Search results for "Memory rehearsal"

Developmental Increase in Working Memory Span: Resource Sharing or Temporal Decay?

2001

Working memory span tasks require participants to maintain items in short-term memory while performing some concurrent processing (e.g., reading, counting, and problem solving). It has been suggested that the difficulty of these tasks results either from the necessity of sharing a limited resource pool between processing and storage (Case’s cognitive space hypothesis) or from the fact that the memory traces suffer from a temporal decay while the concurrent task is being performed (Towse and Hitch’s memory decay hypothesis). We tested these two hypotheses by comparing children’s performance in tasks in which the processing component always had the same duration but varied in cognitive cost (…

Delays of retention, processing efficiency, and attentional resources in working memory span development

2004

Working memory span tasks require participants to maintain items in short-term memory while performing some concurrent processing (e.g., reading, counting, or problem solving). The present series of experiments contrasted two models of the development of working memory spans in children. Is this development mainly due to faster completion of the processing component in older children, as Towse and Hitch (1995) suggested, or is it due to resource-related phenomena such as increased processing efficiency and a greater amount of available cognitive resources? Using new computer-paced working memory span tasks that allow a careful control of processing duration, we demonstrate that the cognitiv…

The positive effect of music on source memory

2015

Several studies have investigated how to improve episodic memory performance by manipulating the factors that are crucial for successful encoding. There is an ongoing debate about whether a complex stimulus such as music can improve memory, and in particular memory for words, rather than interfere with correct encoding of information. Therefore, the present study aims to investigate whether verbal episodic memory can be improved by background context of instrumental music. Twenty young adults were asked to memorize different lists of words presented against a background of music, environmental sounds or silence. Their episodic memory performance was then tested in terms of item and source …

2016

The flexible access to information in working memory is crucial for adaptive behavior. It is assumed that this is realized by switching the focus of attention within working memory. Switching of attention is mirrored in the P3a component of the human event-related brain potential (ERP) and it has been argued that the processes reflected by the P3a are also relevant for selecting information within working memory. The aim of the present study was to further evaluate whether the P3a mirrors genuine switching of attention within working memory by applying an object switching task: Participants updated a memory list of four digits either by replacing one item with another digit or by processing…

Effect of Material Organization on Memory in an Incidental Learning Task Performed under Repeated Maintenance

2009

The present paper investigates the effect of organizational variables on long term retention of material recycled under maintenance rehearsal. Subjects repeated a series of words as a distracting task, expecting to be tested on the recall of numbers (GLENBERG & ADAMS, 1978). An unexpected test on the recall of words showed the superiority of the recall of organized words, and a significant interaction of organization by time spent in repetition of the distractor material. The present experiment, because of the requirement of written, and not oral, repetition of the distractor material, is a more stringent test of the postulated consequences of type I rehearsal according to leve1 of processi…

Surviving task interruptions: Investigating the implications of long-term working memory theory

2006

Typically, we have several tasks at hand, some of which are in interrupted state while others are being carried out. Most of the time, such interruptions are not disruptive to task performance. Based on the theory of Long-Term Working Memory (LTWM; Ericsson, K.A., Kintsch, W., 1995. Long-term working memory. Psychological Review, 102, 211-245), we posit that unless there are enough mental skills and resources to encode task representations to retrieval structures in long-term memory, the resulting memory traces will not enable reinstating the information, which can lead to memory losses. However, once encoded to LTWM, they are virtually safeguarded. Implications of the theory were tested in…

Object switching within working memory is reflected in the human event-related brain potential

2008

In two experiments applying a memory updating task subjects are asked to perform several arithmetic operations on stored numbers. From a trial-to-trial perspective these operations could be either performed on a previously processed item or on a new item which requires an object switch in working memory. Object switching results in prolonged operation times; these operation time costs reflect the switch of the focus of attention to the relevant information. Event-related brain potentials obtained in object switch trials show an increased P3a around 300 ms and a late, central negative component between 400 ms and 500 ms. The data suggest that the P3a may reflect the unhitching of the focus o…