The use of attention to maintain information in working memory: A developmental investigation of spontaneous refreshing in school‐aged children

Vergauwe, Evie; Besch, Vincent; Latrèche, Caren; Langerock, Naomi

doi:10.1111/desc.13104

Cited by 9 publications

(22 citation statements)

References 69 publications

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“…Instead, the last-presented benefit seems to not disappear as a function of time in other working memory tasks involving similar periods of time (e.g., the probe span task where probes are presented in between memory items instead of after list presentation; Vergauwe et al, 2016 ; Vergauwe et al, 2018 ). Moreover, the last-presented benefit seems not to disappear in school-aged children ( Vergauwe et al, 2021 ), even when much more free time is provided. Accordingly, it seems to be more reasonable to assume that the disappearance of the last-presented benefit in our study reflects something active or strategic.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 92%

The Time-Course of the Last-Presented Benefit in Working Memory: Shifts in the Content of the Focus of Attention

Valentini

Uittenhove

Vergauwe

2022

Journal of Cognition

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Working memory is a cognitive system responsible for maintaining information. It is often assumed to contain different states of accessibility of information, which is highest for an item held in the focus of attention. Evidence for this heightened accessibility usually comes from item-recognition tasks, in which a memory list is followed by a probe to be judged as being present in or absent from the list. Probes corresponding to the last-presented list item are usually recognized faster than probes corresponding to any other list item (i.e., the last-presented benefit), an effect that is often explained by the last-presented item being in the focus of attention. The last-presented benefit usually disappears when a long retention interval is inserted between the presentation of the list items and the probe. This raises the question of how long the last-presented item remains in the focus of attention. The present study gradually manipulates the retention interval between the presentation of the list of items and the probe in an item-recognition task in order to pinpoint when the focus of attention switches away from the last-presented list item. The results show that the last-presented benefit decreases over time when the retention interval is gradually extended from 0 ms to 200 ms, 400 ms and 500 ms, and completely disappears as of 750 ms. The cognitive mechanisms that may be involved in the time course of the last-presented benefit are discussed.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 92%

The Time-Course of the Last-Presented Benefit in Working Memory: Shifts in the Content of the Focus of Attention

Valentini

Uittenhove

Vergauwe

2022

Journal of Cognition

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“…Indeed, a set of recent studies used a newly-developed index of spontaneous refreshing and found that, in a very simple working memory task, there was evidence for the spontaneous use of refreshing in young adults ( Vergauwe and Langerock 2017 ). However, using the same task in 9- and 12-year-old children did not show any evidence for the spontaneous use of refreshing in middle childhood ( Vergauwe et al 2021 ). The observation of spontaneous refreshing in young adults but not in 12-year-olds raises the question of whether adolescents use spontaneous refreshing in highly similar task settings.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 87%

“…Refreshing is assumed to emerge around the age of 7 years old and its efficiency is assumed to increase over time until around 14 years old ( Barrouillet et al 2009 ). Refreshing has been extensively studied in adults (e.g., Barrouillet et al 2011 ; Lemaire et al 2018 ; Loaiza and Souza 2018 ; Oberauer and Lewandowsky 2011 ; Raye et al 2007 , 2008 ; Rey et al 2018 ; Souza et al 2015 ; Vergauwe et al 2014 ; Vergauwe and Langerock 2017 ) and, albeit to a lower degree, in children (e.g., Barrouillet et al 2009 ; Oftinger and Camos 2015 , 2017 , 2018 ; Shimi and Scerif 2015 , 2017 , 2022 ; Tam et al 2010 ; Vergauwe et al 2021 ). However, evidence about attentional refreshing in adolescence is particularly scarce.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…To answer this question, it is necessary to investigate spontaneous attentional refreshing in 15-year-old adolescents. Here, we proposed to do so using the last-presented benefit, an independent, direct index that has been used previously to detect refreshing both in adults ( Valentini et al 2022 ; Vergauwe and Langerock 2017 ) and in children ( Vergauwe et al 2021 ).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The authors suggested that the disappearance of the last-presented benefit was an index of refreshing; when young adults had enough time to refresh during list presentation, their attention switched away from the last-presented item to refresh the to-be-remembered letters ( Vergauwe and Langerock 2017 ). Next, the authors adapted this paradigm to study spontaneous attentional refreshing in school-aged children ( Vergauwe et al 2021 ). However, they observed that, in 9- and 12-year-olds, the last-presented benefit did not disappear, even when the memory list was presentated at a very slow pace (i.e., 1 letter every 1.5 s or every 2.5 s, see Table 1 ).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 2 more Smart Citations

Stuck on the Last: The Last-Presented Benefit as an Index of Attentional Refreshing in Adolescents

Valentini¹,

Vergauwe²

2022

J. Intell.

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Working memory is a limited-capacity system responsible for maintaining information that is known to dramatically develop throughout childhood and adolescence. Different maintenance mechanisms are proposed to support working memory development, among which is attentional refreshing. Attentional refreshing is assumed to improve the accessibility of working-memory representations by cycling attention from one mental representation to the other, serially. It has been suggested that the efficiency of refreshing increases between the ages of 7 and 14 years old, thereby supporting working memory development. Yet, there is not much research about refreshing in adolescence. Here, we investigate the occurrence of refreshing in 15-year-olds by using a recently-developed index, i.e., the last-presented benefit. Adolescents had to remember a list of four letters and judge whether a subsequent probe letter was present or not in the list. Reaction times to the probe were used to assess the spontaneous occurrence of refreshing. We found that, unlike young adults, 15-year-olds showed consistent speeded responses to probes matching the last-presented memory item, indicating that, in this task, adolescents did not refocus their attention away from the last memory item to initiate refreshing. Implications for working memory functioning and development are discussed.

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Decoding the content of working memory in school-aged children

Turoman,

Fiave,

Zahnd

et al. 2024

Cortex

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The use of attention to maintain information in working memory: A developmental investigation of spontaneous refreshing in school‐aged children

Abstract: The use of attention to maintain information in working memory: A developmental investigation of spontaneous refreshing in schoolaged children. Developmental Science, e13104.

Cited by 9 publications

References 69 publications

The Time-Course of the Last-Presented Benefit in Working Memory: Shifts in the Content of the Focus of Attention

The Time-Course of the Last-Presented Benefit in Working Memory: Shifts in the Content of the Focus of Attention

Stuck on the Last: The Last-Presented Benefit as an Index of Attentional Refreshing in Adolescents

Decoding the content of working memory in school-aged children

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