Availability of related long-term memory during and after attention focus in working memory

Abstract

The construct of working memory (WM), as described by Baddeley and Hitch (1974), has had a far-reaching impact on theories of cognition. For years, Baddeley's model was the predominant theory of WM, and it remained relatively unchanged, with its two storage components for visuospatial and phonological information and a central executive component for coordinating storage and various processing functions. 1 A defining feature of all three of these subcomponents has been their attention-driven nature. In fact, at one point, Baddeley (1993) reflected that it may have been more appropriate to use the term working attention, rather than working memory. The term attention is used by Baddeley, as well as by many other authors within the WM literature, to refer broadly to effortful processes that range from rehearsal procedures to executive functions, such as planning, organizing, and controlling cognitive actions. In this article, we rely on the broad distinction between deliberate, attention-driven processes of WM that operate within the awareness of the individual and processes that operate outside of conscious awareness, such as implicit memory processes that underlie various forms of priming.Various theorists have noted that relatively smallcapacity, attention-driven storage components of WM fail to explain complex cognitive activities such as language comprehension, in which a great deal of information needs to be temporarily available for processing (e.g., Anderson, 1983;Cowan, 1999;Ericsson & Kintsch, 1995;Just & Carpenter, 1992;Kintsch, Patel, & Ericsson, 1999). Corresponding to this criticism, alternative conceptualizations of WM have been proposed that allow for more information to be available for processing at any given moment. Most define this greater availability in terms of long-term memory (LTM) activation, or the temporary increase in retrieval strength of existing memory representations. These models differ in important respects, but of interest here is their common inclusion of long-term memory structures that are temporarily available for processing but that are not in the current focus of attention. Most of these alternative models postulate that both attentiondriven WM processes and automatic LTM activation or retrieval processes effectively define capacity limits that constrain complex processing activities. Furthermore, some suggest that the LTM activation processes are capacity limited in a different manner than the attention-driven processes. However, direct empirical evidence regarding these issues is limited. LTM Processes in WM ModelsA variety of WM models that represent alternatives to Baddeley's model have been proposed within different theoretical contexts (see Miyake & Shah, 1999). We will describe only a few of these that are most prominent in their inclusion of active-but-unattended LTM elements in WM. Virtually all WM theorists acknowledge the contribution of LTM knowledge structures to WM performance, but some have proposed models in which LTM processes are central to the definition...

The persistence of content-specific memory operations: Priming effects following a 24-h delay

“…Consistent with other measures of the Stroop effect, the participants were more accurate in evaluating consistent numeral strings (M 99.36%, SD 0.01), as compared with inconsistent strings (M 95.03%, SD 0.10) [F(1,107) Only data from positive match (SC) comparisons were analyzed, on the basis of prior evidence that priming effects are insignificant in negative match (DC) comparisons (Woltz & Was, 2006. Table 1 displays the response means and standard deviations of the errors and latencies for SC comparisons by condition.…”

“…In all five of the experiments, the participants were faster and more accurate at identifying exemplars from the same category when the exemplars were primed than when they were not. In the first three experiments (Woltz & Was, 2006), category comparisons consisted only of exemplars not previously encountered in the memory list (i.e., memory list associates). Priming effects demonstrated using exemplars not encountered in the memory list represent semantic/ associate priming, and not perceptual or repetition priming, because the exemplars have not previously been processed.…”

On the generation of shared symbols

“…In order to consider the combined effects of both measures of task performance, we used Efficiency (i.e. Accuracy/Planning time; see (Machizawa & Driver, 2011;Nixon, et al, 2007;Townsend & Ashby, 1983;Woltz & Was, 2006) and Efficiency Rate (d(Efficiency)/d(trials)). Efficiency increases with greater accuracies and smaller planning times and it indicates the number of correct responses per unit time.…”

Inhibition of Ambiguous Word Activation In the Context of a Working Memory Task

“…The experimental tasks for this study were adapted from the Woltz and Was (2006) task for the activation of long-term memory nodes within a working memory task. Participants performed the experimental task in a single 1-hour session in groups of 1-6 participants.…”

“…Moreover, is the activation of the irrelevant meaning inhibited or is the activation of the irrelevant meaning simply reduced after being raised? Woltz and Was (2006) demonstrated the content of processing in working memory tasks increased the availability of related information in long-term memory. In the current study, the measurement of increased and decreased availability was measured using a word comparison task similar to that used by Woltz and Was.…”