Improvements to visual working memory performance with practice and feedback

Abstract

Visual working memory capacity is estimated to be around 3–4 items, but on some trials participants fail to correctly report even a single item from the memory array. Such failures of working memory performance are surprisingly common, and participants have poor self-awareness of them. Previous work has shown that behavioral feedback can reduce the frequency of working memory failures, but the benefits of feedback disappeared immediately after it was taken away. Here, we tested whether extended practice with or without trial-by-trial feedback would lead to persistent improvements in working memory performance. Participants were assigned to one of four groups: (1) Working memory practice with feedback (2) Working memory practice without feedback (3) Crossword puzzle active control (4) No-contact control. Consistent with previous work, simple practice with a visual working memory task robustly improved working memory performance across practice sessions. However, we found only partial support for the efficacy of feedback in improving working memory performance. Practicing with feedback improved working memory performance relative to a no-feedback group for some practice sessions. However, the feedback benefits did not persist across all training sessions and did not transfer to a final test session without the feedback. Thus, the benefits of performance feedback did not persist over time. Further, we found only stimulus-specific transfer of visual working memory practice benefits. We also found that participants’ metaknowledge improved with practice, but that receiving feedback about task accuracy actually slightly harmed the accuracy of concurrent metaknowledge ratings. Finally, we discuss important design considerations for future work in this area (e.g. power, expectations, and “spacing effects”). For example, we found that achieved statistical power to detect a between-groups effect declined with practice. This finding has potentially critical implications for any study using a 1-session study to calculate power for a planned multi-session study.

Visual working memory capacity in Korsakoff’s amnesia

“…Our results are also in line with the recent finding that visual perception is not optimal in KS patients (Kasse et al, 2019). Importantly, recent findings suggest that visual working memory functioning can be trained in healthy individuals (Adam & Vogel, 2018), and a recent report in KS patients suggested that optimization of working memory performance could be managed through chunking of new information (El Haj, Kessels, Urso, & Nandrino, 2018). It would therefore be of particular interest to study the training effects of chunking visual working memory information for rehabilitation in KS.…”

Distinguishing the Visual Working Memory Training and Practice Effects by the Effective Connectivity During n-back Tasks: A DCM of ERP Study

“…WM practice can enhance the WM function too. The effects of WM practice are similar to that of WM training in two ways: an improved task performance (Adam and Vogel, 2018) and an enlarged P300 amplitude (McEvoy et al, 1998; Zhao et al, 2013). However, no studies have ever reported an increase in N160 magnitude after practice.…”

Systematic Review of the Longitudinal Sensitivity of Precision Tasks in Visual Working Memory

“…The closer one’s answer to the original orientation of the item, the greater the recall performance. Given that the forced-choice Adam and Vogel [ 15 ] task measured mean performance, we ultimately used a difference in mean effect sizes to compare and assess changes in precision over time. Additionally, we used Pearson’s correlation coefficient to look at test–retest reliability.…”