Separability of active semantic and phonological maintenance in verbal working memory

Abstract

Models of verbal working memory that incorporate active memory maintenance, long-term memory networks, and attention control have been developed. Current studies suggest that semantic representations of words, evoked via long-term memory networks, are actively maintained until they are needed to fulfill a role. In other words, it is possible that some mechanism actively refreshes semantic representations of words, analogous to but independently from articulatory rehearsal which refreshes phonological representations. One valuable piece of evidence is a double dissociation, observed in a dual task paradigm in which manual tapping disrupted a semantic memory task while articulatory suppression disrupted a phonological memory task. However, in that study, the secondary tasks could have competed not only with the maintenance but also with the encoding activities. Additionally, the study items in the phonological memory tasks were words; hence, the discriminability of the memory tasks is doubtful. The present study, therefore, examined a potential double dissociation in situations where the secondary tasks could not compete with encoding, using a modified phonological memory task. Furthermore, this article discusses a potential mechanism for maintaining semantic representations.

Working Memory Capacities Neurally Dissociate: Evidence from Acute Stroke

“…Given that the LSM analyses controlled for the other WM component, these results imply that articulatory rehearsal processes were more important for performance on the phonological than the semantic WM task. In the behavioral literature on healthy adults, a separate process, termed refreshing, has been argued to keep semantic representations in mind ( Loaiza and Camos 2018 ; Nishiyama 2018 ). Refreshing is held to be a process by which recently activated representations are “rethought” and thereby given a boost of activation, with evidence suggesting independence of refreshing from both articulatory rehearsal and retrieval from long-term memory ( Loaiza and Camos 2018 ).…”

The susceptibility of compound remote associate problems to disruption by irrelevant sound: a Window onto the component processes underpinning creative cognition?

“…There is growing evidence that phonological and semantic representations contribute separately to working memory task performance (Haarmann et al, 2003;Nishiyama, 2013;Shivde & Thompson-Schill, 2004). Furthermore, semantic representations appear to be actively maintained independently from phonological representations (Nishiyama, 2013(Nishiyama, , 2018. Earlier we noted that the relationship between verbal working memory capacity measures (e.g.…”

“…For example, Nishiyama 2018reports a study in which the secondary task of tapping (which demands attentional resources involved in refreshing) impaired synonym recognition performance while articulatory suppression had no effect. Thus, the activation of the semantic representations of words via long-term memory networksvia attentional refreshingcan be maintained in the presence of articulatory suppression (Nishiyama, 2018).…”

“…While it is possible that attentional refreshing may be involved in CRAT performance, it is unlikely that it is disrupted by task-irrelevant sound. This is because only attentionally demanding secondary tasks purportedly disrupt attentional refreshing (Nishiyama, 2018). Furthermore, the finding that articulatory suppression, which does not disrupt attentional refreshing, impairs CRAT performance (Ball & Stevens, 2009) implies that reducing the opportunity for speechbased planning (as is assumed to occur with both articulatory suppression and task-irrelevant sound), is unlikely to disrupt the semantic representations involved in CRAT performance.…”

Working Memory Capacities Neurally Dissociate: Evidence from Acute Stroke

“…Given that the LSM analyses controlled for the other WM component, these results imply that articulatory rehearsal processes were more important for performance on the phonological than the semantic WM task. In the behavioral literature on healthy adults, a separate process, termed refreshing, has been argued to keep semantic representations in mind (e.g., Loiza and Camos 2018; Nishiyama 2018). Refreshing is held to be a process by which recently activated representations are “rethought” and thereby given a boost of activation, with evidence suggesting independence of refreshing from both articulatory rehearsal and retrieval from long-term memory (Loiza and Camos 2018).…”