Semantic knowledge constrains the processing of serial order information in working memory.

Kowialiewski, Benjamin; Gorin, Simon; Majerus, Steve

doi:10.1037/xlm0001031

Cited by 15 publications

(34 citation statements)

References 76 publications

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“…In addition, studying more systematically the factors (e.g., sequence length, group sizes, number of groups), and their interaction, driving the increase in interposition errors in serial recall may help in shedding new light on our understanding of serial order representation in STM. Recent work by Kowialiewski et al (2021) has shown that sequences of six words grouped into pairs are characterised by an increase in interposition errors compared with the same ungrouped sequences. This indicates that the observation of an increase in interposition errors in grouped sequences seems to depend more on the number of groups in the sequence, rather than on the length of the sequence.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Temporal grouping effects in verbal and musical short-term memory: Is serial order representation domain-general?

Gorin

2021

Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology

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The question of the domain-general versus domain-specific nature of the serial order mechanisms involved in short-term memory is currently under debate. The present study aimed at addressing this question through the study of temporal grouping effects in short-term memory tasks with musical material, a domain which has received little interest so far. The goal was to determine whether positional coding—currently the best account of grouping effect in verbal short-term memory—represents a viable mechanism to explain grouping effects in the musical domain. In a first experiment, non-musicians performed serial reconstruction of 6-tone sequences, where half of the sequences was grouped by groups of three items and the other half presented at a regular pace. The overall data pattern suggests that temporal grouping exerts on tone sequences reconstruction the same effects as in the verbal domain, except for ordering errors which were not characterized by the typical increase of interpositions. This pattern has been replicated in two additional experiments with verbal material, using the same grouping structure as in the musical experiment. The findings support that verbal and musical short-term memory domains are characterized by similar temporal grouping effects for the recall of 6-item lists grouped by three, but it also suggests the existence of boundary condition to observe an increase of interposition errors predicted by positional theories.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Temporal grouping effects in verbal and musical short-term memory: Is serial order representation domain-general?

Gorin

2021

Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology

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“…In this analysis, we computed the proportion of within-group transpositions, following the same procedure used by Kowialiewski, Gorin, and Majerus (2021). We first computed the total number of transposition errors occurring for items 1, 2 and 3 in the C1 condition, and items 4, 5, and 6 in the C2 condition.…”

Section: Semantic Relatednessmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Recently, Kowialiewski, Gorin, & Majerus, 2021 showed that semantic relatedness constrains the pattern of transposition errors occurring in typical serial recall tasks. They used lists composed of items related in subgroups (e.g., piano, guitar, violin, arm, leg, hand).…”

Section: How Does Similarity Impact Memory For Order?mentioning

confidence: 99%

Between-item similarity frees up working memory resources through compression: A domain-general property.

Kowialiewski¹,

Lemaire²,

Portrat³

2022

Journal of Experimental Psychology: General

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Compression, the ability to recode information in a denser format, is a core property of working memory (WM). Previous studies have shown that the ability to compress information largely benefits WM performance. Importantly, recent evidence also suggests compression as freeing up WM resources, thus enhancing recall performance for other, less compressible information. Contrary to the traditional view positing that between-item similarity decreases WM performance, this study shows that between-item similarity can be used to free up WM resources through compression. Across a series of four experiments, we show that between-item similarity not only enhances recall performance for similar items themselves, but also for other, less compressible items within the same list, and this in the semantic (Experiment 1), phonological (Experiment 2), visuospatial (Experiment 3), and visual (Experiment 4) domains. Across these different domains, a consistent pattern of results emerged: between-item similarity proactively–but not retroactively–enhanced WM performance for other items, and this as compared with a condition in which between-item similarity at the whole-list level was minimized. We propose that between-item similarity in any domain may impact WM using the same underlying machinery: via a compression mechanism, which allows an efficient reallocation of WM resources.

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“…They observed that the fifth item tended to be transposed more often towards positions 1, 2 and 3 in the experimental as compared to the control condition. Equivalent results have recently been reported by Kowialiewski, Gorin, et al (2021). They manipulated semantic similarity by presenting two categories composed of three items.…”

Section: Cases Of Effects Of Semantic Similarity On Order Memorymentioning

confidence: 63%

“…Poirier et al (2015) reported migration errors occurring across the entire list (i.e., item 5 migrating towards positions 1, 2 and 3). The results reported by Kowialiewski, Gorin et al (2021) suggest, however, that these migration errors might be more limited and local, as they were found only when the similar items were presented in groups, but not when interleaved. Both studies have methodological limitations.…”

Section: Cases Of Effects Of Semantic Similarity On Order Memorymentioning

confidence: 82%

Does semantic similarity affect immediate memory for order? Usually not, but sometimes it does

Kowialiewski¹,

Majerus²,

Oberauer³

2023

Preprint

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Recall performance in working memory (WM) is strongly affected by the similarity between items. When asked to encode and recall list of items in their serial order, people confuse more often the position of similar compared to dissimilar items. Models of WM explain this deleterious effect of similarity through a problem of discriminability between WM representations. In contrast, when lists of items that are all semantically similar are compared to lists of dissimilar items, semantic similarity does not negatively impact order memory, questioning the idea that semantic information is part of the WM content. This study reports four experiments in which semantic similarity was manipulated using lists composed of multiple semantic categories. These experiments revealed two main patterns. First, semantic similarity can increase, rather than decrease, order memory. Second, semantic knowledge reliably constrains the way items migrate; when migrating, items tend to do so more often toward the position of other similar items, rather than migrating toward other dissimilar items. These results challenge the way current models of WM represent similarity. The plausibility of different theoretical accounts and mechanisms is discussed.

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Semantic knowledge constrains the processing of serial order information in working memory.

Cited by 15 publications

References 76 publications

Temporal grouping effects in verbal and musical short-term memory: Is serial order representation domain-general?

Temporal grouping effects in verbal and musical short-term memory: Is serial order representation domain-general?

Between-item similarity frees up working memory resources through compression: A domain-general property.

Does semantic similarity affect immediate memory for order? Usually not, but sometimes it does

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