Is working memory storage intrinsically domain-specific?

Uittenhove, Kim; Chaabi, Lina; Camos, Valérie; Barrouillet, Pierre

doi:10.1037/xge0000566

Cited by 36 publications

(24 citation statements)

References 104 publications

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“…However, there is growing acknowledgement that retrieval from WM should not be taken for granted as simply a byproduct, but could moderate the impact of the purported underlying processes supporting encoding and maintenance in WM. For example, recent work has demonstrated that the method of retrieval (i.e., recall vs. recognition) of visuospatial and auditory-verbal items can modify the extent to which cross-domain interference is evident in WM (Uittenhove, Chaabi, Camos, & Barrouillet, 2019 ). Such findings have profound implications for major theoretical debates, such as whether WM is more domain specific or domain general (Fougnie, Zughni, Godwin, & Marois, 2015 ; Logie, 2011 ; Morey, 2018 ; Rhodes et al, 2019 ).…”

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confidence: 99%

“…This is quite surprising given that complex span tasks typically require serial recall, whereas participants freely recall the items after a delay. This basic methodological mismatch in the retrieval instructions deserves attention in addition to the fact that retrieval methods and limitations are increasingly considered consequential for long-standing debates in WM (Pratte, 2020 ; Uittenhove et al, 2019 ). Besides McCabe’s aforementioned experiment, some findings indicate that the retrieval demands should not play a role in this context.…”

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confidence: 99%

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The long-term consequences of retrieval demands during working memory

2020

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Although it is well known that distraction impairs immediate retrieval of items maintained in working memory (WM; e.g., during complex span tasks), some evidence suggests that these items are more likely to be recalled from episodic memory (EM) compared with items that were studied without any distraction (e.g., during simple span tasks). One account for this delayed advantage of complex span over simple span, or the McCabe effect (McCabe, Journal of Memory and Language, 58[2], 480-494, 2008), is that complex span affords covert retrieval opportunities that facilitate later retrieval from EM by cumulatively reactivating each successively presented item after distraction. This explanation focuses on the processing that occurs during presentation and maintenance of the items, but no work to date has explored whether the differential demands of immediate retrieval between simple and complex span may explain the effect. Accordingly, these experiments examined the impact of immediate retrieval demands on the McCabe effect by comparing typical immediate serial-recall instructions (i.e., recalling the words in their exact order of presentation) to immediate free-recall (Experiments 1-2) and no-recall (Experiments 2 and 3) instructions. The results suggested that the nature of retrieval may constrain the McCabe effect in some situations (Experiments 1-2), but its demands do not drive the McCabe effect given that it was observed in both serial-recall and no-recall conditions (Experiment 3). Instead, activities such as covert retrieval during the processing phase may underlie the McCabe effect, thus further evidencing the importance of processing in WM for the long-term retention of information.

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confidence: 99%

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confidence: 99%

The long-term consequences of retrieval demands during working memory

2020

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“…Crucially, the central (executive) attentional resource is assumed to be time-shared between processing and storage regardless of the nature and domain of the stimuli involved. That is, spatial storage is expected to be disrupted by both verbal and spatial processing activities and vice versa (e.g., Uittenhove et al, 2019; Vergauwe et al, 2010). Attentional refreshing, the maintenance mechanism that is interrupted by attention-demanding tasks, is described as separate from subvocal rehearsal (e.g., Camos, 2015, 2017, for review; Camos et al, 2009, 2017).…”

Section: The Current Studymentioning

confidence: 99%

What affects the magnitude of age-related dual-task costs in working memory? The role of stimulus domain and access to semantic representations

Jaroslawska

Rhodes

Belletier

et al. 2020

Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology

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Although there is evidence that the effect of including a concurrent processing demand on the storage of information in working memory is disproportionately larger for older than younger adults, not all studies show this age-related impairment, and the critical factors responsible for any such impairment remain elusive. Here we assess whether domain overlap between storage and processing activities, and access to semantic representations, are important determinants of performance in a sample of younger and older adults (N = 119). We developed four versions of a processing task by manipulating the type of stimuli involved (either verbal or non-verbal) and the decision that participants had to make about the stimuli presented on the screen. Participants either had to perform a spatial judgment, in deciding whether the verbal or non-verbal item was presented above or below the centre of the screen, or a semantic judgment, in deciding whether the stimulus refers to something living or not living. The memory task was serial-ordered recall of visually presented letters. The study revealed a large increase in age-related memory differences when concurrent processing was required. These differences were smaller when storage and processing activities both used verbal materials. Dual-task effects on processing were also disproportionate for older adults. Age differences in processing performance appeared larger for tasks requiring spatial decisions rather than semantic decisions. We discuss these findings in relation to three competing frameworks of working memory and the extant literature on cognitive ageing.

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“…However, of particular relevance here are reports investigating working memory for both visual and auditory objects (e.g. coloured squares and spoken numbers, or white dots and bird calls; Cowan, Saults, & Blume, 2014;Fougnie, Zughni, Godwin, & Marois, 2015;Uittenhove, Chaabi, Camos, & Barrouillet, 2019). The work of Cowan et al (2014) is illustrative of this approach.…”

Section: Separate Memory Stores For the Duration Of Auditory And Visumentioning

confidence: 99%

Auditory and Visual Durations Load a Unitary Working-Memory Resource

Yarrow

Samba

Kohl

et al. 2020

Timing Time Percept.

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Items in working memory are typically defined by various attributes, such as colour (for visual objects) and pitch (for auditory objects). The attribute of duration can be signalled by multiple modalities, but has received relatively little attention from a working-memory perspective. While the existence of specialist stores (e.g., the phonological loop and visuospatial sketchpad) is often asserted in the wider working-memory literature, the interval-timing literature has more often implied a unitary (amodal) store. Here we combine two modelling frameworks to probe the basis of working memory for duration; a Bayesian-observer framework, previously used to explain behaviour in duration-reproduction tasks, and mixture models, describing distributions of continuous reports about items in working memory. We modelled different storage mechanisms, such as a limited number of fixed-resolution slots or a resource spread between items at a cost to resolution, in order to ask whether items from different sensory modalities are maintained in separate, independent stores. We initially analysed data from 32 participants, who memorised between one and eight items before reproducing the duration of a randomly selected target. In separate blocks, items could be all visual, all auditory, or an alternating mixture of both. A small control experiment included a further condition with precuing of target modality. Certain kinds of slot models, resource models, and combination models incorporating both mechanisms could account for the data. However, looking across all plausible models, the decline in performance with increasing memory load was most consistent with a single store for event durations, regardless of stimulus modality.

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Is working memory storage intrinsically domain-specific?

Cited by 36 publications

References 104 publications

The long-term consequences of retrieval demands during working memory

The long-term consequences of retrieval demands during working memory

What affects the magnitude of age-related dual-task costs in working memory? The role of stimulus domain and access to semantic representations

Auditory and Visual Durations Load a Unitary Working-Memory Resource

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