion Effects in Short-Term Memory: A Data Reanalysis.

Performance in visual serial recall tasks is often impaired by irrelevant auditory distracters. The duplex-mechanism account of auditory distraction states that if the distracters provide order cues, these interfere with the processing of the order cues in the serial recall task (interference by process). In contrast, the unitary account states that distracters capture only attention on a general level (attentional distraction) without interfering specifically withorder processing. Marsh et al. (2018, Journal of Experimental Psychology-Learning Memory and Cognition, 44, 882-897) reported finding a dissociation between the effects of serial recall tasks and those of a missing-item task on the disruptive effects of speech and of emotional words, as predicted by the duplex-mechanism account. Critically, the reported analyses did not test specifically for the claimed dissociation. Therefore, I reanalyzed the Marsh et al. data and conducted the appropriate analyses. I also tested the dissociation more directly and added a Bayesian hypothesis test to measure the strength of the evidence for a dissociation. Results provided strong evidence for a dissociation (i.e., crossover interaction) between effects of speech and of emotion. Because the duplex-mechanism account predicts this dissociation between speech effects (interference by process) and emotion effects (attentionaldiversion) whereas the unitary account does not, Marsh et al.’s data support the duplex-mechanism account. However, to show that this dissociation is robust, researchers are advised to replicate this dissociation in an adversarial registered report.

What’s “up”? Impaired Spatial Preposition Processing in Posterior Cortical Atrophy

This study seeks to confirm whether lesions in posterior regions of the brain involved in visuo-spatial processing are of functional relevance to the processing of words with spatial meaning. We investigated whether patients with Posterior Cortical Atrophy (PCA), an atypical form of Alzheimer’s Disease which predominantly affects parieto-occipital brain regions, is associated with deficits in working memory for spatial prepositions. Case series of patients with PCA and matched healthy controls performed tests of immediate and delayed serial recall on words from three lexico-semantic word categories: number words (twelve), spatial prepositions (behind) and function words (e.g., shall). The three word categories were closely matched for a number of psycholinguistic and semantic variables including length, bi-/tri-gram frequency, word frequency, valence and arousal. Relative to controls, memory performance of PCA patients on short word lists was significantly impaired on spatial prepositions in the delayed serial recall task. These results suggest that lesions in posterior parieto-occipital regions specifically impair the processing of spatial prepositions. Our findings point to a pertinent role of posterior cortical regions in the semantic processing of words with spatial meaning and provide strong support for modality-specific semantic theories that recognize the necessary contributions of sensorimotor regions to conceptual semantic processing.

Latching dynamics as a basis for short-term recall

We discuss simple models for the transient storage in short-term memory of cortical patterns of activity, all based on the notion that their recall exploits the natural tendency of the cortex to hop from state to state—latching dynamics. We show that in one such model, and in simple spatial memory tasks we have given to human subjects, short-term memory can be limited to similar low capacity by interference effects, in tasks terminated by errors, and can exhibit similar sublinear scaling, when errors are overlooked. The same mechanism can drive serial recall if combined with weak order-encoding plasticity. Finally, even when storing randomly correlated patterns of activity the network demonstrates correlation-driven latching waves, which are reflected at the outer extremes of pattern space.

Comprehension of Morse Code Predicted by Item Recall From Short-Term Memory

Purpose Morse code as a form of communication became widely used for telegraphy, radio and maritime communication, and military operations, and remains popular with ham radio operators. Some skilled users of Morse code are able to comprehend a full sentence as they listen to it, while others must first transcribe the sentence into its written letter sequence. Morse thus provides an interesting opportunity to examine comprehension differences in the context of skilled acoustic perception. Measures of comprehension and short-term memory show a strong correlation across multiple forms of communication. This study tests whether this relationship holds for Morse and investigates its underlying basis. Our analyses examine Morse and speech immediate serial recall, focusing on established markers of echoic storage, phonological-articulatory coding, and lexical-semantic support. We show a relationship between Morse short-term memory and Morse comprehension that is not explained by Morse perceptual fluency. In addition, we find that poorer serial recall for Morse compared to speech is primarily due to poorer item memory for Morse, indicating differences in lexical-semantic support. Interestingly, individual differences in speech item memory are also predictive of individual differences in Morse comprehension. Conclusions We point to a psycholinguistic framework to account for these results, concluding that Morse functions like “reading for the ears” ( Maier et al., 2004 ) and that underlying differences in the integration of phonological and lexical-semantic knowledge impact both short-term memory and comprehension. The results provide insight into individual differences in the comprehension of degraded speech and strategies that build comprehension through listening experience. Supplemental Material https://doi.org/10.23641/asha.16451868

Serial Recall Order and Semantic Features of Category Fluency Words to Study Semantic Memory in Normal Ageing

Background: Category Fluency Test (CFT) is a common measure of semantic memory (SM). Test performance, however, is also influenced by other cognitive functions. We here propose a scoring procedure that quantifies the correlation between the serial recall order (SRO) of words retrieved during the CFT and a number of linguistic features, to obtain purer SM measures. To put this methodology to the test, we addressed a proof-of-concept hypothesis whereby, in alignment with the literature, older adults would show better SM.Methods: Ninety participants (45 aged 18–21 years; 45 aged 70–81 years) with normal neurological and cognitive functioning completed a 1-min CFT. SRO was scored as an ordinal variable incrementing by one unit for each valid entry. Each word was also scored for 16 additional linguistic features. Participant-specific normalised correlation coefficients were calculated between SRO and each feature and were analysed with group comparisons and graph theory.Results: Younger adults showed more negative correlations between SRO and “valence” (a feature of words pleasantness). This was driven by the first five words generated. When analysed with graph theory, SRO had significantly higher degree and lower betweenness centrality among older adults.Conclusion: In older adults, SM relies significantly less on pleasantness of entries typically retrieved without semantic control. Moreover, graph-theory metrics indicated better optimised links between SRO and linguistic features in this group. These findings are aligned with the principle whereby SM processes tend to solidify with ageing. Although additional work is needed in support of an SRO-based item-level scoring procedure of CFT performance, these initial findings suggest that this methodology could be of help in characterising SM in a purer form.

What Is Time Good for in Working Memory?

Giving people more time to process information in working memory improves their performance on working memory tasks. It is often assumed that free time given after presentation of an item enables maintenance processes to counteract forgetting of this item, suggesting that time has a retroactive benefit. Two other hypotheses—short-term consolidation and temporal distinctiveness—entail a local effect of time on immediately preceding and following items. Here, we show instead a novel global and proactive benefit of time in working memory. In three serial-recall experiments ( Ns = 21, 25, and 26 young adults, respectively), we varied the position and duration of the free time within a seven-item list of consonants. Experiment 1 showed that the effect is global and not local. Experiments 2a and 2b showed that increased interitem time benefited performance only for the subsequent items, implying a proactive benefit. This finding rules out maintenance processes, short-term consolidation, and temporal distinctiveness as explanations of the free-time benefit but is consistent with the proposal of a gradually recovering encoding resource.