Several models in the verbal domain of short-term memory (STM) consider a dissociation between item and order processing. This view is supported by data demonstrating that different types of time-based interference have a greater effect on memory for the order of to-be-remembered items than on memory for the items themselves. The present study investigated the domain-generality of the item versus serial order dissociation by comparing the differential effects of time-based interfering tasks, such as rhythmic interference and articulatory suppression, on item and order processing in verbal and musical STM domains. In Experiment 1, participants had to maintain sequences of verbal or musical information in STM, followed by a probe sequence, this under different conditions of interference (no-interference, rhythmic interference, articulatory suppression). They were required to decide whether all items of the probe list matched those of the memory list (item condition) or whether the order of the items in the probe sequence matched the order in the memory list (order condition). In Experiment 2, participants performed a serial order probe recognition task for verbal and musical sequences ensuring sequential maintenance processes, under no-interference or rhythmic interference conditions. For Experiment 1, serial order recognition was not significantly more impacted by interfering tasks than was item recognition, this for both verbal and musical domains. For Experiment 2, we observed selective interference of the rhythmic interference condition on both musical and verbal order STM tasks. Overall, the results suggest a similar and selective sensitivity to time-based interference for serial order STM in verbal and musical domains, but only when the STM tasks ensure sequential maintenance processes.
Long-term memory knowledge is considered to impact short-term maintenance of item information in working memory, as opposed to short-term maintenance of serial order information. Evidence supporting an impact of semantic knowledge on serial order maintenance remains weak. In the present study, we demonstrate that semantic knowledge can impact the processing of serial order information in a robust manner. Experiment 1 manipulated semantic relatedness effect by using semantic categories presented in subgroups of items (leaftreebranchcloudskyrain). This semantic grouping manipulation was compared to a temporal grouping manipulation whose impact on the processing of serial order information is wellestablished. Both the semantic and temporal grouping manipulations constrained the occurrence of serial order errors in a robust manner: when migrating to a non-target serial position, items tended to do so most of the time toward the position of a semantically related item or within the same temporal group. Critically, this impact of semantic knowledge on the pattern of migration errors was not observed anymore in Experiment 2, in which we broke-up the semantic groups, by presenting the semantically related items an interleaved fashion (leafcloudtreeskybranchrain). Both semantic and temporal grouping factors may reflect a general mechanism through which information is represented hierarchically. Alternatively, both factors could result from the syntactic and/or semantic regularities that naturally structure linguistic information.These results support models considering direct interactions between serial order and linguistic components of WM.
The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any competing interest that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest and that the funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript. Raw data, scripts for data processing and figures generation, and statistical output files are available via the Open Science Framework (https://osf.io/utmqn/?view_only=049334afe26f405e8b4a3c00b412314a).
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