scholarly journals Attentional resources in timing: Interference effects in concurrent temporal and nontemporal working memory tasks

1997 ◽  
Vol 59 (7) ◽  
pp. 1118-1140 ◽  
Author(s):  
Scott W. Brown
Keyword(s):  
Working Memory ◽  
Interference Effects ◽  
Attentional Resources

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 Preservation of Interference Effects in Working Memory After Orbitofrontal Damage

2020 ◽  
Vol 13 ◽  
Author(s):  
Anaïs Llorens ◽  
Ingrid Funderud ◽  
Alejandro O. Blenkmann ◽  
James Lubell ◽  
Maja Foldal ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Working Memory ◽  
Interference Effects

Interference Effects on the Recall of Words Heard and Read: Considerations for ATC Communication

2002 ◽  
Vol 46 (3) ◽  
pp. 392-396 ◽  
Author(s):  
Matthew R. Risser ◽  
Danielle S. McNamara ◽  
Carryl L. Baldwin ◽  
Mark W. Scerbo ◽  
Immanuel Barshi
Keyword(s):  
Working Memory ◽  
Central Executive ◽  
Interference Effects ◽  
Communication Mode ◽  
Data Link ◽  
Interference Task ◽  
Textual Data ◽  
Memory Resources ◽  
Facilitated Recall

Two experiments were conducted to investigate the effects of interference on memory for words that were either read or heard. Interference tasks required either visual, verbal, or central executive (CE) working memory resources. Experiment 1 examined effects of simultaneous interference, whereas Experiment 2 examined the effects of posttask (subsequent) interference. When interference occurred simultaneously with word presentation, the verbal and CE interference tasks were most disruptive, regardless of whether the words were read or heard. Furthermore, hearing words facilitated recall in comparison to reading words regardless of interference source. When the interference task followed word presentation, CE interference again was the most disruptive. However, the effects of the visual and verbal interference tasks were equivalent. These results are discussed with respect to communication mode in ATC messages to pilots (i.e., textual data-link messages vs. voice transmissions).

scholarly journals Freeing capacity in WM through the use of LTM representations

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lea Maria Bartsch ◽  
Peter Shepherdson
Keyword(s):  
Working Memory ◽  
Memory Load ◽  
Recall Performance ◽  
Long Term Memory ◽  
Interference Effects ◽  
Term Memory ◽  
Additional Information ◽  
Set Size ◽  
Low Performance

Previous research indicates that long-term memory (LTM) may contribute to performance in working memory (WM) tasks. Across three experiments we investigated the extent to which active maintenance in WM can be replaced by relying on information stored in episodic LTM, thereby freeing capacity for additional information in WM. First, participants encoded word pairs into LTM, and then completed a WM task, also involving word pairs. Crucially, the pairs presented in each WM trial comprised varying numbers of new pairs and the previously learned LTM pairs. Experiment 1 showed that recall performance in the WM task was unaffected when memory set size increased through the addition of LTM pairs, but that it deteriorated when set size increased through adding new pairs. In Experiment 2 we investigated the robustness of this effect, orthogonally manipulating the number of new and LTM pairs used in the WM task. When WM load was low, performance declined with the addition of LTM pairs, but remained superior to performance with the matched set size comprising only new pairs. By contrast, when WM load was higher, adding LTM pairs did not affect performance. In Experiment 3 we found that the benefit of LTM representations arises from retrieving these during the WM test, leading them to suffer from typical interference effects. We conclude that individuals can outsource workload to LTM to optimise performance, and that the WM system negotiates the exchange of information between WM and LTM depending on the current memory load.

scholarly journals Shared resources between visual attention and visual working memory are allocated through rhythmic sampling

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Elio Balestrieri ◽  
Luca Ronconi ◽  
David Melcher
Keyword(s):  
Working Memory ◽  
Visual Working Memory ◽  
Visual Information ◽  
Visual Stimulation ◽  
Time Windows ◽  
Detection Task ◽  
Detection Performance ◽  
Human Cognition ◽  
Attentional Resources ◽  
Oscillatory Pattern

AbstractAttention and Visual Working Memory (VWM) are among the most theoretically detailed and empirically tested constructs in human cognition. Nevertheless, the nature of the interrelation between selective attention and VWM still presents a fundamental controversy: do they rely on the same cognitive resources or not? The present study aims at disentangling this issue by capitalizing on recent evidence showing that attention is a rhythmic phenomenon, oscillating over short time windows. Using a dual-task approach, we combined a classic VWM task with a detection task in which we densely sampled detection performance during the time between the memory and the test array. Our results show that an increment in VWM load was related to a worse detection of near threshold visual stimuli and, importantly, to the presence of an oscillatory pattern in detection performance at ∼5 Hz. Furthermore, our findings suggest that the frequency of this sampling rhythm changes according to the strategic allocation of attentional resources to either the VWM or the detection task. This pattern of results is consistent with a central sampling attentional rhythm which allocates shared attentional resources both to the flow of external visual stimulation and also to the internal maintenance of visual information.

Working memory load influences perceptual ambiguity by competing for fronto-parietal attentional resources

2016 ◽  
Vol 1650 ◽  
pp. 142-151 ◽  
Author(s):  
Monika Intaitė ◽  
João Valente Duarte ◽  
Miguel Castelo-Branco
Keyword(s):  
Working Memory ◽  
Memory Load ◽  
Working Memory Load ◽  
Attentional Resources

Individual Differences in Attention Control

2020 ◽  
pp. 175-211
Author(s):  
Cody A. Mashburn ◽  
Jason S. Tsukahara ◽  
Randall W. Engle
Keyword(s):  
Working Memory ◽  
Individual Differences ◽  
Fluid Intelligence ◽  
Working Memory Capacity ◽  
Memory Capacity ◽  
Attention Control ◽  
Executive Attention ◽  
Attention Theory ◽  
Attentional Resources ◽  
The Relationship

This chapter outlines the executive attention theory of higher-order cognition, which argues that individual differences in the ability to maintain information in working memory and disengage from irrelevant information is inextricably linked to variation in the ability to deploy domain-free attentional resources in a goal-directed fashion. It also summarizes recent addendums to the theory, particularly regarding the relationship between attention control, working memory capacity, and fluid intelligence. Specifically, the chapter argues that working memory capacity and fluid intelligence measures require different allocations of the same attentional resources, a fact which accounts for their strong correlation. At various points, it addresses theoretical alternatives to the executive attention theory of working memory capacity and empirical complications of the study of attention control, including difficulties deriving coherent attention control latent factors.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document