scholarly journals Inhibition-of-return-like effects in working memory? A preregistered replication study of Johnson et al . (2013)

2021 ◽  
Vol 8 (7) ◽  
pp. 210254
Author(s):  
Naomi Langerock ◽  
Giuliana Sposito ◽  
Caro Hautekiet ◽  
Evie Vergauwe
Keyword(s):  
Working Memory ◽  
Cognitive Psychology ◽  
Inhibition Of Return ◽  
Replication Study ◽  
Memory Representation ◽  
Central Concept ◽  
Inhibitory Processes ◽  
Look Back ◽  
Memory Inhibition ◽  
Memory Representations

The present study concerns a preregistered replication of the study conducted by Johnson et al . (Johnson et al. 2013 Psychol. Sci. 24 , 1104–1112 ( doi:10.1177/0956797612466414 )), in which they showed an inhibition-of-return-like effect in working memory. Inhibition of return is a well-known phenomenon observed in the field of perception and refers to the observation that it takes longer to look back at a location which has recently been explored than to look at an unexplored location. Working memory is a central concept in the field of cognitive psychology and refers to the capacity to process and maintain information simultaneously over short periods of time. Johnson's study applied the inhibition of return paradigm to the concept of working memory. Their results showed that it is harder to access a working memory representation that had just been thought of, i.e. refreshed, in comparison to an unrefreshed working memory representation. Contrary to this study of Johnson et al ., who observed refreshing to result in inhibitory processes, most studies on refreshing have described its effect as increasing/prolonging the level of activation of the memory representations. In an attempt to integrate these opposite patterns produced by ‘refreshing’, we started by replicating one of the studies on the inhibition of return in working memory reported by Johnson et al .

scholarly journals Working memory content is distorted by its use in perceptual comparisons

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Keisuke Fukuda ◽  
April Emily Pereira ◽  
Joseph M. Saito ◽  
Ty Yi Tang ◽  
Hiroyuki Tsubomi ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Working Memory ◽  
Individual Differences ◽  
Computational Modeling ◽  
Visual Information ◽  
Dynamic Environment ◽  
Memory Bias ◽  
General Mechanism ◽  
Memory Representation ◽  
Memory Representations ◽  
Memory Content

Visual information around us is rarely static. To carry out a task in such a dynamic environment, we often have to compare current visual input with our working memory representation of the immediate past. However, little is known about what happens to a working memory (WM) representation when it is compared with perceptual input. Here, we tested university students and found that perceptual comparisons retroactively bias working memory representations toward subjectively-similar perceptual inputs. Furthermore, using computational modeling and individual differences analyses, we found that representational integration between WM representations and perceptually-similar input underlies this similarity-induced memory bias. Together, our findings highlight a novel source of WM distortion and suggest a general mechanism that determines how WM representations interact with new perceptual input.

scholarly journals Distractor inhibition contributes to retroactive attentional orienting within working memory: Evidence by lateralized alpha oscillations in the EEG

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Daniel Schneider ◽  
Anna Barth ◽  
Henrike Haase ◽  
Clayton Hickey ◽  
Edmund Wascher
Keyword(s):  
Working Memory ◽  
Memory Representation ◽  
Alpha Power ◽  
Attentional Orienting ◽  
Cognitive Mechanisms ◽  
Storage And Retrieval ◽  
Irrelevant Item ◽  
Memory Representations ◽  
The Cost ◽  
Memory Resources

AbstractShifts of attention within mental representations based on retroactive cues (retro-cues) facilitate performance in working memory tasks. It was suggested that this retro-cue benefit is related to the concentration of working memory resources on a subset of representations, thereby improving storage and retrieval at the cost of non-cued items. However, the attentional mechanisms underlying this updating of working memory representations remain unknown. Here, we present EEG data for distinguishing between target enhancement and distractor suppression processes in the context of retroactive attentional orienting. Therefore, we used a working memory paradigm with retro-cues indicating a shift of attention to either a lateralized or non-lateralized item. There was an increase of posterior alpha power contralateral compared to ipsilateral to the irrelevant item when a non-lateralized mental representation was cued and a contralateral suppression of posterior alpha power when a lateralized item had to be selected. This suggests that both inhibition of the non-cued information and enhancement of the target representation are important features of attentional orienting within working memory. By further presenting cues to either remember or to forget a working memory representation, we give a first impression of these retroactive attentional sub-processes as two separable cognitive mechanisms.

scholarly journals Formation and synaptic control of active transient working memory representations

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sophia Becker ◽  
Andreas Nold ◽  
Tatjana Tchumatchenko
Keyword(s):  
Working Memory ◽  
Memory Function ◽  
Mechanistic Explanation ◽  
Memory Representation ◽  
Signaling Mechanism ◽  
Memory Impairments ◽  
Molecular Alterations ◽  
Healthy Working ◽  
Memory Representations ◽  
Synaptic Control

AbstractNeural representations of working memory maintain information temporarily and make it accessible for processing. This is most feasible in active, spiking representations. State-of-the-art modeling frameworks, however, reproduce working memory representations that are either transient but non-active or active but non-transient. Here, we analyze a biologically motivated working memory model which shows that synaptic short-term plasticity and noise emerging from spiking networks can jointly produce a working memory representation that is both active and transient. We investigate the effect of a synaptic signaling mechanism whose dysregulation is related to schizophrenia and show how it controls transient working memory duration through presynaptic, astrocytic and postsynaptic elements. Our findings shed light on the computational capabilities of healthy working memory function and offer a possible mechanistic explanation for how molecular alterations observed in psychiatric diseases such as schizophrenia can lead to working memory impairments.

scholarly journals Neural evidence for categorical biases in working memory for location and orientation

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gi-Yeul Bae
Keyword(s):  
Working Memory ◽  
Computational Models ◽  
Spatial Working Memory ◽  
Memory Representation ◽  
Response Preparation ◽  
Behavioral Measures ◽  
Eeg Data ◽  
Categorical Structure ◽  
Memory Representations ◽  
Preparation Strategy

AbstractPrevious research demonstrated that visual working memory exhibits biases with respect to the categorical structure of the stimulus space. However, a majority of those studies used behavioral measures of working memory, and it is not clear whether the working memory representations per se are influenced by the categorical structure or whether the biases arise in decision or response processes during the report. Here, I applied a multivariate decoding technique to EEG data collected during working memory tasks to determine whether neural activity associated with the working memory representation is categorically biased prior to the report. I found that the decoding of spatial working memory was biased away from the nearest cardinal location, consistent with the biases observed in the behavioral responses. In a follow-up experiment which was designed to prevent the use of a response preparation strategy, I found that the decoding still exhibited categorical biases. Together, these results provide neural evidence that working memory representations themselves are categorically biased, imposing important constraints on the computational models of working memory representations.

Transient Working Memory Representations That Govern Intentional S-R Translation

2007 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nachshon Meiran ◽  
Yoav Kessler ◽  
Oshrit Cohen-Kdoshai ◽  
Ravid Elenbogen
Keyword(s):  
Working Memory ◽  
Memory Representations

Attentional Guidance from Activated and Inhibitory States of Working Memory Representations

2015 ◽  
Vol 47 (9) ◽  
pp. 1089
Author(s):  
Bao ZHANG ◽  
Jiaying SHAO ◽  
Cenlou HU ◽  
Sai Huang
Keyword(s):  
Working Memory ◽  
Attentional Guidance ◽  
Memory Representations
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