The Relation Between Attention and Memory

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Theories of episodic memory posit that more attentional resources are needed for encoding specific compared to gist representations. This position has been challenged by recent findings of similar divided attention (DA) at encoding costs on both specific and gist representations. However, the disrupting effects of DA on specific representations may emerge under less difficult DA conditions than those under which effects on gist representations emerge. The present study addressed this possibility by manipulating the difficulty of a concurrent DA task (low, intermediate, or high difficulty) during encoding among 176 young adult participants, who encoded face-scene pairs under either full attention or one of the three levels of DA. During retrieval, participants discriminated intact pairs from recombined pairs that varied in how similar they were to studied pairs. Results, interpreted using a multinomial-processing-tree model of specific and gist memory, showed that the disrupting effects of DA on specific representations emerged under less difficult attentional loads (intermediate-demanding condition) compared to those under which gist representations were disrupted (high-demanding condition). These findings reinforce the suggestion of differential attentional demands for specific and gist representations and also provide insights into attentional resource theories of adult age-related cognitive decline. Public Significance StatementUnderstanding how attention influences the representational quality of episodic memory is important given the ubiquity of the attention-memory relationship across multiple facets of our daily lives. The present study demonstrates that attention during encoding is critical for establishing specific, detailed representations of an episode, as well as more general, meaning-based representations. However, the attentional demands to encoding specific representations are greater than those to encode general representations, which may explain why our memories become less specific in old age.

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confidence: 99%

Differential attentional costs of encoding specific and gist episodic memory representations.

Greene

Naveh–Benjamin

2023

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“…Our results replicate those of earlier findings in childhood development (Winsor et al, 2021), young adulthood (Wixted & Wells, 2017), and older adulthood (Colloff et al, 2017) documenting positive confidence–accuracy relations in LTM, albeit with variations in the strength of these relations across the lifespan (cf., Fandakova et al, 2013; Shing et al, 2009). Extending on these earlier studies, we found that similar confidence–accuracy relations arise in WM, the “gateway” through which new LTMs are formed (Forsberg, Guitard, Adams, et al, 2022; Forsberg, Guitard, & Cowan, 2021; Forsberg, Guitard, Greene, et al, 2022; Forsberg et al, 2023; Fukuda & Vogel, 2019; cf., Atkinson & Shiffrin, 1968; Cowan, 1988, 2019; Cowan et al, 2024). Moreover, the magnitude of the confidence–accuracy relation within an age group (i.e., the difference in recognition accuracy between lowest and highest confidence levels) was usually comparable in WM and in LTM, with rare exceptions.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…First, our definitions of WM and LTM are not intended to imply that these are separate memory systems. According to the embedded processes model (Cowan, 1988, 2019; Cowan et al, 2024), WM is an activated subset of LTM in which new LTM representations can be formed (cf., Oberauer, 2002). Due to its limited capacity, WM acts as an encoding bottleneck, constraining how much information individuals can later access in LTM (Forsberg, Guitard, & Cowan, 2021; Fukuda & Vogel, 2019; cf., Atkinson & Shiffrin, 1968).…”

Section: Terminology Used In the Present Studymentioning

confidence: 99%

A lifespan study of the confidence–accuracy relation in working memory and episodic long-term memory.

Greene,

Forsberg,

Guitard

et al. 2024

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The relation between an individual's memory accuracy and reported confidence in their memories can indicate self-awareness of memory strengths and weaknesses. We provide a lifespan perspective on this confidence-accuracy relation, based on two previously published experiments with 320 participants, including children aged 6-13, young adults aged 18-27, and older adults aged 65-77, across tests of working memory (WM) and long-term memory (LTM). Participants studied visual items in arrays of varying set sizes and completed item recognition tests featuring 6-point confidence ratings either immediately after studying each array (WM tests) or following a long period of study events (LTM tests). Confidence-accuracy characteristic analyses showed that accuracy improved with increasing confidence for all age groups and in both WM and LTM tests. These findings reflect a universal ability across the lifespan to use awareness of the strengths and limitations of one's memories to adjust reported confidence. Despite this age invariance in the confidence-accuracy relation, however, young children were more prone to high-confidence memory errors than other groups in tests of WM, whereas older adults were more susceptible to high-confidence false alarms in tests of LTM. Thus, although participants of all ages can assess when their memories are weaker or stronger, individuals with generally weaker memories are less adept at this confidence-accuracy calibration. Findings also speak to potential different sources of high-confidence memory errors for young children and older adults, relative to young adults. Public Significance StatementOur ability to accurately evaluate the strengths and weaknesses of our memories is critical to how we make decisions and can influence how much confidence other people can place in our reported experiences, as in eyewitness testimony. The present study reveals a strikingly universal ability of individuals from young childhood to older adulthood in calibrating their confidence in their memory with their observed accuracy in recognition. However, young children and older adults are more susceptible to high-confidence memory errors, but during different phases of memory retention, with young children's high-confidence errors arising in working memory and those of older adults appearing mostly in longterm memory. These findings suggest that different mechanisms underlie why young children and older adults generally have poorer memory than adolescents and young adults.

“…This in turn may make these newly formed specific representations more immune to inference from subsequent events or to temporal decay. Indeed, attending to information during initial encoding is essential for establishing new, durable long-term memory representations (Cowan et al, 2024;Forsberg et al, 2021Forsberg et al, , 2022. Due to their more severely limited attentional resource capacity (Craik & Byrd, 1982;Hasher & Zacks, 1988), older adults may especially benefit from longer time to process information during encoding.…”

Section: Implications For Parallel Versus Serial Encoding Models Of S...mentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Differences in the speed of encoding each type of representation may underlie why, more so than younger adults, older adults often fail to retain specific details of their past experiences (Greene & Naveh-Benjamin, 2023a), in line with cognitive slowing theories of aging (Light, 1991;Myerson et al, 1990;Salthouse, 1996). Furthermore, representations that can be encoded more rapidly may require less sustained attention during encoding by being quickly off-loaded into passive (i.e., attention-freeing) storage (cf., Cowan, 1988Cowan, , 2019Cowan et al, 2014Cowan et al, , 2024Rhodes & Cowan, 2018).…”

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confidence: 99%

The time course of encoding specific and gist episodic memory representations among young and older adults.

Greene,

Naveh-Benjamin

2024

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How rapidly can we encode the specifics versus the gist of episodic memories? Competing theories have opposing answers, but empirical tests are based primarily on tasks of item memory. Few studies have addressed this question with tasks measuring the binding of event components (e.g., a person and a location), which forms the core of episodic memory. None of these prior studies included older adults, whose episodic memories are less specific in nature. We addressed this critical gap by presenting face-scene pairs (e.g., an old man with a park) at various encoding presentation rates to 80 young (M = 21.83 years) and 86 older (M = 68.62 years) adults. Participants completed associative recognition tests featuring old/intact (e.g., the old man with the same park), similar (e.g., the old man with a different park), and unrelated (e.g., the old man with a kitchen) pairs. Multinomial-processing-tree model analyses revealed that young and older adults encoded each pair's gist representation more rapidly than its specific representation, supporting fuzzy-trace theory. No age-related differences in gist representations were obtained at any presentation rate, but older adults required more time to encode specific representations commensurate with those of younger adults. However, older adults' abilities to retrieve these representations were cue-dependent, as they were more susceptible than younger adults to experiencing vivid false memories of similar lures. These phantom recollections were remediated with further increases in encoding time. Thus, slower speed of encoding partially underlies age-related declines in episodic memory specificity, but retrieval mechanisms also play a role. Public Significance StatementThe present study provides novel insights into the speed with which specific (detailed) and gist (meaningbased) representations of episodic memories can be encoded among young and older adults. These insights constrain leading theories of information processing and have implications for understanding why older adults are less likely to remember the specific details of past episodes. Providing older adults with more time to learn new information may be one solution for fostering stronger and longer-lasting memories that are rich in specific details.