The effects of divided attention at encoding on specific and gist-based associative episodic memory

Abstract

Effects of divided attention (DA) during encoding on later memory performance are widely documented. However, the precise nature of these effects on underlying memory representations and subsequent retrieval processes has not been thoroughly investigated. Here, we examined whether DA at encoding would disrupt young adults’ ability to remember associations in episodic memory at highly specific levels of representation (i.e., verbatim memory), or whether the effects of DA extend also to gist memory for associations. Two groups of participants (one under full attention, one under DA) studied face–scene pairs. The DA group simultaneously completed an auditory choice reaction-time task during encoding. Following either a short or long delay, participants were tested on their ability to discriminate intact face–scene pairs from recombined pairs that were either highly similar, less similar, or completely unrelated to originally studied pairs. The DA group performed more poorly than the full attention participants at correctly classifying most types of test pairs at both delays, and results from a multinomial-processing-tree model demonstrated that participants who encoded associations under DA experienced deficits in both specific and gist memory retrieval. We also compared the DA group to full attention older adults who were tested with the same paradigm (Greene & Naveh-Benjamin, Psychological Science, 31 [3], 316–331, 2020). The DA group had lower estimates of gist retrieval than the older adults but similar estimates of verbatim memory. These results suggest that DA at encoding disrupts episodic memories at multiple levels of representation, in contrast to age-related effects, which are restricted only to the highest levels of specificity. Supplementary Information The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.3758/s13421-021-01196-9.

Adult age-related changes in the specificity of episodic memory representations: A review and theoretical framework.

“…A similar pattern of results was obtained with young adults under divided attention conditions at either encoding or retrieval, which suggested that attentional resources were necessary for encoding and retrieving specific but not general/gist details. Some more recent studies challenge this assumption or at least suggest that some (perhaps smaller) commitment of attention is also required to encode gist representations (Greene & Naveh-Benjamin, 2022b, 2022c).…”

Adult age differences in specific and gist associative episodic memory across short- and long-term retention intervals.

“…Studies employing divided attention manipulations with young adults have been informative to our understanding of the attentional-demanding properties of encoding and retrieval of specific and gist representations. When young adults’ attention is divided during encoding, their ability to remember both specific and gist representations of complex associations in episodic memory is diminished (Greene et al, 2022; Greene & Naveh-Benjamin, 2022b). Such deficits are broader than those experienced by older adults, who can remember the gist of associations (Greene & Naveh-Benjamin, 2020).…”

Attentional attenuation (rather than attentional boost) through task switching leads to a selective long-term memory decline

“…Studies of Stroop or Flanker conflict on subsequent memory performance found improved memory performance for incongruent compared to congruent stimuli ( Krebs et al, 2015 ; Rosner et al, 2015 ; Muhemnthaler and Meier, 2021a , b ). In contrast, in dual-task and divided-attention situations typically a memory deficit occurs for target stimuli, similarly to the effect of task switching ( Dell’Acqua and Jolicoeur, 2000 ; Vachon and Jolicœur, 2011 ; Greene and Naveh-Benjamin, 2022 ). Thus, there are conditions, which divert cognitive resources away from stimulus encoding, leading to lower memory and there are conditions which increase encoding of conflict stimuli ( Botvinick et al, 2004 ).…”

“…For example, transient increases in attention to one task can enhance memory performance in a second task, an effect known as the attentional boost effect ( Swallow and Jiang, 2010 , 2013 ). In contrast, when cognitive control demands increase, the ability to attend to an item is reduced and as a consequence memory performance is impaired ( Gardiner and Parkin, 1990 ; Lavie, 2010 ; Richter and Yeung, 2012 , 2015 ; Craik et al, 2018 ; Muhmenthaler and Meier, 2019 ; Greene and Naveh-Benjamin, 2022 ). For example, when people perform multiple tasks simultaneously ( Craik et al, 1996 ; Naveh-Benjamin et al, 1998 ), when they are distracted by irrelevant stimuli ( Jenkins et al, 2005 ; Wais et al, 2010 ) or when they have to switch between two competing tasks, target memory is impaired ( Richter and Yeung, 2012 ; Muhmenthaler and Meier, 2019 ; Dubravac and Meier, 2020 ; Muhmenthaler and Meier, 2021a ).…”