Temporal regularities allow saving time for maintenance in working memory

Abstract

Recent evidence suggests that working memory (WM) performance can be enhanced in the presence of an isochronous rhythm during the retention interval because it improves refreshing. Considering the cognitive load (CL) effect as an indicator of refreshing, the present study investigated whether an isochronous rhythm might benefit memory performance under varying cognitive load. For that goal, the presence of a regular rhythm and the cognitive load of the concurrent task (i.e., reading of digits that were either same or different within a trial) were systematically varied. Recall performance was decreased by high cognitive load compared with low cognitive load but was improved in the regular rhythm condition compared with the silent condition. No interaction between cognitive load and rhythm was observed. The present results suggest that temporal regularities might speed up the reading of the digits rather than improve the efficiency of refreshing, resulting in more time available for refreshing and, consequently, improved memory performance. These findings are interpreted in the framework of the dynamic attending theory and in the scope of recent models of working memory, which are also considering the temporal components of working memory and the importance of the temporal structure of working memory tasks.

On some of the main criticisms of the modal model: Reappraisal from a TBRS perspective

“…We explained earlier that the effectiveness of refreshing depends on temporal factors, but it also could result from developmental differences, as children under 7 years old (e.g., Barrouillet, Gavens, Vergauwe, Gaillard, & Camos, 2009) and healthy older adults seem less able to use this mechanism (Johnson, Mitchell, Raye, & Green, 2004;Fanuel, Plancher, Monsaingeon, Tillmann, & Portrat, 2018a;Plancher, Boyer, Lemaire, & Portrat, 2017). Consistent with the fact that refreshing relies on attention, recent studies have suggested that its efficiency could also be enhanced by providing an isochronous rhythm (known to guide attention over time) during the maintenance interval, something that increases memory performance (Fanuel, Portrat, Tillmann, & Plancher, 2018b;Plancher, Lévêque, Fanuel, Piquandet, & Tillmann, 2018). It could be argued that theories of the existence of attentional refreshing rely mostly on indirect evidence such as the CL effect (see Oberauer, Lewandowsky, Farrell, Jarrold, & Greaves, 2012), but Vergauwe and Cowan (2015) provided direct evidence that it consists in reactivating memory traces.…”

The influence of rhythm on short-term memory for serial order

“…Alternatively, considering the evidence reported in the “Introduction” that regular and irregular timings impact serial order STM tasks, respectively, in a positive and negative direction (e.g., Fanuel et al, 2018; Gorin et al, 2016; Henson et al, 2003; Plancher et al, 2018), one may predict to observe an effect of regularity in this experiment. Consequently, if rhythmic manipulations influence the way serial order is represented in STM tasks, we could expect that, compared with regular sequences, irregular sequences should be recalled less accurately, characterised by an altered pattern of serial order errors, and show a serial position curve reflecting the temporal manipulations implemented in the experiment.…”

“…Based on evidences that rhythm can influence performances in STM tasks (positively or negatively, see Fanuel et al, 2018; Gorin et al, 2016; Henson et al, 2003; Plancher et al, 2018; Saito, 1994), it was hypothesised that presenting items with an irregular timing might negatively impact serial recall accuracy and affect error patterns as well. At the same time, if we assume that time plays no role in the representation of serial order as hypothesised in event-based models, one could have made the opposite prediction that timing should not affect serial recall performances.…”

“…This prediction was contrasted with another one assuming that, if time plays a role in the representation of serial order in STM, recall performances should be affected by the manipulation of presentation timing. This second prediction was inspired by theories supporting the existence of time-based representation of serial order in STM (Brown et al, 2000, 2007; Burgess & Hitch, 1999; Hartley et al, 2016), as well as by evidence that temporal manipulations can influence—positively and negatively—performances in serial order STM tasks (see Fanuel et al, 2018; Gorin et al, 2016; Henson et al, 2003; Plancher et al, 2018). In three experiments, we asked participants to reconstruct the serial order of 9-digit lists presented either with a regular or an irregular timing.…”

“…It is also known that the maintenance of serially ordered verbal memoranda is sensitive to interfering tasks requiring the processing of rhythmic information irregularly organized (see, e.g., Gorin, Kowialiewski, & Majerus, 2016;Henson, Hartley, Burgess, Hitch, & Flude, 2003), while, conversely, STM for rhythm is disrupted by a concurrent task requiring articulatory activity (Saito & Ishio, 1998). At the same time, recent evidence suggests that presenting an isochronous rhythm during the retention phase of a serial order STM task improves serial recall performance (see Fanuel, Portrat, Tillmann, & Plancher, 2018;Plancher, Lévêque, Fanuel, Piquandet, & Tillmann, 2018). Taken together, these results strengthen the view according to which an important link exists between STM for rhythm, verbal STM for serial order, and timing processing (Saito, 2001), as well as a bidirectional association between timing and representation of serial order in STM (De Belder, van Dijck, Cappelletti, & Fias, 2017).…”