Working memory, an important posit in cognitive science, allows one to temporarily store and manipulate information in the service of ongoing tasks. Working memory has been traditionally classified as an explicit memory system – that is, as operating on and maintaining only consciously perceived information. Recently, however, several studies have questioned this assumption, purporting to provide evidence for unconscious working memory. In this paper, we focus on visual working memory and critically (...) examine these studies as well as studies of unconscious perception that seem to provide indirect evidence for unconscious working memory. Our analysis indicates that current evidence does not support an unconscious working memory store, though we offer independent reasons to think that working memory may operate on unconsciously perceived information. (shrink)

Working memory is thought to be the psychological capacity that enables us to maintain or manipulate information no longer in our environment for goal-directed action. Recent work argues that working memory is not a so-called natural kind and in turn cannot explain the cognitive processes attributed to it. This paper first clarifies the scope of this earlier critique and argues for a pluralist account of working memory. Under this account, working memory is (...) variously realized by many mechanisms that contribute to the maintenance and manipulation of information across tasks. This view in effect updates one of the earliest pluralist formulations of working memory. Juxtaposing this view against deflationary descriptions allows us to delineate two gradients that help us chart various accounts of working memory and identify their respective theoretical commitments. In turn, we can isolate those accounts that fail to accord with the evidence supporting a pluralist view, and we can begin to rehabilitate working memory as a pluralist, and ultimately more informative, construct. (shrink)

'Working Memory, Thought, and Action' is the magnum opus of one of the most influential cognitive psychologists of the past 50 years. This new volume on the model he created (with Grahame Hitch) discusses the developments that have occurred within the model in the past twenty years, and places it within a broader context.

Working memory capacity (WMC) refers to the ability to maintain information in short–term memory while attending to the immediate environment, and has been associated with emotional states. Yet, research on the link between WMC and emotion in naturalistic settings is growing and inconsistencies have been observed. In the current study (N = 109), we directly replicated the procedures of a prior experience sampling study (Garrison & Schmeichel, 2022), which found that higher WMC attenuates the relationship between stressful (...) events in daily life and negative affect. We measured WMC in the laboratory and then measured the occurrence of stressful events, momentary emotional states, and coping responses to stress several times a day for six days. Higher WMC was associated with reduced momentary negative emotion, but this relationship did not depend on the occurrence of a stressful event. Exploratory analyses found that higher WMC was associated with a greater likelihood of planning as a coping response to stress and greater number of coping strategies reported per stressful event. However, coping did not mediate the link between WMC and momentary negative emotion. Our results contribute to the robustness and ecological validity of the link between WMC and reduced negative emotion in daily life. (shrink)

This study examines the working memory systems involved in human wayfinding. In the learning phase, 24 participants learned two routes in a novel photorealistic virtual environment displayed on a 220° screen while they were disrupted by a visual, a spatial, a verbal, or—in a control group—no secondary task. In the following wayfinding phase, the participants had to find and to “virtually walk” the two routes again. During this wayfinding phase, a number of dependent measures were recorded. This research (...) shows that encoding wayfinding knowledge interfered with the verbal and with the spatial secondary task. These interferences were even stronger than the interference of wayfinding knowledge with the visual secondary task. These findings are consistent with a dual‐coding approach of wayfinding knowledge. (shrink)

This target article discusses the verbal working memory system used in sentence comprehension. We review the concept of working memory as a short-duration system in which small amounts of information are simultaneously stored and manipulated in the service of accomplishing a task. We summarize the argument that syntactic processing in sentence comprehension requires such a storage and computational system. We then ask whether the working memory system used in syntactic processing is the same as (...) that used in verbally mediated tasks that involve conscious controlled processing. Evidence is brought to bear from various sources: the relationship between individual differences in working memory and individual differences in the efficiency of syntactic processing; the effect of concurrent verbal memory load on syntactic processing; and syntactic processing in patients with poor short-term memory, patients with poor working memory, and patients with aphasia. Experimental results from these normal subjects and patients with various brain lesions converge on the conclusion that there is a specialization in the verbal working memory system for assigning the syntactic structure of a sentence and using that structure in determining sentence meaning that is separate from the working memory system underlying the use of sentence meaning to accomplish other functions. We present a theory of the divisions of the verbal working memory system and suggestions regarding its neural basis. (shrink)

Working memory is a capability that animals and people use to store information over a period of seconds or minutes, so that the information can be used, on the spot, to perform an action or make a decision. At the bedside, a neurologist might ask a patient to repeat a novel sentence. In days gone by, a person might take a telephone number from a phone book and use it to dial the telephone without looking at the printed (...) number. Later, that person will probably forget the number. Working memory is experimentally studied in people with psychological tests and simultaneous measurements of neuronal activity using tools such as fMRI (functional magnetic resonance imaging), EEG (electroencephalography), and MEG (magnetoencephalography): what parts of the brain become activated, and does working memory have detectable and interesting physical correlates? [Interestingly, working memory in human volunteers is improved with cholinergic enhancement (Furey et al. Proc Natl Acad Sci USA 94:6512–6516, 1997), a pharmacological mechanism important in attention and in other specific cognitive tasks (Sarter and Lustig, Curr Opin Psychol 29:102–107, 2019) – see Chap. 11 on neocortical delta waves.]. (shrink)

Visual working memory is a construct hypothesized to store a small amount of accurate perceptual information that can be brought to bear on a task. Much research concerns the construct's capacity and the precision of the information stored. Two prominent theories of VWM representation have emerged: slot-based and continuous-resource mechanisms. Prior modeling work suggests that a continuous resource that varies over trials with variable capacity and a potential to make localization errors best accounts for the empirical data. Questions (...) remain regarding the variability in VWM capacity and precision. Using a novel eye-tracking paradigm, we demonstrate that VWM facilitates search and exhibits effects of fixation frequency and recency, particularly for prior targets. Whereas slot-based memory models cannot account for the human data, a novel continuous-resource model does capture the behavioral and eye tracking data, and identifies the relevant resource as item activation. (shrink)

High temporal resolution event-related brain potential and electroencephalographic coherence studies of the neural substrate of short-term storage in working memory indicate that the sustained coactivation of both prefrontal cortex and the posterior cortical systems that participate in the initial perception and comprehension of the retained information are involved in its storage. These studies further show that short-term storage mechanisms involve an increase in neural synchrony between prefrontal cortex and posterior cortex and the enhanced activation of long-term memory (...) representations of material held in short-term memory. This activation begins during the encoding/comprehension phase and evidently is prolonged into the retention phase by attentional drive from prefrontal cortex control systems. A parsimonious interpretation of these findings is that the long-term memory systems associated with the posterior cortical processors provide the necessary representational basis for working memory, with the property of short-term memory decay being primarily due to the posterior system. In this view, there is no reason to posit specialized neural systems whose functions are limited to those of short-term storage buffers. Prefrontal cortex provides the attentional pointer system for maintaining activation in the appropriate posterior processing systems. Short-term memory capacity and phenomena such as displacement of information in short-term memory are determined by limitations on the number of pointers that can be sustained by the prefrontal control systems. Key Words: coherence; event-related potentials; imaging; long-term memory; memory; short-term memory; working memory. (shrink)

There is a wealth of evidence showing that increasing the distance between an argument and its head leads to more processing effort, namely, locality effects; these are usually associated with constraints in working memory (DLT: Gibson, 2000 ; activation-based model: Lewis and Vasishth, 2005 ). In SOV languages, however, the opposite effect has been found: antilocality (see discussion in Levy et al., 2013 ). Antilocality effects can be explained by the expectation-based approach as proposed by Levy ( 2008 (...) ) or by the activation-based model of sentence processing as proposed by Lewis and Vasishth ( 2005 ). We report an eye-tracking and a self-paced reading study with sentences in Spanish together with measures of individual differences to examine the distinction between expectation- and memory-based accounts, and within memory-based accounts the further distinction between DLT and the activation-based model. The experiments show that (i) antilocality effects as predicted by the expectation account appear only for high-capacity readers; (ii) increasing dependency length by interposing material that modifies the head of the dependency (the verb) produces stronger facilitation than increasing dependency length with material that does not modify the head; this is in agreement with the activation-based model but not with the expectation account; and (iii) a possible outcome of memory load on low-capacity readers is the increase in regressive saccades (locality effects as predicted by memory-based accounts) or, surprisingly, a speedup in the self-paced reading task; the latter consistent with good-enough parsing (Ferreira et al., 2002 ). In sum, the study suggests that individual differences in working memory capacity play a role in dependency resolution, and that some of the aspects of dependency resolution can be best explained with the activation-based model together with a prediction component. (shrink)

A working memory (WM) deficit is a reliable observation in people experiencing anxiety. Whether the level of anxiety is related to the severity of WM difficulties is still an open question. In the present experiment, we investigated this aspect by testing the WM performance of people with different levels of anxiety symptoms. Participants were grouped according to self-report anxiety into a control group with low anxiety scores and an experimental group with clinically relevant anxiety. The experimental group was (...) then divided into a high anxiety group and a severe anxiety group. Participants performed a battery of WM tasks tagging different WM processes. The results showed that, compared to participants with low anxiety, participants with clinically relevant anxiety scores had reduced accuracy in all the WM tasks. Interestingly, participants with high and severe anxiety did not present any significant difference. Anxious participants showed difficulties also in cognitive domains other than WM. Hence, these results supply reliable evidence that people with clinically relevant anxiety scores present WM difficulties, irrespective of symptoms severity. The observation that anxiety compromises performance also in cognitive domains other than WM suggests that the deficit might affect fluid cognition. (shrink)

Working memory is a foundational construct of cognitive psychology, where it is thought to be a capacity that enables us to keep information in mind and to use that information to support goal directed behavior. Philosophers have recently employed working memory to explain central cognitive processes, from consciousness to reasoning. In this paper, I show that working memory cannot meet even a minimal account of natural kindhood, as the functions of maintenance and manipulation of (...) information that tie working memory models and theories together do not have a coherent or univocal realizer in the brain. As such, working memory cannot explain central cognition. Rather, I argue that working memory merely redescribes its target phenomenon, and in doing so it obfuscates relevant distinctions amongst the many ways that brains like ours retain and transform information in the service of cognition. While this project ultimately erodes the explanatory role that working memory has played in our understanding of cognition, it simultaneously prompts us to evaluate the function of natural kinds within cognitive science, and signals the need for a productive pessimism to frame our future study of cognitive categories. (shrink)

Working Memory plays a crucial role in many high-level cognitive processes . The prevalent view holds that active components of WM are predominantly intentional and conscious. This conception is oftentimes expressed explicitly, but it is best reflected in the nature of major WM tasks: All of them are blatantly explicit. We developed two new WM paradigms that allow for an examination of the role of conscious awareness in WM. Results from five studies show that WM can operate unintentionally (...) and outside of conscious awareness, thus suggesting that the current view should be expanded to include implicit WM. (shrink)

The capacity of visual working memory (VWM) refers to the amount of visual information that can be maintained in mind at once, readily accessible for ongoing tasks. In healthy young adults, the capacity limit of VWM corresponds to about three simple objects. While some researchers argued that VWM capacity becomes adult-like in early years of life, others claimed that the capacity of VWM continues to develop beyond middle childhood. Here we assessed whether VWM capacity reaches adult levels in (...) adolescence. Using an adaptation of the visual change detection task, we measured visual working memory capacity estimates in 13 year-olds, 16-year-olds, and young adults. We tested whether the capacity estimates observed in early or later years of adolescence were comparable to the estimates obtained from adults. Our results demonstrated that the capacity of VWM continues to develop throughout adolescence, not reaching adult levels even in 16 year-olds. These findings suggest that VWM capacity displays a prolonged development, similar to the protracted trajectories observed in various other aspects of cognition. (shrink)

Working Memory (WM) skills of individuals with Down’s syndrome DS tend to be very poor compared to typically developing children of similar mental age. In particular, research has found that in individuals with DS visuo-spatial WM is better preserved than verbal WM. This study investigated whether is possible to train Short-Term Memory (STM) and WM abilities in individuals with DS. The cases of two teenage children are reported: E.H., 17 years and 3 months, and A.S., 15 years (...) and 11 months. A school-based treatment targeting visuo-spatial WM was given to E.H. and A.S. for six weeks. Both prior to and after the treatment, they completed a set of assessments to measure WM abilities and their performance was compared with younger typically developing nonverbal mental age controls. The results showed that the trained participants improved their performance in some of the trained and non-trained WM tasks proposed, especially with regard to the tasks assessing visuo-spatial WM abilities. These findings are discussed on the basis of their theoretical, educational and clinical implications. (shrink)

Recent advances in philosophical thinking about consciousness, such as cognitive phenomenology and mereological analysis, provide a framework that facilitates using computational models to explore issues surrounding the nature of consciousness. Here we suggest that, in particular, studying the computational mechanisms of working memory and its cognitive control is highly likely to identify computational correlates of consciousness and thereby lead to a deeper understanding of the nature of consciousness. We describe our recent computational models of human working (...) class='Hi'>memory and propose that three computational correlates of consciousness follow from the results of this work: itinerant attractor sequences, top-down gating, and very fast weight changes. Our current investigation is focused on evaluating whether these three correlates are sufficient to create more complex working memory models that encompass compositionality and basic causal inference. We conclude that computational models of working memory are likely to be a fruitful approach to advancing our understanding of consciousness in general and in determining the long-term potential for development of an artificial consciousness specifically. (shrink)

Preschool children have been proven to possess nonsymbolic approximate arithmetic skills before learning how to manipulate symbolic math and thus before any formal math instruction. It has been assumed that nonsymbolic approximate math tasks necessitate the allocation of Working Memory (WM) resources. WM has been consistently shown to be an important predictor of children's math development and achievement. The aim of our study was to uncover the specific role of WM in nonsymbolic approximate math. For this purpose, we (...) conducted a dual-task study with preschoolers with active phonological, visual, spatial, and central executive interference during the completion of a nonsymbolic approximate addition dot task. With regard to the role of WM, we found a clear performance breakdown in the central executive interference condition. Our findings provide insight into the underlying cognitive processes involved in storing and manipulating nonsymbolic approximate numerosities during early arithmetic. (shrink)

As they process complex linguistic input, language comprehenders must maintain a mapping between lexical items (e.g., morphemes) and their syntactic position in the sentence. We propose a model of how these morpheme-position bindings are encoded, maintained, and reaccessed in working memory, based on working memory models such as “serial-order-in-a-box” and its SOB-Complex Span version. Like those models, our model of linguistic working memory derives a range of attested memory interference effects from the process (...) of binding items to positions in working memory. We present simulation results capturing similarity-based interference as well as item distortion effects. Our model provides a unified account of these two major classes of interference effects in sentence processing, attributing both types of effects to an associative memory architecture underpinning linguistic computation. (shrink)

The paper investigates relationship between working memory efficiency, defined as the result of its’ processing & storage capacity (Oberauer et al., 2003) and the tendency to (1) create assosiative memory distortions (false memories, FM); (2) yield under the influence of external, suggesting factors. Both issues were examined using extended version of Deese-Roediger-McDermott procedure (1959, 1995), modified in order to meet the study demands. Suggestion was contained in an ostentatious feedback information the participants (N=88) received during the DRM (...) procedure. Working memory (WM) was measured by standardized tasks (n-back, Jaeggi et al., 2010; automatic-ospan, Unsworth et al., 2005). Study included 3 conditions, differing in the quality of suggestion (positive, negative or neutral). Participants were assigned into 3 groups, depending on results they achieved completing the WM tasks. Obtained results alongside the previously set hypothesis, revealed that (1) WM impacts individuals’ tendency to create false memories in DRM and (2) that the individuals showing higher rates in WM tasks are less willing to yield to suggestion compared to those with lesser ones. It also showed that the greater amount to shift (Gudjonsson, 2003), emerges under the negative suggestion condition (collating positive). Notwithstanding that the interaction effect did not achieve saliency, both analyzed factors (WM and suggesting content) are considered as meaningful to explain memory suggestion susceptibility in presented study. Although, obtained results emphasize the crucial role of WM efficiency, that is believed to decide the magnitude of feedback that is influential in every subject. Therefore, issue demands further exploration. (shrink)

Angry faces have been shown to be detected more efficiently in a crowd of distractors compared to happy faces, known as the anger superiority effect (ASE). The present study investigated whether the ASE could be modified by top-down manipulation of working memory (WM), in central and peripheral visual fields. In central vision, participants held a colour in WM for a final memory test while simultaneously performing a visual search task that required them to determine whether a face (...) showed a different expression from other coloured faces. The colour held in WM matched either the colour of the target face (target-matching), the colour of a distractor face (distractor-matching), or neither (non-matching). Results showed that the ASE was observed when the probability of target-matching trials was low. However, when the top-down WM effect was strengthened by raising the probability of target-matching trials, the ASE in the target-matching condition was completely eliminated. Intriguingly, when the visual search task was substituted by a peripheral crowding task, similar results to central vision were found in the target-matching condition. Taken together, our findings indicate that the ASE is subject to the top-down WM effect, regardless of the visual field. (shrink)

People unfamiliar with Chinese characters show poorer visual working memory (VWM) performance for Chinese characters than do literates in Chinese. In a series of experiments, we investigated the reasons for this expertise advantage. Experiments 1 and 2 showed that the advantage of Chinese literates does not transfer to novel material. Experts had similar resolution as novices for material outside of their field of expertise, and the memory of novices and experts did not differ when detecting a big (...) change, e.g., when a character’s color was changed. Memorizing appears to function as a rather abstract representation of word forms because memory for characters’ fonts was poor independently of expertise (Experiment 3), though still visual. Distractors that were highly similar conceptually did not increase memory errors, but visually similar distractors impaired memory (Experiment 4). We hypothesized that literates in Chinese represent characters in VWM as tokens of visual word forms made available by long-term memory. In Experiment 5, we provided novices with visual word form knowledge. Participants subsequently performed a change detection task with trained and novel characters in a functional magnetic resonance experiment. We analyzed set size- and training-dependent effects in the intraparietal sulcus (IPS) and the visual word form area. VWM for trained characters was better than for novel characters. Neural activity increased with set size and at a slower rate for trained than for novel characters. All conditions approached the same maximum, but novel characters reached the maximum at a smaller set size than trained characters. The time course of the bold response depended on set size and knowledge status. Starting from the same initial maximum, neural activity at small set sizes returned to baseline more quickly for trained characters than for novel characters. Additionally, high performers showed generally more neural activity in the IPS than low performers. We conclude that experts’ better performance in working memory (WM) is caused by the availability of visual long-term representations (word form types) that allow a sparse representation of the perceived stimuli and make even small changes big because they cause a type change that is easily detected. (shrink)

Four experiments assessed the relative involvement of different working memory components in two types of reasoning tasks: propositional and spatial reasoning. Using the secondary-task methodology, visual, central-executive, and phonological loads were realised. Although the involvement of visuospatial resources in propositional reasoning has traditionally been considered to be small, an overall analysis of the present data suggests an alternative account. A theoretical analysis of the pattern of results in terms of Evans' (1984, 1989) twostage theory of reasoning is proposed (...) and tested in Experiments 3 and 4, in which direct evidence for the alternative account was obtained: significant disruption of propositional reasoning by a concurrent spatial load. (shrink)

Two experiments examined the contribution of working memory (WM) to the retrieval and inhibition of background knowledge about counterexamples (alternatives and disablers, Cummins, ) during conditional reasoning. Experiment 1 presented a conditional reasoning task with everyday, causal conditionals to a group of people with high and low WM spans. High spans rejected the logically invalid AC and DA inferences to a greater extent than low spans, whereas low spans accepted the logically valid MP and MT inferences less frequently (...) than high spans. In Experiment 2, an executive-attention-demanding secondary task was imposed during the reasoning task. Findings corroborate that WM resources are used for retrieval of stored counterexamples and that people with high WM spans will use WM resources to inhibit the counterexample activation when the type of counterexample conflicts with the logical validity of the reasoning problem. (shrink)

Working memory is the system responsible for maintaining and manipulating information, in the face of ongoing distraction. In turn, WM span is perceived to be an individual-differences construct reflecting the limited capacity of this system. Recently, however, there has been some evidence to suggest that WM capacity can increase through training, raising the possibility that training can functionally alter the neural structures supporting WM. To address the hypothesis that the neural substrates underlying WM are targeted by training, we (...) conducted a meta-analysis of functional magnetic resonance imaging studies of WM training using Activation Likelihood Estimation. Our results demonstrate that WM training is associated exclusively with decreases in blood oxygenation level-dependent responses in clusters within the fronto-parietal system that underlie WM, including the bilateral inferior parietal lobule, middle and superior frontal gyri, and medial frontal gyrus bordering on the cingulate gyrus. We discuss the various psychological and physiological mechanisms that could be responsible for the observed reductions in the BOLD signal in relation to WM training, and consider their implications for the construct of WM span as a limited resource. (shrink)

Working-memory retention as activated long-term memory fails to capture orchestrated processing and storage, the hallmark of the concept of working memory. The event-related potential (ERP) data are compatible with working memory as a mental workspace that holds and manipulates information on line, which is distinct from long-term memory, and deals with the products of activated traces from stored knowledge.

Systematic errors In performance are an important aspect of human behavior that have not received adequate explanation. One such systematic error is termed postcompletion error; a typical example is leaving one's card In the automatic teller after withdrawing cash. This type of error seems to occur when people have an extra step to perform in a procedure after the main goal has been satisfied. The fact that people frequently make this type of error, but do not make this error every (...) time, may best be explained by considering the working memory load at the time the step is to be performed: The error is made when the load on working memory is high, but will not be made when the load is low. A model of performance In the task was constructed using Just and Carpenter's (1992) CAPS that predicted that high working memory load should be associated with postcompletion errors. Two experiments confirmed that such errors can be produced in a laboratory as well as a naturalistic setting, and that the conditions under which the CAPS model makes the error are consistent with the conditions under which the errors occur in the laboratory. (shrink)

Working memory is a cognitive process that involves maintaining and manipulating information for a short period of time. WM is central to many cognitive processes and declines rapidly with age. Deficits in WM are seen in older adults and in patients with dementia, schizophrenia, major depression, mild cognitive impairment, Alzheimer’s disease, etc. The frontal, parietal, and occipital cortices are significantly involved in WM processing and all brain oscillations are implicated in tackling WM tasks, particularly theta and gamma bands. (...) The theta/gamma neural code hypothesis assumes that retained memory items are recorded via theta-nested gamma cycles. Neuronal oscillations can be manipulated by sensory, invasive- and non-invasive brain stimulations. Transcranial alternating-current stimulation and repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation are frequency-tuned non-invasive brain stimulation techniques that have been used to entrain endogenous oscillations in a frequency-specific manner. Compared to rTMS, tACS demonstrates superior cost, tolerability, portability, and safety profile, making it an attractive potential tool for improving cognitive performance. Although cognitive research with tACS is still in its infancy compared to rTMS, a number of studies have shown a promising WM enhancement effect, especially in the elderly and patients with cognitive deficits. This review focuses on the various methods and outcomes of tACS on WM in healthy and unhealthy human adults and highlights the established findings, unknowns, challenges, and perspectives important for translating laboratory tACS into realistic clinical settings. This will allow researchers to identify gaps in the literature and develop frequency-tuned tACS protocols with promising safety and efficacy outcomes. Therefore, research efforts in this direction should help to consider frequency-tuned tACS as a non-pharmacological tool of cognitive rehabilitation in physiological aging and patients with cognitive deficits. (shrink)

Concurrent working memory task reduces available attentional control resources to perform the flanker task. However, controversy exists as to whether concurrent WM task increases or decreases flanker-related N2 amplitude. In a flanker task experiment, individuals were confronted with a low, middle, or high WM load task, while electroencephalography data were recorded. The ERP results showed a larger flanker-related N2 amplitude while completing a middle or high WM load task compared to a low one. However, completing an additional high (...) WM load task could not increase flanker-related N2 amplitude versus completing an additional middle WM load task. In sum, these results suggest that WM load can impair top-down cognitive control processes, thereby hampering flanker task performance. Importantly, the present study supports the account of flanker-related N2 processes linked to top-down attentional control resource allocation, but challenges the account of flanker-related N2 reflecting response conflict processes. (shrink)

Although working memory and information processing speed impairments in multiple sclerosis have been widely investigated, several questions, regarding the nature of these impairments and their relationship, remain unclear. The aim of this short communication article is to present an overview of our recent research findings regarding the characteristics of WM impairment in MS patients and, more precisely, the degree of impairment observed in each WM’s component, i.e., phonological loop, visuospatial sketchpad, central executive, and episodic buffer and the relationship (...) between IPS and each of the four WM components, in an attempt to expand the existing rather narrow understanding of the interconnection between reduced IPS and WM impairment. Two studies of our research team are presented here and their findings are briefly discussed, highlighting the importance of further research on a specific component, namely the episodic buffer component among MS patients. (shrink)

It is well established that math anxiety has a negative relationship with math performance. A few theories have provided explanations for this relationship. One of them, the Attentional Control Theory, suggests that anxiety can negatively impact the attentional control system and increase one's attention to threat-related stimuli. Within the ACT framework, the math anxiety —working memory relationship is argued to be critical for math performance. The present meta-analyses provides insights into the mechanisms of the MA—MP relation and the (...) mediating role of WM. Through database searches with pre-determined search strings, 1,346 unique articles were identified. After excluding non-relevant studies, data from 57 studies and 150 effect sizes were used for investigating the MA—MP correlation using a random-effects model. This resulted in a mean correlation of r = −0.168. The database search of WM as a mediator for the MA—MP relation revealed 15 effects sizes leading to a descriptive rather than a generalizable statistic, with a mean indirect effect size of −0.092. Overall, the results confirm the ACT theory, WM does play a significant role in the MA—MP relationship. (shrink)

The ability to reason independently from one's own goals or beliefs has long been recognised as a key characteristic of the development of formal operational thought. In this article we present the results of a study that examined the correlates of this ability in a group of 10-year-old children ( N = 61). Participants were presented with conditional and relational reasoning items, where the content was manipulated such that the conclusion to the arguments were either congruent, neutral, or incongruent with (...) beliefs, and either logically valid or logically invalid. Participants also received a measure of working memory capacity (the counting span task) and a measure of inhibitory control (the stop signal task). Indices of belief bias and logical reasoning on belief-based problems were predicted independently by both measures. In contrast logical reasoning on belief neutral problems was predicted by working memory alone. The findings suggest that executive functions play a key role in the development of children's ability to decontextualise their thinking. (shrink)

Working memory training (WMT) has recently become one of the most debated issues in the field of cognitive psychology. Since working memory (WM) is considered a strong correlate of IQ, numerous researchers have been trying to increase the latter by training the former. Proven effectiveness of working memory training could lead to its application in the therapy of many cognitive impairments. WMT could be also used as a tool of improving cognitive functioning of healthy (...) subjects. However, almost every publication claiming to provide evidence for achieving one of above mentioned objectives has been criticised, mostly because of methodological shortcomings. The aim of my presentation is to extract potential sources of inconsistencies existing between the authors of meta-analysis and reviews of WMT research. For this reason I take a closer look at results and conclusions of several meta-analysis and reviews. As a result I point few indications that should be taken into consideration in future studies on WMT effectiveness. (shrink)

As interest in working memory is increasing at a rapid pace, an open discussion of the central issues involved is both useful and timely. This new volume compares and contrasts conceptions of working memory, with contributions from proponents of different views.

The Centered Mind offers a new view of the nature and causal determinants of both reflective thinking and, more generally, the stream of consciousness. Peter Carruthers argues that conscious thought is always sensory-based, relying on the resources of the working-memory system. This system enables sensory images to be sustained and manipulated through attentional signals directed at midlevel sensory areas of the brain. When abstract conceptual representations are bound into these images, we consciously experience ourselves as making judgments or (...) arriving at decisions. However, our amodal (non-sensory) propositional attitudes are never actually among the contents of this stream of conscious reflection. Our beliefs, goals, and decisions are only ever active in the background of consciousness, working behind the scenes. They are never themselves conscious.Drawing on extensive knowledge of the scientific literature on working memory and related topics, Carruthers challenges the central assumptions of many philosophers. In addition to arguing that non-sensory propositional attitudes are never conscious, he also shows that they are never under direct intentional control. Written with his usual clarity and directness, The Centered Mind will be essential reading for all philosophers and cognitive scientists interested in the nature of human thought processes. (shrink)

Various kinds of observations show that the ability of human beings to both consciously relive past events – episodic memory – and conceive future events, entails an active process of construction. This construction process also underpins many other important aspects of conscious human life, such as perceptions, language and conscious thinking. This article provides an explanation of what makes the constructive process possible and how it works. The process mainly relies on attentional activity, which has a discrete and periodic (...) nature, and working memory, which allows for the combination of discrete attentional operations. An explanation is also provided of how past and future events are constructed. (shrink)

The current conceptualization of working memory highlights its pivotal role in the cognitive control of goal-directed behaviour, for example, by keeping task-priorities and relevant information ‘online’. Evidence has accumulated, however, that working memory contents can automatically misdirect attention and observers can only exert little intentional control to overcome irrelevant contents held in memory that are known to be misleading for behaviour. The authors discuss extant evidence on this topic and argue that obligatory functional coupling between (...) working memory and attentional selection reflects a default property of the brain which is hardwired in overlapping substrates for memory and perception. They further argue that the neuroanatomical substrates for working memory biases in vision are distinct from the classical fronto-parietal networks involved in attentional control and distinct from the mechanisms that mediate attention biases from long-term memory. Finally the authors present emerging evidence that working memory ‘guiding’ processes may operate outside conscious awareness. (shrink)

The identity of working-memory and long-term memory representations follows from many lines of evidence. However, the data provided by Ruchkin et al. are hardly compelling, as they make unproved assumptions about hypothetical generators. We cite studies from our lab in which congruent slow-wave topographies were found for short-term and long-term memory tasks, strongly suggesting that both activate identical cell assemblies.

We examined whether positive and negative affect motivates verbal and spatial working memory processes, respectively, which have implications for the expenditure of mental effort. We argue that when emotion promotes cognitive tendencies that are goal incompatible with task demands, greater cognitive effort is required to perform well. We sought to investigate whether this increase in cognitive effort impairs behavioural control over a broad domain of self-control tasks. Moreover, we predicted that individuals with higher behavioural inhibition system (BIS) sensitivities (...) would report more negative affect within the goal incompatible conditions because such individuals report higher negative affect during cognitive challenge. Positive or negative affective states were induced followed by completing a verbal or spatial 2-back working memory task. All participants then completed one of three self-control tasks. Overall, we observed that conditions of emotion and working memory incompatibility (positive/spatial and negative/verbal) performed worse on the self-control tasks, and within the incompatible conditions individuals with higher BIS sensitivities reported more negative affect at the end of the study. The combination of findings suggests that emotion and working memory compatibility reduces cognitive effort and impairs behavioural control. (shrink)

Researchers have postulated that deficits in cognitive control are associated with, and thus may underlie, the perseverative thinking that characterises generalised anxiety disorder. We examined associations between cognitive control and levels of spontaneous state rumination following a stressor in a sample of healthy control participants and participants with GAD. We assessed cognitive control by measuring working memory capacity, defined as the ability to maintain task-relevant information by ignoring task-irrelevant information. To this end, we used an affective version of (...) the reading span task with valenced distractors. Lower WMC in the presence of negative distractors was associated with greater state rumination in the GAD group, but not in the CTL group. These findings suggest that difficulty maintaining task-relevant information due to interference from negative distractors contributes to perseverative thinking in GAD. (shrink)

Working memory (WM) deficits are pervasive co-morbidities of epilepsy. Although the pathophysiological mechanisms underpinning these impairments remain elusive, it is thought that WM depends on oscillatory interactions within and between nodes of large-scale functional networks. These include the hippocampus and default mode network as well as the prefrontal cortex and frontoparietal central executive network. Here, we review the functional roles of neural oscillations in subserving WM and the putative mechanisms by which epilepsy disrupts normative activity, leading to aberrant (...) oscillatory signatures. We highlight the particular role of interictal epileptic activity, including interictal epileptiform discharges and high frequency oscillations (HFOs) in WM deficits. We also discuss the translational opportunities presented by greater understanding of the oscillatory basis of WM function and dysfunction in epilepsy, including potential targets for neuromodulation. (shrink)

The paper presents an experimental evidence on differences in the sentence-picture verification under additional memory load between parity and proportional quantifiers. We asked subjects to memorize strings of 4 or 6 digits, then to decide whether a quantifier sentence is true at a given picture, and finally to recall the initially given string of numbers. The results show that: (a) proportional quantifiers are more difficult than parity quantifiers with respect to reaction time and accuracy; (b) maintaining either 4 or (...) 6 elements in the working memory has the same effect on the processing of parity quantifiers; (c) however, in the case of proportional quantifiers subjects performed better in the verification tasks under the 6-digit load condition, and (d) even though the strings of 4 numbers were better recalled by subjects after judging parity there is no difference between quantifiers in the case of the 6-element condition. We briefly outline two alternative explanations for the observed phenomena rooted in the computational model of quantifier verification and the different theories of working memory. (shrink)

The purpose of this study was to compare working memory (WM), executive function, academic ability and problem classroom behaviors in children aged 8 to 11 years who were either identified via routine screening as having low WM, or had been diagnosed with ADHD. Standardised assessments of WM, executive function and reading and mathematics were administered to 83 children with ADHD, 50 children with low WM and 50 typically developing children. Teachers rated problem behaviors on checklists measuring attention, hyperactivity/impulsivity, (...) oppositional behavior, and difficulties associated with executive function in the classroom. The ADHD and low WM groups had highly similar WM and executive function profiles, but were distinguished in two key respects: children with ADHD had higher levels of rated and observed impulsive behavior, and children low WM had slower response times. Possible mechanisms for these common and distinct deficits are discussed. (shrink)

Many studies have shown that about three biological motions can be maintained in working memory. However, no study has yet analyzed the difficulties of experiment materials used, which partially affect the ecological validity of the experiment results. We use the perspective of system anatomy to decompose BM, and thoroughly explore the influencing factors of difficulties of BMs, including presentation duration, joints to execute motions, limbs to execute motions, type of articulation interference tasks, and number of joints and planes (...) involved in the BM. We apply the change detection paradigm supplemented by the articulation interference task to measure the BM working memory capacity of participants. Findings show the following: the shorter the presentation duration, the less participants remembered; the more their wrist moved, the less accurate their memory was; repeating verbs provided better results than did repeating numerals to suppress verbal encoding; the more complex the BM, the less participants remembered; and whether the action was executed by the handed limbs did not affect the WMC. These results indicate that there are many factors that can be used to adjust BM memory load. These factors can help sports psychology professionals to better evaluate the difficulty of BMs, and can also partially explain the differences in estimations of BM WMC in previous studies. (shrink)

Working memory has been one of the most intensively studied systems in cognitive psychology. The Cognitive Neuroscience of Working Memory brings together world class researchers from around the world to summarise our current knowledge of this field, and directions for future research.