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.

Doubts About the Role of Rehearsal in the Irrelevant Sound Effect

The irrelevant sound effect (ISE) describes the disruption of processes involved in maintaining information in working memory (WM) when irrelevant noise is present in the environment. While some posit that the ISE arises due to split obligation of attention to the irrelevant sound and the to-be-remembered information, others have argued that background noise corrupts the order of information within WM. Support for the latter position comes from research showing that the ISE appears to be most robust in tasks that emphasize ordered maintenance by a serial rehearsal strategy, and diminished when rehearsal is discouraged or precluded by task characteristics. This prior work confounds the demand for seriation with rehearsal. Thus, the present study aims to disentangle ordered maintenance from a rehearsal strategy by using a running memory span task that requires ordered output but obviates the utility of rehearsal. Across four experiments, we find a significant ISE that persists under conditions that should discourage the use of rehearsal and among individuals who self-report use of alternative strategies. These findings indicate that rehearsal is not necessary to produce an ISE in a serial recall task and thus fail to corroborate accounts of the ISE that emphasize the involvement of rehearsal.

The Hebb repetition effect in complex span tasks: Evidence for a shared learning mechanism with simple span tasks

The Hebb repetition effect on serial-recall task refers to the improvement in the accuracy of recall of a repeated list (e.g., repeated in every 3 trials) over random non-repeated lists. Previous research has shown that both temporal position and neighboring items need to be the same on each repetition list for the Hebb repetition effect to occur, suggesting chunking as one of its underlying mechanisms. Accordingly, one can expect absence of the Hebb repetition effect in a complex span task, given that the sequence is interrupted by distractors. Nevertheless, one study by Oberauer, Jones, and Lewandowsky (2015, Memory & Cognition, 43[6], 852–865) showed evidence of the Hebb repetition effect in a complex span task. Throughout four experiments, we confirmed the Hebb repetition effect in complex span tasks, even when we included distractors in both encoding and recall phases to avoid any resemblance to a simple span task and minimized the possibility of chunking. Results showed that the Hebb repetition effect was not affected by the distractors during encoding and recall. A transfer cycle analysis showed that the long-term knowledge acquired in the complex span task can be transferred to a simple span task. These findings provide the first insights on the mechanism behind the Hebb repetition effect in complex span tasks; it is at least partially based on the same mechanism that improves recall performance by repetition in simple span tasks.

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 with order 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 (attentional diversion) 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.

How Does Semantic Knowledge Impact Working Memory Maintenance? Computational and Behavioral Investigations

It is now firmly established that long-term memory knowledge, such as semantic knowledge, supports the temporary maintenance of verbal information in Working Memory (WM). This support from semantic knowledge is well-explained by models assuming that verbal items are directly activated in long-term memory, and that this activation provides the representational basis for WM maintenance. However, the exact mechanisms underlying semantic influence on WM performance remain poorly understood. We manipulated the presence of between-item semantic relatedness in an immediate serial recall task, by mixing triplets composed of semantically related and unrelated items (e.g. leaf – tree – branch – wall – beer – dog; hand – father – truck – cloud – sky – rain). Compared to unrelated items, related items were better recalled, as had been classically observed. Critically, semantic relatedness also impacted WM maintenance in a complex manner, as observed by the presence of proactive benefit effects on subsequent unrelated items, and the absence of retroactive effects. The complexity of these interactions is well-captured by TBRS*-S, a decay-based computational architecture in which the activation occurring in long-term memory is described. The present study suggests that semantic knowledge can be used to free up WM resources that can be reallocated for maintenance purposes, and supports models postulating that long-term memory knowledge constrains WM maintenance processes.

Serial recall

Serial memory refers to the ability to recall a novel sequence of items or events in the correct order. In the laboratory, the dominant tool used to assess this mental faculty is the immediate serial recall (hereafter, ‘serial recall’) task in which participants are given a sequence of typically verbal, visual, or spatial items that they must subsequently recall in their original presentation order. Serial recall is a deceptively simple task—the apparent ease with which people accomplish it masks the wealth and complexity of findings this task has generated, and the computational theories that have been developed to account for them. In this chapter, I review benchmark findings of serial recall that have been observed across the verbal, visual, and spatial short-term memory domains, and I interpret them with reference to the core mechanisms embodied in contemporary computational theories of serial recall. This analysis identifies four mechanisms that are common to the three content domains—namely, position marking, a primacy gradient, competitive queuing, and response suppression. Additionally, evidence suggests that in verbal serial recall both the encoding and retrieval of items is sensitive to item similarity—similarity-sensitive encoding and retrieval—and that item retrieval is accompanied by output interference. By contrast, in visual and spatial serial recall there is evidence for similarity-sensitive retrieval, but the relevant empirical observations that evince similarity-sensitive encoding and output interference are yet to be studied in the visual and spatial domains. I conclude by outlining some challenges for future research.

Time of presentation affects auditory distraction: Changing-state and deviant sounds disrupt similar working memory processes

Four experiments tested conflicting predictions about which components of the serial-recall task are most sensitive to auditory distraction. Changing-state (Experiments 1a and 1b) and deviant distractor sounds (Experiments 2a and 2b) were presented in one of four different intervals of the serial-recall task: (1) during the first half of encoding, (2) during the second half of encoding, (3) during the first half of retention, or (4) during the second half of retention. According to the embedded-processes model, both types of distractors should interfere with the encoding and rehearsal of targets in the focus of attention. According to the duplex-mechanism account, changing-state distractors should interfere only with rehearsal, whereas deviant distractors should interfere only with encoding. Inconsistent with the latter view, changing-state and deviant distractor sounds interfered with both the encoding and the retention of the targets. Both types of auditory distraction were most pronounced during the second half of encoding when the increasing rehearsal demands had to be coordinated with the continuous updating of the rehearsal set. These findings suggest that the two types of distraction disrupt similar working memory mechanisms.

Verbal Working Memory in Children With Cochlear Implants

Purpose Verbal working memory in children with cochlear implants and children with normal hearing was examined. Participants Ninety-three fourth graders (47 with normal hearing, 46 with cochlear implants) participated, all of whom were in a longitudinal study and had working memory assessed 2 years earlier. Method A dual-component model of working memory was adopted, and a serial recall task measured storage and processing. Potential predictor variables were phonological awareness, vocabulary knowledge, nonverbal IQ, and several treatment variables. Potential dependent functions were literacy, expressive language, and speech-in-noise recognition. Results Children with cochlear implants showed deficits in storage and processing, similar in size to those at second grade. Predictors of verbal working memory differed across groups: Phonological awareness explained the most variance in children with normal hearing; vocabulary explained the most variance in children with cochlear implants. Treatment variables explained little of the variance. Where potentially dependent functions were concerned, verbal working memory accounted for little variance once the variance explained by other predictors was removed. Conclusions The verbal working memory deficits of children with cochlear implants arise due to signal degradation, which limits their abilities to acquire phonological awareness. That hinders their abilities to store items using a phonological code.