Dual-task interference in visual working memory: A limitation in storage capacity but not in encoding or retrieval

Fougnie, Daryl; Marois, René

doi:10.3758/app.71.8.1831

Cited by 31 publications

(26 citation statements)

References 67 publications

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“…When visual and tactile WM tasks have to be performed concurrently, dual-task costs could in principle arise during the encoding or maintenance of memorized sample items, or at a later stage when these items are matched to test stimuli. Current evidence for dual-task costs for WM retrieval and matching processes is mixed (Cowan & Morey, 2007;Fougnie & Marois, 2009). The fact that the modality of test stimuli is uncertain in bimodal WM tasks could affect the speed of sample-test comparisons and/or the preparation of stimulus-response mappings (cf.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Sources of Dual-task Costs in Multisensory Working Memory Tasks

Katus

Eimer

2019

Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience

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We investigated the sources of dual-task costs arising in multisensory working memory (WM) tasks, where stimuli from different modalities have to be simultaneously maintained. Performance decrements relative to unimodal single-task baselines have been attributed to a modality-unspecific central WM store, but such costs could also reflect increased demands on central executive processes involved in dual-task coordination. To compare these hypotheses, we asked participants to maintain two, three, or four visual items. Unimodal trials, where only this visual task was performed, and bimodal trials, where a concurrent tactile WM task required the additional maintenance of two tactile items, were randomly intermixed. We measured the visual and tactile contralateral delay activity (CDA/tCDA components) as markers of WM maintenance in visual and somatosensory areas. There were reliable dual-task costs, as visual CDA components were reduced in size and visual WM accuracy was impaired on bimodal relative to unimodal trials. However, these costs did not depend on visual load, which caused identical CDA modulations in unimodal and bimodal trials, suggesting that memorizing tactile items did not reduce the number of visual items that could be maintained. Visual load did not also affect tCDA amplitudes. These findings indicate that bimodal dual-task costs do not result from a competition between multisensory items for shared storage capacity. Instead, these costs reflect generic limitations of executive control mechanisms that coordinate multiple cognitive processes in dual tasks. Our results support hierarchical models of WM, where distributed maintenance processes with modality-specific capacity limitations are controlled by a central executive mechanism.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Sources of Dual-task Costs in Multisensory Working Memory Tasks

Katus

Eimer

2019

Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience

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“…Although much recent effort has been directed at understanding verbal short-term memory (e.g., Berman, Jonides, & Lewis, 2009;Camos, Lagner, & Barrouillet, 2009;Lewandowsky, Oberauer, & Brown, 2009;Oberauer & Lange, 2008), impressive advances have also been made in the study of nonverbal stores, such as visual short-term memory (e.g., Alvarez & Cavanagh, 2008;Fougnie & Marois, 2009;Zhang & Luck, 2009). Progress in the auditory memory field, however, has been less significant.…”

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confidence: 99%

Updating and feature overwriting in short-term memory for timbre

Mercer

McKeown

2010

Attention, Perception & Psychophysics

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Previous research has demonstrated a potent, stimulus-specific form of interference in short-term auditory memory. This effect has been interpreted in terms of interitem confusion and grouping, but the present experiments suggested that interference might be a feature-specific phenomenon. Participants compared standard and comparison tones over a 10-sec interval and were required to determine whether they differed in timbre. A single interfering distractor tone was presented either 50 msec or 8 sec after the offset of the standard (Experiment 1) or 2 sec prior to its onset (Experiment 2). The distractor varied in the number of features it shared with the standard and comparison, and this proved critical, since performance on the task was greatly impaired when the distractor either consisted of novel, unshared features (Experiment 1) or contained the distinguishing feature of the comparison tone (Experiments 1 and 2). These findings were incompatible with earlier accounts of forgetting but were fully explicable by the recent timbre memory model, which associates interference in short-term auditory memory with an "updating" process and feature overwriting. These results suggest similarities with the mechanisms that underlie forgetting in verbal short-term memory.

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“…Wheeler and Treisman (2002) argued that attention is necessary to create and maintain binding between features over time and that this integrated representation is vulnerable to interference. Consistently, Fougnie and Marois (2009) showed that a tracking task disrupted memory for colour-shape conjunctions. By contrast, several studies indicated that binding in WM is a rather automatic process (Allen, Baddeley, & Hitch, 2006;Allen, Hitch, Mate, & Baddeley, 2012;Prabhakaran et al, 2000).…”

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confidence: 65%