Two dissociable updating processes in working memory.

Kessler, Yoav; Meiran, Nachshon

doi:10.1037/a0013078

Cited by 69 publications

(143 citation statements)

References 35 publications

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“…When it is necessary to update a number which shares many features with that stored in memory, the process can be performed more quickly, as fewer features of the second number need to be activated, because all shared features are already activated. The idea of a selective process of updating is in line with the results obtained by Kessler and Meiran (2008) (see also, Vockenberg, 2006 with other material), showing that updating cost increased along with the number of new items to be memorized. It is noteworthy that in our case, there was only one item to be updated in each trial.…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 69%

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The distance effect in numerical memory-updating tasks

2010

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Two experiments examined the role of numerical distance in updating numerical information in working memory. In the first experiment, participants had to memorize a new number only when it was smaller than a previously memorized number. In the second experiment, updating was based on an external signal, which removed the need to perform any numerical comparison. In both experiments, distance between the memorized number and the new one was manipulated. The results showed that smaller distances between the new and the old information led to shorter updating times. This graded facilitation suggests that the process by which information is substituted in the focus of attention involves maintaining the shared features between the new and the old number activated and selecting other new features to be activated. Thus, the updating cost may be related to amount of new features to be activated in the focus of attention. Keywords Working memory . Updating . Numerical distanceUpdating is a process which allows people to replace and modify the content of working memory (WM) in order to hold new information (Morris & Jones, 1990), and it is considered a fundamental executive function in cognitive architecture (Miyake, Friedman, Emerson, Witzki, & Howerter, 2000). To investigate this process, tasks have been designed which involved simultaneously maintaining different elements in memory, some of which have to be replaced by new information. Many studies have examined the mechanisms involved in the selective access to the content of WM or in replacing outdated information (Garavan, 1998 . However, little study has been given to the possible role played by the relationship between the information maintained in memory and the new information that replaces it. This study aims to address this question by investigating how the numerical distance between the stored and the new numerical information influences the updating process.Updating tasks have been used to study selective access in WM since Garavan (1998) introduced the double counter task. In this task, participants had to keep two counters in memory for two different figures. Participants updated the appropriate mental count by adding one unit when the corresponding figure was presented. Garavan's main finding was that the time used to update the information was longer when there was a switch from one counter to the other, that is, when the counter to be updated was different from the counter previously updated. These results suggest that people do not have simultaneous access to all of the content of WM, but can only attend to one stimulus at a time. This effect fits the theoretical models which conceive WM as a hierarchical system of active representations in long-term memory (Cowan, 1995;Oberauer, 2002). In this system, Oberauer (2002) has proposed the existence of a focus of attention in WM which maintains the representation which a person is aware of at a given moment and on which the next

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Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 69%

“…In addition to global updating, Kessler and Meiran (2008) proposed a local updating mechanism that modifies only some elements in WM. They showed that the time required for updating was related to the number of items that had to be substituted.…”

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confidence: 99%

The distance effect in numerical memory-updating tasks

2010

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“…The obvious and acknowledged importance of WM updating stands in contrast to our limited understanding of the underlying processes (for similar arguments, see Kessler & Meiran, 2008;Oberauer & Kliegl, 2001). Kessler and Meiran (2008) argued that updating must involve distinct subprocesses because WM needs to be stable and flexible at the same time.…”

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confidence: 99%

“…Kessler and Meiran (2008) argued that updating must involve distinct subprocesses because WM needs to be stable and flexible at the same time. Specifically, when updating information, WM must be protected against interference by outdated information, but it must also allow for the modification of memorial content when appropriate.…”

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confidence: 99%

The components of working memory updating: An experimental decomposition and individual differences.

Ecker

Lewandowsky

Oberauer³

et al. 2010

Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cogni

213

237

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Working memory updating (WMU) has been identified as a cognitive function of prime importance for everyday tasks and has also been found to be a significant predictor of higher mental abilities. Yet, little is known about the constituent processes of WMU. We suggest that operations required in a typical WMU task can be decomposed into 3 major component processes: retrieval, transformation, and substitution. We report a large-scale experiment that instantiated all possible combinations of those 3 component processes. Results show that the 3 components make independent contributions to updating performance. We additionally present structural equation models that link WMU task performance and working memory capacity (WMC) measures. These feature the methodological advancement of estimating interindividual covariation and experimental effects on mean updating measures simultaneously. The modeling results imply that WMC is a strong predictor of WMU skills in general, although some component processes-in particular, substitution skills-were independent of WMC. Hence, the reported predictive power ofWMUmeasures may rely largely on common WM functions also measured in typical WMC tasks, although substitution skills may make an independent contribution to predicting higher mental abilities.

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“…However, the working memory capacity is limited in terms of the number of items that can be activated simultaneously (see Cowan 2001). This implies a flexible updating of the representations activated as a function of new inputs, whilst maintaining the stability of these representations (see Artuso and Palladino 2011;Kessler and Meiran 2008;Morris and Jones 1990). As a consequence, to keep up the pace of processing the incoming sequence of primes, the cerebral cortex must be able to select in real time which associates to a prior prime and/or to a subsequent prime to activate, and which to deactivate in real time (see Whitney et al 2009).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Dynamics of the semantic priming shift: behavioral experiments and cortical network model

et al. 2012

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Multiple semantic priming processes between several related and/or unrelated words are at work during the processing of sequences of words. Multiple priming generates rich dynamics of effects depending on the relationship between the target word and the first and/or second prime previously presented. The experimental literature suggests that during the on-line processing of the primes, the activation can shift from associates to the first prime to associates to the second prime. Though the semantic priming shift is central to the on-line and rapid updating of word meanings in the working memory, its precise dynamics are still poorly understood and it is still a challenge to model how it functions in the cerebral cortex. Four multiple priming experiments are proposed that crossmanipulate delays and association strength between the primes and the target. Results show for the first time that association strength determines complex dynamics of the semantic priming shift, ranging from an absence of a shift to a complete shift. A cortical network model of spike frequency adaptive neuron populations is proposed to account for the non-continuous evolution of the priming shift over time. It allows linking the dynamics of the priming shift assessed at the behavioral level to the nonlinear dynamics of the firing rates of neurons populations.

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Two dissociable updating processes in working memory.

Cited by 69 publications

References 35 publications

The distance effect in numerical memory-updating tasks

The distance effect in numerical memory-updating tasks

The components of working memory updating: An experimental decomposition and individual differences.

Dynamics of the semantic priming shift: behavioral experiments and cortical network model

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