A matter of priorities: High working memory enables (slightly) superior value-directed remembering

Griffin, Michael; Benjamin, Aaron S.; Sahakyan, Lili; Stanley, Sarah

doi:10.1016/j.jml.2019.104032

Cited by 15 publications

(11 citation statements)

References 42 publications

(51 reference statements)

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“…Such selectivity is emphasized by participants' study decisions in Experiment 2, with higher magnitudes receiving more study visits (and thus more total study time) despite equivalent study time per visit with lower magnitudes. As such, these results add further evidence that participants are effective in prioritizing important information, consistent with a large body of work demonstrating preserved selectivity with various materials like unrelated word pairs (Ariel et al, 2015), name-face pairs (Hargis & Castel, 2017), medication side effects (Hargis & Castel, 2018), and item-location pairs (Siegel & Castel, 2018b), and under varying degrees of cognitive ability, like healthy aging (Castel et al, 2002;Hayes et al, 2013;Siegel & Castel, 2018a), Alzheimer's disease (Castel et al, 2009), attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (Castel et al, 2011), and different working memory capacities (Griffin, Benjamin, Sahakyan, & Stanley, 2019;Middlebrooks et al, 2017;Miller, Gross, & Unsworth, 2019;Robison & Unsworth, 2017).…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 86%

Strategic encoding and enhanced memory for positive value-location associations

2020

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People often need to remember the location of important objects or events, and also to remember locations that are associated with negative objects. In the current study, we examined how both positive and negative items might be selectively remembered in the visuospatial domain. Participants studied number-items ranging from -25 to +25 indicating point values in a grid display and were instructed to maximize their score (a summation of correctly remembered positive and negative information; incorrectly placed negative items resulted in a subtraction from the overall score). Items were presented in a sequential, simultaneous (Experiment 1), or self-regulated format (Experiment 2) where participants controlled which items to study and the length of study time per item. In Experiment 1, participants selectively recalled high-magnitude over low-magnitude items, but also displayed a positivity preference in memory. In Experiment 2, we were able to determine whether this positivity preference was a result of bottom-up, automatic, or top-down strategic processes. Results indicated that participants explicitly chose to study positive items more frequently and for more total time relative to negative items, suggesting a deliberate strategy to focus on positive information. This bias for highly positive information suggests an overt points-gained approach, as opposed to a lossaversion approach, to remembering value in the visuospatial domain.

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Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 86%

Strategic encoding and enhanced memory for positive value-location associations

2020

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“…However, selectivity was better in older adults than in younger adults and preserved in younger adults when their attention was divided. While these findings, in addition to previous work using value-directed remembering tasks, reveal much about learning processes, most work has limited their analyses to recall as a function of value and emphasised strategic encoding processes (e.g., Ariel et al, 2015;Castel et al, 2002;Griffin et al, 2019;Nguyen et al, 2019;Robison & Unsworth, 2017;Wong et al, 2018), leaving much of the dynamic retrieval process unknown.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 81%

“…Although evaluating the PFR and CRPs has revealed much about the dynamics of free recall, analyses of value-directed remembering tasks have been primarily limited to the probability of recall based on the point values assigned to each word (e.g., Ariel et al, 2015; Castel et al, 2002; Griffin et al, 2019; Nguyen et al, 2019; Robison & Unsworth, 2017; Wong et al, 2018). Some work using value-directed remembering procedures suggests that younger adults tend to initiate recall with high-value compared with low-value words and that CRPs are similar in participants completing a value-directed remembering task compared with controls where words are not paired with point values (see Stefanidi et al, 2018).…”

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confidence: 99%

The role of attention and ageing in the retrieval dynamics of value-directed remembering

Murphy

Castel

2021

Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology

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For memory to be efficient, people need to remember important information. This involves selective encoding and retrieval operations to maximize the recall of valuable information at the expense of less important information. While past research has examined this in terms of strategic encoding operations, we investigated differences in the dynamics of retrieval in value-directed remembering tasks with younger adults under full and divided attention during encoding as well as in older adults. Participants typically initiated recall with the first presented, last presented, or highest-valued words and also strategically organized retrieval according to information value such that high-value words tended to be recalled before low-value words. However, the average value of older adults’ first recalled word was greater than that of younger adults, likely contributing to their enhanced selectivity. Additionally, there were no differences in lag-conditional-response probabilities in younger adults under full or divided attention but older adults showed impairments in the retrieval of items sharing contextual features with nearby items while younger adults relied more on temporal-contextual cues to recall words. Together, the present study suggests that both strategic encoding and strategic retrieval operations contribute to selectivity for valuable information and older adults may be able to maximize retrieval operations despite displaying impairments in temporal binding during encoding and an overall recall deficit.

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“…Instead, it is a composite of cognitive processes such as shifting, monitoring, and inhibition that are driven by the ability to strategically direct attention and to efficiently manage attentional resources (Conway et al, 2001; Engle, 2002; Oberauer & Hein, 2012). In particular, working memory is crucial for executive attention by prioritizing information and remembering only the most relevant information (Griffin et al, 2019; Myers et al, 2017; Robison & Unsworth, 2017; Unsworth et al, 2019). Therefore, this research focuses on the trait of efficient management of attentional resources of working memory capacity.…”

Section: Theoretical Frameworkmentioning

confidence: 99%

Easily accessible but easily forgettable: How ease of access to information online affects cognitive miserliness.

Kang¹

2023

Journal of Experimental Psychology: Applied

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Ubiquitous Internet access has provided easy access to information and has influenced users' attention and knowledge management. In an online information service context, this research examines how the perception of easy access to information affects strategies to learn two types of information: "what it is" and "how to access it." This study also examines how the learning process is moderated by individual differences in working memory capacity, which can determine efficient management of attentional resources. The results show that individuals, especially those who rank high in working memory capacity, are less likely to remember the details but are more likely to remember how to access the information (e.g., a keyword for a search engine query). Those with higher working memory capacity are also more likely to ensure easy access to information by subscribing to information sources. The findings suggest that cognitive miserliness is not due to users' lack of cognitive capacity but to the accessibility of online information and efficient execution of attentional resources. Public Significance StatementThe present research suggests that easy access to information online may mean that individuals are less likely to remember the details but are more likely to remember how to access the information. This effect is especially profound among individuals who rank high in working memory capacity as they are likely to efficiently manage their attentional resources.

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A matter of priorities: High working memory enables (slightly) superior value-directed remembering

Cited by 15 publications

References 42 publications

Strategic encoding and enhanced memory for positive value-location associations

Strategic encoding and enhanced memory for positive value-location associations

The role of attention and ageing in the retrieval dynamics of value-directed remembering

Easily accessible but easily forgettable: How ease of access to information online affects cognitive miserliness.

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