scholarly journals Unattended but actively stored: EEG dynamics reveal a dissociation between selective attention and storage in working memory

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
E. Gunseli ◽  
J. Fahrenfort ◽  
D. van Moorselaar ◽  
K. Daoultzis ◽  
M. Meeter ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Working Memory ◽  
Selective Attention ◽  
High Reliability ◽  
Information Loss ◽  
Delay Period ◽  
Alpha Power ◽  
Relative Importance ◽  
Eeg Signals ◽  
Contralateral Delay Activity ◽  
And Storage

AbstractSelective attention plays a prominent role in prioritizing information in working memory (WM), improving performance for attended representations. However, it remains unclear what the consequences of selection are for the maintenance of unattended WM representations, and whether this results in information loss. Here we tested the hypothesis that within WM, selectively attending to an item and the decision to stop storing other items involve independent mechanisms. We recorded EEG while participants performed a WM recall task in which the item most likely to be tested was cued retrospectively. By manipulating retro-cue reliability (i.e. the ratio of valid to invalid cue trials) we varied the incentive to retain uncued items. Contralateral alpha power suppression, a proxy for attention, indicated that, initially, the cued item was attended equally following high and low reliability cues, but attention was sustained throughout the delay period only after high reliability cues. Furthermore, contralateral delay activity (CDA), a proxy for storage, indicated that non-cued items were dropped sooner from WM after highly reliability cues than after cues with low reliability. These results show that attention and storage in WM are distinct processes that can behave differently depending on the relative importance of WM representations, as expressed in dissociable EEG signals.

scholarly journals EEG dynamics reveal a dissociation between storage and selective attention within working memory

2019 ◽  
Vol 9 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Eren Günseli ◽  
Johannes Jacobus Fahrenfort ◽  
Dirk van Moorselaar ◽  
Konstantinos Christos Daoultzis ◽  
Martijn Meeter ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Working Memory ◽  
Retention Interval ◽  
Selective Attention ◽  
Information Loss ◽  
Recall Task ◽  
Alpha Power ◽  
Relative Importance ◽  
Cue Reliability ◽  
Contralateral Delay Activity

Abstract Selective attention plays a prominent role in prioritizing information in working memory (WM), improving performance for attended representations. However, it remains unclear whether unattended WM representations suffer from information loss. Here we tested the hypothesis that within WM, selectively attending to an item and stopping storing other items are independent mechanisms. We recorded EEG while participants performed a WM recall task in which the item most likely to be tested was cued retrospectively during retention. By manipulating retro-cue reliability (i.e., the ratio of valid to invalid cue trials), we varied the incentive to retain non-cued items. Storage and selective attention in WM were measured during the retention interval by contralateral delay activity (CDA) and contralateral alpha power suppression, respectively. Soon after highly reliable cues, the cued item was attended, and non-cued items suffered information loss. However, for less reliable cues, initially the cued item was attended, but unattended items were kept in WM. Later during the delay, previously unattended items suffered information loss despite now attention being reallocated to their locations, presumably to strengthen their weakening traces. These results show that storage and attention in WM are distinct processes that can behave differently depending on the relative importance of representations.

scholarly journals Contralateral Delay Activity Tracks Fluctuations in Working Memory Performance

2018 ◽  
Vol 30 (9) ◽  
pp. 1229-1240 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kirsten C. S. Adam ◽  
Matthew K. Robison ◽  
Edward K. Vogel
Keyword(s):  
Working Memory ◽  
Individual Differences ◽  
Memory Load ◽  
Memory Performance ◽  
Memory Task ◽  
Memory Storage ◽  
Alpha Power ◽  
Working Memory Load ◽  
Contralateral Delay Activity ◽  
Trial Performance

Neural measures of working memory storage, such as the contralateral delay activity (CDA), are powerful tools in working memory research. CDA amplitude is sensitive to working memory load, reaches an asymptote at known behavioral limits, and predicts individual differences in capacity. An open question, however, is whether neural measures of load also track trial-by-trial fluctuations in performance. Here, we used a whole-report working memory task to test the relationship between CDA amplitude and working memory performance. If working memory failures are due to decision-based errors and retrieval failures, CDA amplitude would not differentiate good and poor performance trials when load is held constant. If failures arise during storage, then CDA amplitude should track both working memory load and trial-by-trial performance. As expected, CDA amplitude tracked load (Experiment 1), reaching an asymptote at three items. In Experiment 2, we tracked fluctuations in trial-by-trial performance. CDA amplitude was larger (more negative) for high-performance trials compared with low-performance trials, suggesting that fluctuations in performance were related to the successful storage of items. During working memory failures, participants oriented their attention to the correct side of the screen (lateralized P1) and maintained covert attention to the correct side during the delay period (lateralized alpha power suppression). Despite the preservation of attentional orienting, we found impairments consistent with an executive attention theory of individual differences in working memory capacity; fluctuations in executive control (indexed by pretrial frontal theta power) may be to blame for storage failures.

scholarly journals Perturbing Neural Representations of Working Memory with Task-irrelevant Interruption

2020 ◽  
Vol 32 (3) ◽  
pp. 558-569 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nicole Hakim ◽  
Tobias Feldmann-Wüstefeld ◽  
Edward Awh ◽  
Edward K. Vogel
Keyword(s):  
Working Memory ◽  
Memory Task ◽  
Relevant Information ◽  
Alpha Power ◽  
Neural Signals ◽  
Neural Representations ◽  
Contralateral Delay Activity ◽  
The Face ◽  
Task Irrelevant ◽  
The Impact

Working memory maintains information so that it can be used in complex cognitive tasks. A key challenge for this system is to maintain relevant information in the face of task-irrelevant perturbations. Across two experiments, we investigated the impact of task-irrelevant interruptions on neural representations of working memory. We recorded EEG activity in humans while they performed a working memory task. On a subset of trials, we interrupted participants with salient but task-irrelevant objects. To track the impact of these task-irrelevant interruptions on neural representations of working memory, we measured two well-characterized, temporally sensitive EEG markers that reflect active, prioritized working memory representations: the contralateral delay activity and lateralized alpha power (8–12 Hz). After interruption, we found that contralateral delay activity amplitude momentarily sustained but was gone by the end of the trial. Lateralized alpha power was immediately influenced by the interrupters but recovered by the end of the trial. This suggests that dissociable neural processes contribute to the maintenance of working memory information and that brief irrelevant onsets disrupt two distinct online aspects of working memory. In addition, we found that task expectancy modulated the timing and magnitude of how these two neural signals responded to task-irrelevant interruptions, suggesting that the brain's response to task-irrelevant interruption is shaped by task context.

F187. Pre-Stimulus Alpha Power and Contralateral Delay Activity During Visual Working Memory in First Episode Schizophrenia

2019 ◽  
Vol 85 (10) ◽  
pp. S285-S286
Author(s):  
Brian Coffman ◽  
Tim Murphy ◽  
Gretchen Haas ◽  
Carl Olson ◽  
Raymond Y. Cho ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Working Memory ◽  
Visual Working Memory ◽  
First Episode ◽  
Alpha Power ◽  
Contralateral Delay Activity ◽  
First Episode Schizophrenia

scholarly journals Controlling the flow of interruption in working memory

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nicole Hakim ◽  
Tobias Feldmann-Wüstefeld ◽  
Edward Awh ◽  
Edward K Vogel
Keyword(s):  
Working Memory ◽  
Spatial Attention ◽  
Attentional Capture ◽  
Attentional Control ◽  
Relevant Information ◽  
Alpha Power ◽  
Control Mechanisms ◽  
New Information ◽  
Contralateral Delay Activity ◽  
Component Processes

AbstractVisual working memory (WM) must maintain relevant information, despite the constant influx of both relevant and irrelevant information. Attentional control mechanisms help determine which of this new information gets access to our capacity-limited WM system. Previous work has treated attentional control as a monolithic process–either distractors capture attention or they are suppressed. Here, we provide evidence that attentional capture may instead be broken down into at least two distinct sub-component processes: 1) spatial capture, which refers to when spatial attention shifts towards the location of irrelevant stimuli, and 2) item-based capture, which refers to when item-based WM representations of irrelevant stimuli are formed. To dissociate these two sub-component processes of attentional capture, we utilized a series of EEG components that track WM maintenance (contralateral delay activity), suppression (distractor positivity), item individuation (N2pc), and spatial attention (lateralized alpha power). We show that relevant interrupters trigger both spatial and item-based capture, which means that they undermine WM maintenance more. Irrelevant interrupters, however, only trigger spatial capture from which ongoing WM representations can recover more easily. This fractionation of attentional capture into distinct sub-component processes provides a framework by which the fate of ongoing WM processes after interruption can be explained.

scholarly journals The Contralateral Delay Activity Tracks the Sequential Loading of Objects into Visual Working Memory, Unlike Lateralized Alpha Oscillations

2019 ◽  
Vol 31 (11) ◽  
pp. 1689-1698 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sisi Wang ◽  
Jason Rajsic ◽  
Geoffrey F. Woodman
Keyword(s):  
Working Memory ◽  
Visual Working Memory ◽  
Human Subjects ◽  
Neural Mechanisms ◽  
Memory Storage ◽  
Alpha Power ◽  
Alpha Oscillations ◽  
Contralateral Delay Activity ◽  
Continuous Stream ◽  
Additional Object

Visual working memory temporarily represents a continuous stream of task-relevant objects as we move through our environment performing tasks. Previous work has identified candidate neural mechanisms of visual working memory storage; however, we do not know which of these mechanisms enable the storage of objects as we sequentially encounter them in our environment. Here, we measured the contralateral delay activity (CDA) and lateralized alpha oscillations as human subjects were shown a series of objects that they needed to remember. The amplitude of CDA increased following the presentation of each to-be-remembered object, reaching asymptote at about three to four objects. In contrast, the concurrently measured lateralized alpha power remained constant with each additional object. Our results suggest that the CDA indexes the storage of objects in visual working memory, whereas lateralized alpha suppression indexes the focusing of attention on the to-be-remembered objects.

Do Children With Developmental Language Disorder (DLD) Have Difficulties With Interference Control, Visuospatial Working Memory, and Selective Attention? Developmental Patterns and the Role of Severity and Persistence of DLD

2020 ◽  
Vol 63 (9) ◽  
pp. 3036-3050
Author(s):  
Elma Blom ◽  
Tessel Boerma
Keyword(s):  
Working Memory ◽  
Selective Attention ◽  
Language Disorder ◽  
Typically Developing ◽  
Developmental Language Disorder ◽  
Visuospatial Working Memory ◽  
Interference Control ◽  
Developmental Patterns ◽  
Search Tasks ◽  
The Impact

Purpose Many children with developmental language disorder (DLD) have weaknesses in executive functioning (EF), specifically in tasks testing interference control and working memory. It is unknown how EF develops in children with DLD, if EF abilities are related to DLD severity and persistence, and if EF weaknesses expand to selective attention. This study aimed to address these gaps. Method Data from 78 children with DLD and 39 typically developing (TD) children were collected at three times with 1-year intervals. At Time 1, the children were 5 or 6 years old. Flanker, Dot Matrix, and Sky Search tasks tested interference control, visuospatial working memory, and selective attention, respectively. DLD severity was based on children's language ability. DLD persistence was based on stability of the DLD diagnosis. Results Performance on all tasks improved in both groups. TD children outperformed children with DLD on interference control. No differences were found for visuospatial working memory and selective attention. An interference control gap between the DLD and TD groups emerged between Time 1 and Time 2. Severity and persistence of DLD were related to interference control and working memory; the impact on working memory was stronger. Selective attention was unrelated to DLD severity and persistence. Conclusions Age and DLD severity and persistence determine whether or not children with DLD show EF weaknesses. Interference control is most clearly impaired in children with DLD who are 6 years and older. Visuospatial working memory is impaired in children with severe and persistent DLD. Selective attention is spared.

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