scholarly journals Does rehearsal matter? Left anterior temporal alpha and theta band changes correlate with the beneficial effects of rehearsal on working memory

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Chelsea Reichert Plaska ◽  
Kenneth Ng ◽  
Timothy M. Ellmore
Keyword(s):  
Working Memory ◽  
Semantic Information ◽  
Semantic Content ◽  
Behavioral Performance ◽  
Theta Band ◽  
Beneficial Effects ◽  
Semantic Associations ◽  
Absolute Amplitude ◽  
Strategy Performance ◽  
Sternberg Task

AbstractRehearsal during working memory (WM) maintenance facilitates retrieval. Less is known about how rehearsal modulates WM delay activity. In the present study, 44 participants completed a Sternberg Task with either intact novel scenes or phase-scrambled scenes, which had similar color and spatial frequency but lacked semantic content. During each condition participants generated a descriptive label and covertly rehearsed or suppressed (repeated “the”) during the delay. This was easy in the former but more difficult in the later condition where scenes lacked semantic content. Behavioral performance and EEG delay activity was analyzed as a function of maintenance strategy. Performance during WM revealed a benefit of rehearsal for phase-scrambled but not intact scenes. Examination of the absolute amplitude revealed three underlying sources of activity for rehearsal, including the left anterior temporal (TAL), left and midline parietal regions. Increases in alpha and theta activity in TAL were correlated with improvement in performance on WM with rehearsal only when labeling was not automatic (i.e. phase-scrambled scenes), which may reflect differences in labeling and rehearsal (i.e. semantic associations vs. shallow labels). We conclude that rehearsal only benefits memory for visual stimuli that lack semantic information, and that this is correlated with changes in alpha and theta rhythms.

scholarly journals Freeze or forget? Virtual attack effects in an Emotional Sternberg Task

2018 ◽  
Vol 14 (2) ◽  
pp. 342-358
Author(s):  
Thomas Edward Gladwin ◽  
Matthijs Vink
Keyword(s):  
Mental Health ◽  
Working Memory ◽  
Cognitive Processing ◽  
Mental Health Problems ◽  
Health Problems ◽  
Interference Effects ◽  
Warning Signals ◽  
Emotional Interference ◽  
Neutral Face ◽  
Sternberg Task

Emotionally salient stimuli have the ability to disrupt cognitive processing. This kind of disruption involves effects on working memory and may be related to mental health problems. To explore the nature of such emotional interference on working memory, a Virtual Attack Emotional Sternberg Task (VAEST) was used. Neutral faces were presented as distractors and warning signals, which were sometimes followed by a virtual attack, created by having the neutral face turn angry while the image was enlarged. The attack was hypothesized to have one of two effects: to disrupt cognitive processing and thereby increase interference effects, or to terminate a state of freezing and thereby reduce interference effects. The task was successfully completed online by a sample of 59 students. Results clearly show that the virtual attack caused a reduction of interference relative to no-attack trials. The apparent cognitive disruption caused by emotional distractors may thus reflect freezing, which can be reversed by a freeze-terminating stimulus.

scholarly journals Linguistic Temporality, Logical Meaning and Narrative Perspectives: Adverbs /zai/ and /you/ in Modern Standard Chinese

2011 ◽  
Vol 1 (2) ◽  
pp. 25-38
Author(s):  
Jens KARLSSON
Keyword(s):  
Semantic Information ◽  
Semantic Content ◽  
Conceptual Analogy ◽  
Semantic Encoding ◽  
Standard Chinese ◽  
Decompositional Analysis ◽  
Modern Standard ◽  
Temporal Adverbs

In this paper is presented an inquiry into some aspects of the meaning and usage of two temporal adverbs zai (再) and you (又) in Modern Standard Chinese. A decompositional analysis of the semantic encoding of the adverbs is conducted, aiming to better explain their recorded differences in usage. First, a sketch of some of the fundamental features of linguistic temporality is provided in order to model the structure of temporal semantic information encoded in the adverbs. Non-temporal (logical) meaning such as assertion and inference is also shown to be an important aspect of the semantic content of the adverbs. Adverbs zai and you are shown to encode the same semantic content except for a difference in viewpoint; the first being prospective, the second retrospective. Concrete linguistic examples reflecting the intrinsic semantic encoding of the adverbs are raised and discussed. It is then argued that through combining the decompositional analysis with ideas concerning conceptual analogy, some issues raised by Lu and Ma (1999) regarding the usage of zai and you in past and future settings may be resolved.

Working memory performance inversely predicts spontaneous delta and theta-band scaling relations

2016 ◽  
Vol 1637 ◽  
pp. 22-33 ◽  
Author(s):  
Matthew J. Euler ◽  
Travis J. Wiltshire ◽  
Madison A. Niermeyer ◽  
Jonathan E. Butner
Keyword(s):  
Working Memory ◽  
Memory Performance ◽  
Scaling Relations ◽  
Theta Band

Unconscious information progressing in working memory

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
◽  
Amy Underwood Barton
Keyword(s):  
Working Memory ◽  
Memory Load ◽  
Behavioral Performance ◽  
Stereoscopic Display ◽  
Working Memory Load ◽  
University Of Missouri ◽  
Continuous Flash Suppression ◽  
Tightly Coupled ◽  
Experimental Findings ◽  
The University

[ACCESS RESTRICTED TO THE UNIVERSITY OF MISSOURI AT AUTHOR'S REQUEST.] Conventionally, the contents of working memory (WM) have been viewed as tightly coupled with conscious awareness. However, recent experimental findings regarding unconscious visual perception indicate that items suppressed from awareness may also be maintained in WM (Soto, Mantyla, and Silvanto, 2011, 2011; Bergstrom and Eriksson, 2015). To explore this phenomenon, my colleagues and I assessed behavioral performance and the contralateral delay activity (CDA, an index of working memory load), while subjects viewed memory items (Gabor patches or greyscale rectangular bars) on one half of a stereoscopic display. Some memory items were suppressed from conscious sight using continuous flash suppression (CFS) while others remained visible. After a retention interval, participants decided whether the probed memory item (either suppressed or visible) was of a changed orientation. In Experiments 1 and 2, behavioral results indicated that change detection for visible memory items was significantly impaired by increasing the load of suppressed items. Psychophysiological results in Experiment 2 indicated CDA amplitudes were smaller following the presentation of the suppressed items, suggesting that their presence displaced previously encoded visible items from WM. We infer that suppressed items interfered with maintenance of the visible items without being stored in WM themselves.

scholarly journals The beneficial effects of berries on cognition, motor behaviour and neuronal function in ageing

2015 ◽  
Vol 114 (10) ◽  
pp. 1542-1549 ◽  
Author(s):  
Barbara Shukitt-Hale ◽  
Donna F. Bielinski ◽  
Francis C. Lau ◽  
Lauren M. Willis ◽  
Amanda N. Carey ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Working Memory ◽  
Memory Performance ◽  
Hippocampal Neurogenesis ◽  
Fischer 344 Rats ◽  
Neuronal Function ◽  
Beneficial Effects ◽  
Fischer 344 ◽  
Age Related ◽  
Berry Fruits ◽  
Relative Differences

AbstractPreviously, it has been shown that strawberry (SB) or blueberry (BB) supplementations, when fed to rats from 19 to 21 months of age, reverse age-related decrements in motor and cognitive performance. We have postulated that these effects may be the result of a number of positive benefits of the berry polyphenols, including decreased stress signalling, increased neurogenesis, and increased signals involved in learning and memory. Thus, the present study was carried out to examine these mechanisms in aged animals by administering a control, 2 % SB- or 2 % BB-supplemented diet to aged Fischer 344 rats for 8 weeks to ascertain their effectiveness in reversing age-related deficits in behavioural and neuronal function. The results showed that rats consuming the berry diets exhibited enhanced motor performance and improved cognition, specifically working memory. In addition, the rats supplemented with BB and SB diets showed increased hippocampal neurogenesis and expression of insulin-like growth factor 1, although the improvements in working memory performance could not solely be explained by these increases. The diverse polyphenolics in these berry fruits may have additional mechanisms of action that could account for their relative differences in efficacy.

Verbal Working Memory Load Affects Regional Brain Activation as Measured by PET

1997 ◽  
Vol 9 (4) ◽  
pp. 462-475 ◽  
Author(s):  
John Jonides ◽  
Eric H. Schumacher ◽  
Edward E. Smith ◽  
Erick J. Lauber ◽  
Edward Awh ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Working Memory ◽  
Task Difficulty ◽  
Memory Load ◽  
Brain Activation ◽  
Verbal Working Memory ◽  
Behavioral Performance ◽  
Executive Processes ◽  
Working Memory Load ◽  
The One ◽  
Reliable Increase

We report an experiment that assesses the effect of variations in memory load on brain activations that mediate verbal working memory. The paradigm that forms the basis of this experiment is the “n-back” task in which subjects must decide for each letter in a series whether it matches the one presented n items back in the series. This task is of interest because it recruits processes involved in both the storage and manipulation of information in working memory. Variations in task difficulty were accomplished by varying the value of n. As n increased, subjects showed poorer behavioral performance as well as monotonically increasing magnitudes of brain activation in a large number of sites that together have been identified with verbal working-memory processes. By contrast, there was no reliable increase in activation in sites that are unrelated to working memory. These results validate the use of parametric manipulation of task variables in neuroimaging research, and they converge with the subtraction paradigm used most often in neuroimaging. In addition, the data support a model of working memory that includes both storage and executive processes that recruit a network of brain areas, all of which are involved in task performance.

scholarly journals Cognitive control during audiovisual working memory engages frontotemporal theta-band interactions

2017 ◽  
Vol 7 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Jonathan Daume ◽  
Sebastian Graetz ◽  
Thomas Gruber ◽  
Andreas K. Engel ◽  
Uwe Friese
Keyword(s):  
Working Memory ◽  
Cognitive Control ◽  
Theta Band
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