Individual differences in working memory capacity and long-term memory: The influence of intensity of attention to items at encoding as measured by pupil dilation

Miller, Ashley L.; Gross, Marina P.; Unsworth, Nash

doi:10.1016/j.jml.2018.09.005

Cited by 43 publications

(82 citation statements)

References 71 publications

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“…However, the correlation between working memory and effective encoding strategies from the end of the task reports in this study was also near zero and slightly negative ( r = −.09). Complicating issues further are the results from another recent study conducted in our laboratory, which demonstrated a correlation of r = .01( N = 139) between working memory and effective strategy use on delayed free recall (Miller, Gross, & Unsworth, 2019). Thus, whereas prior research has suggested a correlation between working memory and effective strategy use, more recent research suggests no relation.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Individual differences in encoding strategies and free recall dynamics

Unsworth

Miller

Robison

2019

Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology

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Individual differences in encoding strategies and their relation to free recall dynamics were examined. Participants performed a delayed free recall task and following each list reported which strategies they may have used on the prior list. Individual differences in effective encoding strategy use were positively correlated with overall recall performance. Examining recall dynamics suggested that variation in effective encoding strategy use was associated with greater recall, particularly on non-primacy items and slightly more organised recall in terms of recall transitions. However, no differences were found for recall of items at the first serial position, in recall initiation, or in how quickly participants recalled items. Collectively, the results are consistent with the notion that effective encoding strategies increase the strength of items, resulting in a higher likelihood of recovering the items during recall. Individual differences in control processes in the form of effective encoding strategies are critically important for understanding normal variation in memory abilities.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Individual differences in encoding strategies and free recall dynamics

Unsworth

Miller

Robison

2019

Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology

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“…This research lead to the understanding that attention leads to the enhancement and sensitivity of neuronal response in early perceptual brain regions to bias neural competition towards goalrelevant behavior (Desimone & Duncan, 1995;Reynolds & Pasternak, 2000). Additionally, recent work by Unsworth and colleagues has suggested that the voluntary control of the intensity of attention is important for understanding the relationship between working memory capacity and attention control (A. L. Miller et al, 2019;. This broader view of attention control as more than just selection or inhibition is a reflection of our executive attention view of cognition in which executive attention organizes processing requirements around task-objectives or current goals (Shipstead et al, 2016).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Attention control: The missing link between sensory discrimination and intelligence

Tsukahara

Harrison

Draheim

et al. 2020

Atten Percept Psychophys

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Intelligence is correlated with the ability to make fine sensory discriminations. Although this relationship has been known since the beginning of intelligence testing, the mechanisms underlying this relationship are still unknown. In two large-scale structural equation modelling studies, we investigated whether individual differences in attention control abilities can explain the relationship between sensory discrimination and intelligence. Across the two studies, we replicated the finding that attention control fully mediated the relationships of intelligence/working memory capacity to sensory discrimination. Our findings show that attention control plays a prominent role in relating sensory discrimination to higher-order cognitive abilities. [Data, analysis scripts, and results output are available via the Open Science

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“…Finally, in his recent review, Unsworth (2019) summarizes evidence supporting the assumption that LTM abilities also correlate with attentional control (see also Miller, Gross, & Unsworth, 2019). In CL, this might also be the case in so much as encoding stimuli into memory might be a disctractable process.…”

Section: Interim Summary Cal Not Only Closely Approximated the Behavmentioning

confidence: 96%

A Cognitive Category-Learning Model of Rule Abstraction, Attention Learning, and Contextual Modulation

Schlegelmilch

Wills

Helversen

2020

Preprint

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We introduce the CAL model (Category Abstraction Learning), a cognitive framework formally describing category learning built on similarity-based generalization, dissimilarity-based abstraction, two attention learning mechanisms, error-driven knowledge structuring and stimulus memorization. Our hypotheses draw on an array of empirical and theoretical insights connecting reinforcement and category learning, and working memory. The key novelty of the model is its explanation of how rules are learned from scratch based on three central assumptions. (1) Category rules emerge from two processes of stimulus generalization (similarity) and its direct inverse (category contrast) on independent dimensions. (2) Two attention mechanisms guide learning by focusing on rules, or on the contexts in which they produce errors. (3) Knowing about these contexts inhibits executing the rule, without correcting it, and consequently leads to applying partial rules in different situations. We show that the model decisively outperforms the established category-learning models ALCOVE (Kruschke, 1992), SUSTAIN (Love, Medin, & Gureckis, 2004) and ATRIUM (Erickson & Kruschke, 1998) on data sets from benchmark studies, including cross-validations based on trial-wise eye-movements. Additionally, CAL's three free parameters, which measure abstraction, memorization and attention control, are related to abilities measured in working memory tasks in a theoretically meaningful way. We illustrate the model's explanatory scope by simulating several phenomena (peak shift, sample size, instruction effects, extrapolation), which were so far unexplained (or unexplained within a single model). We discuss CAL's relation to existing accounts, and its promise in understanding the role of attention control and working memory in category learning and related domains.

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Individual differences in working memory capacity and long-term memory: The influence of intensity of attention to items at encoding as measured by pupil dilation

Cited by 43 publications

References 71 publications

Individual differences in encoding strategies and free recall dynamics

Individual differences in encoding strategies and free recall dynamics

Attention control: The missing link between sensory discrimination and intelligence

A Cognitive Category-Learning Model of Rule Abstraction, Attention Learning, and Contextual Modulation

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