The Demise of Short-Term Memory Revisited: Empirical and Computational Investigations of Recency Effects.

Davelaar, Eddy J.; Goshen‐Gottstein, Yonatan; Ashkenazi, Amir; Haarmann, Henk J.; Usher, Marius

doi:10.1037/0033-295x.112.1.3

Cited by 387 publications

(593 citation statements)

References 162 publications

(433 reference statements)

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“…This is in line with the suggested reliance of recency performance on short term memory processes independent of hippocampal function (Davelaar, Goshen-Gottstein, Ashkenazi, Haarmann, & Usher, 2005).…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 88%

Neuronal correlates of serial position performance in amnestic mild cognitive impairment.

et al. 2016

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Objectives:Delayed recall of the first words of a list -the primacy position -is thought to be particularly dependent on intact memory consolidation. Hippocampal volume has been suggested as the primary neuronal correlate of delayed primacy recall in cognitively normal elderly individuals. Here, we studied the association of hippocampal volume with primacy recall in individuals with amnestic mild cognitive impairment (aMCI). Methods:We investigated serial position performance in 88 subjects with aMCI using a 16-word list (CVLT). Primacy and recency performance were measured during learning and delayed recall. Hippocampal volumes were automatically determined from structural MRI scans. We conducted regression analyses with bilateral hippocampal volumes as predictors and serial position indices as outcomes. Results:After controlling for age, gender, and total intracranial volume, bilateral hippocampal volume was not associated with primacy recall either during learning or delayed recall. Primacy performance during learning was associated with the right inferior and middle temporal gyrus as well as the right inferior parietal cortex and supramerginal gyrus. During delayed recall, primacy performance was related to the bilateral supramarginal gyri. Conclusions:Our findings suggest a reduced primacy effect in aMCI already during learning, contrasting previous findings in normal cognitive aging. This might indicate impaired encoding and consolidation processes at an early stage of episodic memory acquisition. Furthermore, our data indicates that hippocampal volume may not be a relevant determinant of residual primacy performance in the stage of aMCI, which may rather depend on temporal and parietal neocortical networks.

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Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 88%

Neuronal correlates of serial position performance in amnestic mild cognitive impairment.

et al. 2016

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“…The challenge for this approach is to integrate these two hypotheses into a precise mechanistic model. One path towards an integration would to be start from an interference model and add a resource-limited central component to it that maintains one, or a small number, of representations (e.g., the free-recall model of Davelaar et al, 2005). Such a model will have to specify how the capacity-limited component cooperates with the interference-limited component in generating behaviour on various paradigms for studying WM.…”

Section: Empirical Desiderata Whereas Most Of the Findings Inmentioning

confidence: 99%

What limits working memory capacity?

Oberauer

Farrell

Jarrold

et al. 2016

Psychological Bulletin

252

213

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We review the evidence for the three principal theoretical contenders that vie to explain why and how working memory capacity is limited. We examine the possibility that capacity limitations arise from temporal decay; we examine whether they might reflect a limitation in cognitive resources; and we ask whether capacity might be limited because of mutual interference of representations in working memory. We evaluate each hypothesis against a common set of findings reflecting the capacity limit: The set-size effect and its modulation by domain-specificity and heterogeneity of the memory set; the effects of unfilled retention intervals and of distractor processing in the retention interval; and the pattern of correlates of working-memory tests. We conclude that---at least for verbal memoranda---a decay explanation is untenable. A resource-based view remains tenable but has difficulty accommodating several findings. The interference approach has its own set of difficulties but accounts best for the set of findings, and therefore appears to present the most promising approach for future development.Keywords: working memory, decay, resources, interference, individual differences WM Capacity 3 What Limits Working Memory Capacity?Working memory (WM) is the system that holds mental representations available for processing. Its limited capacity is a limiting factor for the complexity of our thoughts (Halford, Cowan, & Andrews, 2007;Oberauer, 2009). Measures of WM capacity have been identified as major determinants of cognitive development in childhood (Bayliss, Jarrold, Gunn, & Baddeley, 2003) and in old age (Park et al., 2002;Salthouse, 1994), as well as of individual differences in intellectual abilities (Conway, Kane, & Engle, 2003;Jarrold & Towse, 2006). Understanding why WM capacity is limited is therefore an essential step toward understanding why human cognitive abilities are limited, why individuals differ in these abilities, and how abilities develop over the lifespan.In this article we use the term WM capacity in a descriptive sense, referring to the fact that people can hold only a limited amount of mental content available for processing. The capacity limit is usually operationalized as a limit on how much new information people can remember over short periods of time (in the order of seconds), but there are reasons to believe (discussed below) that the capacity limit also applies to people's ability to make information in the current environment simultaneously available for processing.Hypotheses about what limits WM capacity can be organized into three groups: (1) Some theories assume that representations in WM decay over time, unless decay is prevented by some form of restoration process such as rehearsal. According to this view, WM has limited capacity because only a limited amount of information can be rehearsed before it fades away into an irrecoverable state (Baddeley, Thomson, & Buchanan, 1975;Schweickert & Boruff, 1986). (2) Alternatively, WM capacity has been characterized as a limited resourc...

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“…Proactive distractor interference, as observed in Experiment 2, arises from contextual overlap between the distractor series and the subsequent memory list. This kind of explanation could also be formulated within dual-store models together with the assumption that secondary or long-term memory contributes substantially to behavior in complex span tasks (Davelaar, Goshen-Gottstein, Ashkenazi, Haarmann, & Usher, 2005;Unsworth & Engle, 2007).…”

Section: Alternative Theories Of Complex Spanmentioning

confidence: 99%

Control of information in working memory: Encoding and removal of distractors in the complex-span paradigm

Oberauer

Lewandowsky

2016

Cognition

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The Demise of Short-Term Memory Revisited: Empirical and Computational Investigations of Recency Effects.

Cited by 387 publications

References 162 publications

Neuronal correlates of serial position performance in amnestic mild cognitive impairment.

Neuronal correlates of serial position performance in amnestic mild cognitive impairment.

What limits working memory capacity?

Control of information in working memory: Encoding and removal of distractors in the complex-span paradigm

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