The effects of processing time and processing rate on forgetting in working memory: Testing four models of the complex span paradigm

Abstract

Four models of working memory processes in the complex span paradigm were tested: The task-switching model of Towse, Hitch, and Hutton (1998), the interference account of Saito and Miyake (2004), and two versions of the time-based resource-sharing model of Barrouillet, Bernardin, and Camos (2004). On the basis of a reading span paradigm that used segmented sentences, the effect of processing time on the recall of words was investigated while the amount of processing was held constant. Two conditions of reading (continuous vs. normal) were compared in order to study the influence of brief pauses during reading that could be used for articulatory rehearsal. The results favor a version of the time-based resource-sharing model: A faster reading rate had a negative effect on recall. The effect of reading rate was obtained with continuous as well as normal reading, revealing that even continuous articulation does not prevent simultaneous refreshing of memory traces. A second experiment showed that continuous reading made concurrent articulatory rehearsal virtually impossible. These findings imply that a second rehearsal mechanism for verbal working memory, other than articulatory rehearsal, exists.

Attentional refreshing of information in working memory: Increased immediate accessibility of just-refreshed representations

“…Bernardin, & Camos, 2004;Barrouillet, Bernardin, Portrat, Vergauwe, & Camos, 2007;Barrouillet, Portrat, & Camos, 2011;Camos & Portrat, 2015;Hudjetz & Oberauer, 2007;Ricker & Cowan, 2010;Vergauwe, Barrouillet, & Camos, 2009; but see Oberauer, Lewandowsky, Farrell, Jarrold, & Greaves, 2012;Oberauer & Lewandowsky, 2013), and (2) increasing the number of times a memory item has been refreshed, by presenting cues prompting participants to think of specific WM items during a retention interval, results in better memory performance for that item (Souza, Rerko, & Oberauer, 2015). In these studies, researchers have focused on the effects of refreshing on memory performance at the end of the trial or at the end of the experimental session.…”

Interference between storage and processing in working memory: Feature overwriting, not similarity-based competition

“…The first mechanism is distraction of attention. The processing demand is assumed to distract a general attentional mechanism-sometimes referred to as a bottleneck-from the memory items, thereby preventing their maintenance or further consolidation in memory (Barrouillet et al, 2004;Hudjetz & Oberauer, 2007). The size of the distracting effect should depend on the proportion of time the processing task occupies attention, but not on the material used in the processing task.…”

"How does processing affect storage in working memory tasks? Evidence for both domain-general and domain-specific effects": Correction to Jarrold et al. (2011).

“…4 Indeed, rehearsal may well be completely impossible during verbal processing of the form employed here, where each successive processing operation follows on directly from the completion of the previous one (Hudjetz & Oberauer, 2007). Given this, one might question why verbal processing does not lead to a greater degree of forgetting than currently observed.…”

“…In contrast, refreshment is assumed to operate more rapidly than subvocal rehearsal as it need not involve the retrieval of the full phonological form of the memoranda (Barrouillet et al, 2007;Cowan et al, 1998;Hudjetz & Oberauer, 2007;Raye, Johnson, Mitchell, Reeder, & Greene, 2002). A number of authors have suggested that refreshment operates only on the most recently presented item (Raye et al, 2002;.…”

“…A key method of covert maintenance assumed by the model is a domain-general attentiondependent process whereby memory representations are reactivated or "refreshed" (cf. Hudjetz & Oberauer, 2007). The amount of attention required to perform processingattention that is required to retrieve the result of a processing operation from long-term memory and which could have otherwise been used for refreshment -is indexed by "cognitive load", a measure based on the difficulty and the rate of the processing demand.…”