What Happens to Information to be Suppressed in Working–Memory Tasks? Short and Long Term Effects

When the sense of fluency triggers an attentional bias

Spatial attention can be captured automatically by an exogenous stimulus (e.g., digital interruption) or by an endogenous stimulus (e.g., valence of the stimulus). In this study, we investigated whether a non-perceptual characteristic (e.g., sense of fluency) has an impact on attention. To this end, we used the conceptual fluency paradigm developed by Whittlesea combined with the dot-probe task developed by MacLeod et al. In three experiments, we measured the response times for each experimental situation (i.e., Valid and Non-valid situations). At each trial, participants were presented in three consecutive displays on a screen: (1) an incomplete and predictive sentence stem; (2) a pair of words, one of which was semantically compatible with the previous sentence stem; and (3) a circle appeared at the spatial location of one of the words. Then, participants had to perform a Go (i.e., a filled circle) and No-go (i.e., an empty circle) task. The analysis found that response times were significantly faster when the Go stimulus appeared at the same location as the semantically compatible word (i.e., Valid situations). Overall, our results show that the sense of fluency triggers attentional capture. Thus, they replicate those of Gardner et al. using another experimental paradigm. Our finding might be helpful to better understand the consequences of digital interruptions on behavioural performance.

The subjective feeling of a gap between conceptual and perceptual fluency is interpreted as a metacognitive signal of pastness

The present study aimed to address the following question: does the discrepancy between an expected word and its readability enhances or impair its memorability? We used an adaptation of the sentence stem paradigm (Whittlesea in J Exp Psycol 19:1235-1253, 1993) and manipulated the perceptual clarity of the words by introducing some Gaussian noise (Reber in Psycol Sci 9:45-48, 1998). The target words were semantically predictable or otherwise (conceptual fluency) or were easy or difficult to read (perceptual fluency). The first experiment was conducted to ensure that the two manipulated factors had an impact on the readability of the words. In particular, results showed that when the words were written against a noisy background their predictability enhanced the judgement of readability. The second experiment aimed to test the hypothesis that recognition would be influenced by the discrepancy between conceptual and perceptual fluency. The results showed that with a noisy background, the predictability of the target words had an impact on recognition judgement; with a clear background, the effect on the recognition judgement was caused by the non-predictability of the target words. Conversely, confidence in judgement increased when the two factors went in the same direction, that is, predictability with clarity and non-predictability with low clarity. The results showed that (a) depending on the task, the effects of conceptual and perceptual fluency did not go in the same direction; (b) the kinds of fluency (conceptual and perceptual) were not independent; and (c) recognition judgements were affected by the gap between conceptual and perceptual fluency.

Using working memory performance to predict mathematics performance 2 years on

A number of previous studies have used working memory components to predict mathematical performance in a variety of ways; however, there is no consideration of the contributions of the subcomponents of visuospatial working memory to this prediction. In this paper we conducted a 2-year follow-up to the data presented in Allen et al. (Q J Exp Psychol 73(2):239–248, 2020b) to ascertain how these subcomponents of visuospatial working memory related to later mathematical performance. 159 children (M age = 115.48 months) completed the maths test for this second wave of the study. Results show a shift from spatial–simultaneous influence to spatial–sequential influence, whilst verbal involvement remained relatively stable. Results are discussed in terms of their potential for education and future research.

The Development and Psychometric Properties of the Visuospatial Working Memory Assessment (VWMA) for Children

The visuospatial working memory plays a crucial role in the occupational performance of children including daily living and academic achievement. Unfortunately, relevant visuospatial working memory tests in the occupational therapy setting are lacking. Therefore, it is of clinical interest to develop new assessment tools in this area. The present study is aimed at summarizing the development of the visuospatial working memory assessment (VWMA) and assessing its psychometric properties. The results revealed that the score of item-objective congruence index (IOC) was 1.0 in overall items of assessment. The Cronbach alpha test confirmed that the internal consistency of VWMA showed good reliability in both types of the assessment, with the total score of computerized tests being .88 and the tabletop tests being .81. The computerized test was found to have excellent test-retest reliability with intraclass correlation coefficient (ICC) values ranging from .88 to .99. The tabletop test was found to have a fair to good test-retest reliability with the ICC values ranging from .51 to .63. As regards construct validity, the results revealed that the tasks in the computerized test identified a significant difference between the control group, normal children, and children with attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) group. The exception to this was the N-back task in which the independent sample t-test of computerized test ranged from 1.61 to 6.23. The results of the tabletop test revealed a significant difference between normal children and the children in the ADHD group over all tasks in which the independent sample t-test ranged from 3.05 to 8.40. In conclusion, good psychometric properties established as regards content validity, internal consistency, test-retest reliability, and construct validity provide evidence to support the position that the new VWMA is appropriate for children.

Working Memory Updating: Load and Binding

In the present study, we aimed to examine how specific objects are updated in working memory. We compared conditions in which contents or content-context bindings from working memory were both encoded and updated (Experiment 1). In addition, for bindings, we manipulated the memory load (i.e., number of contents) to maintain during updating. Results indicated that memory load did not specifically affect the process; rather, the content-context binding (vs. single contents) was critical in determining the increase in response latencies. Results were replicated even in Experiment 2, in which we manipulated the spatial locations of the to-be-recognized probes. Results showed evidence of a potential dissociation between updating of memory contents-only and content-context bindings. In addition, memory load and spatial coherence between phases and probe recognition did not interact with updating performance. Overall, results were taken as a contribution toward mapping the complex nature of the updating mechanism.

The Role of Interference Control in Working Memory: A Study with Children at Risk of Adhd

The study aimed to test whether the impairment in a working memory task observed in children at risk of ADHD was due to a lack of control of interfering information being processed whilst carrying out the memory task. Two groups of children at risk of ADHD with or without a learning disability (reading impairment) were compared to a control group in a working memory task. Activation of irrelevant items was tested with a lexical decision task presented immediately after the final recall in about half of the trials. Results showed a poor working memory performance in children at risk of ADHD and reading disability associated with a larger activation of irrelevant information than that of control children. Results indicated that the to-be-excluded and interfering items are still highly accessible to working memory in children that fail the working memory task. The examination of working memory and interference control of children at risk of ADHD with a learning disability revealed a counterintuitive picture of children with poor working memory showing better recall/activation of processed information. This picture is consistent with a view of working memory related to an efficient inhibitory control that influences cognitive functioning.

The neural basis of updating: Distinguishing substitution processes from other concurrent processes

Most previous studies of updating processes have not been able to contrast processes of substituting items in memory with other concurrent processes. In the present investigation, we used a new task called "number updating" and an fMRI protocol to contrast the activation of trials that require item substitution (adding a new item to the working memory representation and suppressing an old item) with trials that involve no substitution (discarding the new item). Trials that require item substitution activated the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex, the posterior medial frontal cortex and the parietal lobes, areas typically seen activated for working memory tasks in general. Trials that do not require substitution activated the anterior medial frontal cortex. Studies examining executive functions have associated this area with cognitive conflict, and may represent suppression of the substitution processes.

Time and interference: Effects on working memory

This study tested predictions from the time-based resource-sharing (TBRS) model with a classical verbal working memory (WM) task, where target and non-target information interfere strongly with each other. Different predictions can be formulated according to the dominant perspectives (TBRS and interference hypothesis) on the role of inhibitory control in WM task performance. Here, we aimed to trace the activation of irrelevant information, examining priming effects in a lexical decision task immediately following WM recall. Results indicate the roles of both time and interference constraints in determining task performance. In particular, the role of time available seemed crucial at the highest WM loads (i.e., 3 and 4 memoranda). These were also associated with a higher activation of no-longer-relevant information but, in this case, independently from time available for processing.

Developmental dyscalculia is related to visuo-spatial memory and inhibition impairment

Developmental dyscalculia is thought to be a specific impairment of mathematics ability. Currently dominant cognitive neuroscience theories of developmental dyscalculia suggest that it originates from the impairment of the magnitude representation of the human brain, residing in the intraparietal sulcus, or from impaired connections between number symbols and the magnitude representation. However, behavioral research offers several alternative theories for developmental dyscalculia and neuro-imaging also suggests that impairments in developmental dyscalculia may be linked to disruptions of other functions of the intraparietal sulcus than the magnitude representation. Strikingly, the magnitude representation theory has never been explicitly contrasted with a range of alternatives in a systematic fashion. Here we have filled this gap by directly contrasting five alternative theories (magnitude representation, working memory, inhibition, attention and spatial processing) of developmental dyscalculia in 9-10-year-old primary school children. Participants were selected from a pool of 1004 children and took part in 16 tests and nine experiments. The dominant features of developmental dyscalculia are visuo-spatial working memory, visuo-spatial short-term memory and inhibitory function (interference suppression) impairment. We hypothesize that inhibition impairment is related to the disruption of central executive memory function. Potential problems of visuo-spatial processing and attentional function in developmental dyscalculia probably depend on short-term memory/working memory and inhibition impairments. The magnitude representation theory of developmental dyscalculia was not supported.

Binding and content updating in working memory tasks

Working memory updating can involve processing of either a specific memory content or a binding. So far, research has focused mainly on single contents as objects of updating, via recall accuracy measures. Here, we have addressed more direct measurement of the updating process (i.e., response times), assessing individually the role of single contents, as well as bindings. To this end, we compared two updating tasks from separate research traditions: a RT-based computer task and a classical accuracy-based task. The former consisted of trials where measures of content and binding updating were obtained, allowing a dissociation between these two components. The latter measured recall accuracy and intrusion rate for lists of words under different conditions of maintenance/inhibition. These results enable a better understanding of the updating process for the dual components of binding and content updating, and their potential role in an accuracy-based task. An overlap between the underlying components of updating tasks was demonstrated, specifically between binding updating RT and intrusion rate. Notably, binding updating appears to be a more sensitive measure in explaining results in the classical updating task.

Which factors influence number updating in working memory? The effects of size distance and suppression

Updating information in working memory is a critical process which makes possible to have available, at every moment, the information most relevant for mind operations. However, the specific mechanisms underlying the updating process have rarely been analysed. This paper examines the importance of two of the mechanisms implicated in a numerical updating task: item comparison and item substitution. The item comparison mechanism was studied by manipulating the size distance between items. The item substitution mechanism was investigated by increasing/decreasing the number of updates within trials. Furthermore, in order to examine the effects of time constraints, presentation rate was manipulated. Over three experiments, the results obtained highlighted that updating performance is mainly influenced by suppression request, even when the presentation rate is self-paced. However, errors depend on the distance between items. The implications of the results for the understanding of updating are discussed.

The specific role of inhibition in reading comprehension in good and poor comprehenders

Difficulties in inhibitory processes have been shown to characterize the performance of poor comprehenders. However, the inhibitory inefficiency of poor comprehenders is most often assessed by their resistance to proactive interference, that is, the ability to suppress off-goal task information from working memory (WM). In two studies tasks assessing resistance to proactive interference (intrusion errors), response to distracters (Text With Distracters task) and prepotent response inhibition (Stroop and Hayling tests), along with WM measures, were administered to children aged 10 to 11, both good and poor comprehenders. The aim of the study was to specifically determine whether general or specific inhibitory factors affect poor comprehenders' reading difficulties. Results showed that poor comprehenders, compared to good ones, are impaired in WM tasks and in inhibitory tasks that assess resistance to proactive interference. This suggests that reading comprehension difficulties of poor comprehenders are related to specific inhibitory problems.

Interference between storage and processing in working memory: Feature overwriting, not similarity-based competition

Eight experiments with the complex span paradigm are presented to investigate why concurrent processing disrupts short-term retention. Increasing the pace of the processing task led to worse recall, supporting the hypothesis that the processing task distracts attention from maintenance operations. Neither phonological nor semantic similarity between memory items and processing-task material impaired memory. In contrast, the degree of phonological overlap between memory items and processing-task material affected recall negatively, supporting feature overwriting as one source of interference in the complex span paradigm. When compared directly, phonological overlap impaired memory, but similarity had a beneficial effect. These findings rule out response competition or confusion as a mechanism of interference between storage and processing.

Working memory and inhibition across the adult life-span

Research has shown that age-related changes in cognitive performance are due mostly to the decline of general factors such as working memory and inhibition. The present study is aimed at investigating age-related changes in these mechanisms across the adult life-span from 20 to 86 years of age. Results indicate a linear relationship between each working memory measure and age, independently of the nature of the task, and a quadratic relationship between the single inhibitory measures and age. Moreover, hierarchical regression analyses show that inhibition accounts for a significant, but modest, part of the age-related variance in working memory. Taken together, these results suggest that inhibition is not as crucial a contributor of age-related changes in the functional capacity of working memory across the adult life-span as previously thought.

Does strategic memory training improve the working memory performance of younger and older adults?

The paper examines the effect of strategic training on the performance of younger and older adults in an immediate list-recall and a working memory task. The experimental groups of younger and older adults received three sessions of memory training, teaching the use of mental images to improve the memorization of word lists. In contrast, the control groups were not instructed to use any particular strategy, but they were requested to carry out the memory exercises. The results showed that strategic training improved performance of both the younger and older experimental groups in the immediate list recall and in the working memory task. Of particular interest, the improvement in working memory performance of the older experimental group was comparable to that of the younger experimental group.

Aging and the intrusion superiority effect in visuo-spatial working memory

This study investigated the active component of visuo-spatial working memory (VSWM) in younger and older adults testing the hypotheses that elderly individuals have a poorer performance than younger ones and that errors in active VSWM tasks depend, at least partially, on difficulties in avoiding intrusions (i.e., avoiding already activated information). In two experiments, participants were presented with sequences of matrices on which three positions were pointed out sequentially: their task was to process all the positions but indicate only the final position of each sequence. Results showed a poorer performance in the elderly compared to the younger group and a higher number of intrusion (errors due to activated but irrelevant positions) rather than invention (errors consisting of pointing out a position never indicated by the experiementer) errors. The number of errors increased when a concurrent task was introduced (Experiment 1) and it was affected by different patterns of matrices (Experiment 2). In general, results show that elderly people have an impaired VSWM and produce a large number of errors due to inhibition failures. However, both the younger and the older adults' visuo-spatial working memory was affected by the presence of activated irrelevant information, the reduction of the available resources, and task constraints.

Working memory, control of interference and everyday experience of thought interference: when age makes the difference

BACKGROUND AND AIMS

A number of studies suggest that age differences in working memory may be attributed to age-related differences in inhibitory efficacy. Nevertheless, little is known about the impact of intrusive thoughts, which occurs in everyday situations on working memory performance. This study investigates the role of cognitive and everyday inhibition mechanisms in working memory performance.

METHODS

Young, young-old and old-old adults performed a working memory task and the White Bear Suppression Inventory (WBSI).

RESULTS

Results showed a decrease in working memory, and in inhibitory efficacy with age. In addition, old-old adults obtained higher scores in the three factors of the WBSI. Working memory performance was related to working memory control of interfering information in all age groups, and also to the tendency to suppress thoughts in old-old adults. The latter result was in the opposite direction with respect to observations collected with younger adults.

CONCLUSIONS

Taken together, our results suggest the crucial role of intrusive thoughts in the functional capacity of working memory in late adulthood.

Reading Comprehension in Aging: The Role of Working Memory and Metacomprehension

This study examines age-related differences in reading comprehension analyzing the role of working memory and metacomprehension components in a sample of young (18-30 years), young-old (65-74 years), and old-old (75-85 years) participants. Text comprehension abilities were measured by a standardized test, including two texts: a narrative and an expository text. The elderly's reading comprehension performance, when compared to the norm, emerged to be adequate. More specifically, the young-old showed an equivalent level of comprehension as the young adults for the narrative text. However, a clear age-related decline was found in the case of the expository text. Hierarchical regression analyses showed that working memory capacity, as well as different metacomprehension components but not age, are the key aspects in explaining the different patterns of changes in the comprehension of narrative and expository texts.

Individual differences in working memory

Working memory can be defined as the ability to hold in mind information in the face of potentially interfering distraction in order to guide behavior. The experimental manipulation of working memory tasks has shed considerable light on the probable structure of the human working memory system, and, to a lesser extent, the specific processes captured by working memory paradigms. However, individual differences research has also had a crucial role to play in the development of theories of working memory. In particular, correlational approaches have been particularly informative in three areas of working memory research, each of which is reviewed here. These are, first, the importance of working memory measures as correlates of high-level cognitive skills such as reading, mathematics, reasoning, and fluid intelligence; second, the extent to which human working memory relies on domain-general or domain-specific component subsystems, and third, the precise reasons why working memory measures do relate to other important indices of human cognitive functioning. The findings from each of these areas suggest that working memory depends on a combination of domain-specific representational systems and domain-general processing and control systems, and that working memory measures capture individuals' ability to combine maintenance and processing demands in a manner that limits information loss from forgetting or distraction.

Intrusion errors in visuospatial working memory performance

This study tested the hypothesis that failure in active visuospatial working memory tasks involves a difficulty in avoiding intrusions due to information that is already activated. Two experiments are described, in which participants were required to process several series of locations on a 4 x 4 matrix and then to produce only the final location of each series. Results revealed a higher number of errors due to already activated locations (intrusions) compared with errors due to new locations (inventions). Moreover, when participants were required to pay extra attention to some irrelevant (non-final) locations by tapping on the table, intrusion errors increased. Results are discussed in terms of current models of working memory functioning.

Updating in working memory: A comparison of good and poor comprehenders

In this research, we examined the relation between reading comprehension and success in a working memory updating task. We tested the hypotheses that poor comprehenders' deficiencies are associated with a specific difficulty in the working memory updating process, particularly in controlling for information that is no longer relevant. In the first experiment, groups of poor and good comprehenders, ages 8-11 years, were administered a working memory updating task. In the second experiment a year later, a subgroup of participants involved in the first experiment was tested with a different updating task. In both experiments, poor comprehenders had less accurate recall performance and made more intrusion errors than did good comprehenders. Moreover, distinguishing intrusion errors on the basis of their permanence in memory, we found that poor comprehenders were more likely to intrude items that were maintained longer in memory than were good comprehenders. This type of error predicted reading comprehension abilities better than did working memory recall. This suggests that the relation between reading comprehension and working memory is mediated by the ability to control for irrelevant information.

Difficulties in the control of irrelevant visuospatial information in children with visuospatial learning disabilities

This research tested the hypothesis that children's difficulties in visuospatial working memory (VSWM) may mirror difficulties found with verbal working memory tasks in other categories of children. Two experiments compared the number of correct responses and errors in groups of visuospatial learning disabled children (VSLD) and Controls who were engaged in an active task testing visuospatial working memory. Children were presented with sequences of positions on a 4x4 matrix and were subsequently asked to remember only the last position of each series. In the first Experiment, VSLD children showed greater difficulty in both recalling the last positions and avoiding the irrelevant non-final positions compared with Controls. In the second experiment children of different age groups (second-graders and fifth-graders) were also required to stress, by tapping on the table, the irrelevant positions whenever the experimenter pointed to a coloured cell. Results showed that the number of errors was greater in the VSLD children, and the pattern of errors differed with their grade. In particular, the increased activation of stressed locations produced an increase of correct responses, and a decrease of intrusion errors, except in the case of VSLD second-graders, who made a higher number of intrusions for stressed than for unstressed locations. Results confirm that children with VSLD show a specific deficit in active VSWM, and in particular, in the ability to avoid intrusion errors. In general, the control of irrelevant information appears critical for a successful use of VSWM.