Attentional Shifts in Maintenance Rehearsal

Phaf, R. Hans; Wolters, Gezinus

doi:10.2307/1423182

Cited by 26 publications

(28 citation statements)

References 44 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…For example, Vallar and Baddeley (1982) obtained very little forgetting during a retention interval of up to 15 s that was filled by repeated articulation of a single word. Likewise, Phaf and Wolters (1993), using a similar paradigm and a retention interval filled with repeating the same distractor word over and over (i.e., a long simple burst) found small and generally non-significant forgetting over up to 60 s. In summary, contrary to common textbook summaries, the Brown-Peterson paradigm does not necessarily produce a declining forgetting curve over time, and whether or not it does depends on the novelty of each distractor, relative to the immediately preceding material.…”

Section: Empirical Implications: Reconciliations and Linksmentioning

confidence: 99%

Interference-based forgetting in verbal short-term memory

Lewandowsky

Geiger

Oberauer

2008

Journal of Memory and Language

103

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

a b s t r a c tThis article presents four experiments that tested predictions of SOB (Serial Order in a Box), an interference-based theory of short-term memory. Central to SOB is the concept of novelty-sensitive encoding, which holds that items are encoded to the extent that they differ from already-encoded information. On the additional assumption that distractors are encoded into memory in the same manner as list items, the theory predicts differential effects of interfering activity based on the similarity structure of distractors. Consistent with predictions, three experiments showed that overt articulation of distractors in between recalls of list items did not affect forgetting when the same distractor was repeated multiple times, whereas forgetting was observed if several different distractors were articulated within the same time span. A fourth experiment showed that the absence of forgetting with repeated articulations of the same item was not due to compensatory attentional refreshing of memory traces. The data support the notion that forgetting from short-term memory arises from interference and are difficult to reconcile with temporal decay.

show abstract

Section: Empirical Implications: Reconciliations and Linksmentioning

confidence: 99%

Interference-based forgetting in verbal short-term memory

Lewandowsky

Geiger

Oberauer

2008

Journal of Memory and Language

103

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…This assumption is motivated by a host of findings showing that memory encoding is an obligatory byproduct of processing (Craik & Lockhart, 1972;Hyde & Jenkins, 1969;Logan, 1988). In the field of immediate recall, Phaf and Wolters (1993) provided direct evidence that distractor words spoken aloud are incidentally encoded into memory to the degree that they attract attention (see also Aldridge, Garcia, & Mena, 1987). Therefore, we assumed that the strength of distractor encoding is a function of how long attention is devoted to processing them, as well as of the novelty of the distractor.…”

Section: New Assumptions In Sob-cs: Distractor Encoding and Removalmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Because distractors are associated with positions already occupied by an item, and because all representations within a content domain are at least moderately positively correlated, distractors are typically encoded with less strength than are items, because of energy-gated encoding. Like encoding of items, encoding of distractors is a process that takes time, such that the encoding strength increases with the duration of distractor encoding, t d : The distractor is encoded while attention is devoted to it (Phaf & Wolters, 1993). Like items, distractors reach nearasymptotic encoding strength after about 500 ms.…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Modeling working memory: An interference model of complex span

et al. 2012

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

This article introduces a new computational model for the complex-span task, the most popular task for studying working memory. SOB-CS is a two-layer neural network that associates distributed item representations with distributed, overlapping position markers. Memory capacity limits are explained by interference from a superposition of associations. Concurrent processing interferes with memory through involuntary encoding of distractors. Free time in-between distractors is used to remove irrelevant representations, thereby reducing interference. The model accounts for benchmark findings in four areas: (1) effects of processing pace, processing difficulty, and number of processing steps; (2) effects of serial position and error patterns; (3) effects of different kinds of item-distractor similarity; and (4) correlations between span tasks. The model makes several new predictions in these areas, which were confirmed experimentally.

show abstract

“…Subvocal articulatory rehearsal can be prevented through articulatory suppression -asking participants to repeat a simple utterance continuously. Experiments varying the duration of a retention interval during which participants engaged in articulatory suppression found no decline of memory with longer retention intervals (B2; Humphreys et al, 2010;Lewandowsky et al, 2004;Longoni, Richardson, & Aiello, 1993;Phaf & Wolters, 1993;Vallar & Baddeley, 1982). Refreshing can be prevented by simple binary decision tasks that engage central attention (Barrouillet et al, 2007).…”

Section: Retention Interval and The Amount Of Distractor Processing (mentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Speaking an irrelevant word or syllable aloud impairs memory for verbal lists, but it does not matter for how long the same utterance is repeated (Humphreys et al, 2010;Longoni et al, 1993;Phaf & Wolters, 1993;Vallar & Baddeley, 1982). Likewise, making simple binary decisions impairs serial recall of verbal lists, but the number of such decisions to be carried out at a constant rate has little impact on memory .…”

Section: Resourcesmentioning

confidence: 99%

What limits working memory capacity?

Oberauer

Farrell

Jarrold

et al. 2016

Psychological Bulletin

253

213

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

We review the evidence for the three principal theoretical contenders that vie to explain why and how working memory capacity is limited. We examine the possibility that capacity limitations arise from temporal decay; we examine whether they might reflect a limitation in cognitive resources; and we ask whether capacity might be limited because of mutual interference of representations in working memory. We evaluate each hypothesis against a common set of findings reflecting the capacity limit: The set-size effect and its modulation by domain-specificity and heterogeneity of the memory set; the effects of unfilled retention intervals and of distractor processing in the retention interval; and the pattern of correlates of working-memory tests. We conclude that---at least for verbal memoranda---a decay explanation is untenable. A resource-based view remains tenable but has difficulty accommodating several findings. The interference approach has its own set of difficulties but accounts best for the set of findings, and therefore appears to present the most promising approach for future development.Keywords: working memory, decay, resources, interference, individual differences WM Capacity 3 What Limits Working Memory Capacity?Working memory (WM) is the system that holds mental representations available for processing. Its limited capacity is a limiting factor for the complexity of our thoughts (Halford, Cowan, & Andrews, 2007;Oberauer, 2009). Measures of WM capacity have been identified as major determinants of cognitive development in childhood (Bayliss, Jarrold, Gunn, & Baddeley, 2003) and in old age (Park et al., 2002;Salthouse, 1994), as well as of individual differences in intellectual abilities (Conway, Kane, & Engle, 2003;Jarrold & Towse, 2006). Understanding why WM capacity is limited is therefore an essential step toward understanding why human cognitive abilities are limited, why individuals differ in these abilities, and how abilities develop over the lifespan.In this article we use the term WM capacity in a descriptive sense, referring to the fact that people can hold only a limited amount of mental content available for processing. The capacity limit is usually operationalized as a limit on how much new information people can remember over short periods of time (in the order of seconds), but there are reasons to believe (discussed below) that the capacity limit also applies to people's ability to make information in the current environment simultaneously available for processing.Hypotheses about what limits WM capacity can be organized into three groups: (1) Some theories assume that representations in WM decay over time, unless decay is prevented by some form of restoration process such as rehearsal. According to this view, WM has limited capacity because only a limited amount of information can be rehearsed before it fades away into an irrecoverable state (Baddeley, Thomson, & Buchanan, 1975;Schweickert & Boruff, 1986). (2) Alternatively, WM capacity has been characterized as a limited resourc...

show abstract

Attentional Shifts in Maintenance Rehearsal

Cited by 26 publications

References 44 publications

Interference-based forgetting in verbal short-term memory

Interference-based forgetting in verbal short-term memory

Modeling working memory: An interference model of complex span

What limits working memory capacity?

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About