Using attribute amnesia to test the limits of hyper-binding and associative deficits in working memory.

Abstract

Previous work has shown mixed evidence regarding age-related deficits for binding in working memory. The current study used the newly developed attribute amnesia effect (H. Chen & Wyble, 2015a) to test the associative-deficit hypothesis during working memory and to probe whether hyper-binding extends to include binding of de-selected information. In studies of attribute amnesia, participants use target attributes (e.g., identity, color) to demonstrate near ceiling levels of reporting of a second target attribute (e.g., location) across a series of trials (H. Chen & Wyble, 2015a, 2016). Yet, despite having just processed the target-defining attribute, they have difficulty reporting it on a surprise trial. This effect provides several predictions for associative binding in aging. The associative-deficit hypothesis predicts age-related decline on the surprise trial, whereas an extension of hyper-binding predicts age-related increase in performance in older adults. In Experiment 1, when working memory load was low, older adults demonstrated attribute amnesia equal to that found in younger adults. When load increased in Experiment 2, older adults again demonstrated attribute amnesia as well as an age deficit for reporting target attributes. In lieu of spontaneous binding, results suggest that expectancy plays a critical role in older adults' propensity to encode and bind target attributes in working memory. Results further suggest that expectancy alone is not enough for older adults to form bound representations when task demands are high. Taken together results revealed a boundary condition of hyper-binding and further provided conditional support for the associative-deficit hypothesis in working memory. (PsycINFO Database Record

Age-related differences in associative memory: Empirical evidence and theoretical perspectives.

“…On the other hand, three other articles that looked at hyperbinding provide mixed and somewhat qualified support for it. First, the article by McCormick-Huhn, Chen, Wyble, and Dennis (2018) looked at binding in working memory using attribute amnesia to test the limits of both the hyperbinding suggestions and those of the ADH. Their results did not support the hyperbinding position at least in some of the conditions, as older adults, similar to younger ones, did not spontaneously bind information in working memory when there was no expectation to utilize the bound representation.…”

Effect of motivational incentives on face-name hyper-binding in older adults

“…However, by this account, participants would be keeping more in mind as opposed to experiencing attentional narrowing associated with motivation. While it is conceivable that a higher working memory load during the motivated 1-back could lead to more fragile bound representations of face-name pairs in older adults (McCormick-Huhn et al, 2017), the point values were consistent throughout blocks and did not vary trial-by-trial. Therefore, it was unlikely that participants held this information in working memory as they knew what to expect consistently throughout a given block.…”

Peer Review #1 of "A cross-sectional study on interference control: age affects reactive control but not proactive control (v0.1)"

“…Some evidence Manuscript to be reviewed showed that age selectively impaired cognitive control. Recent studies reported that old adults had selective difficulty in memorizing content-context associations but not in isolated contents (Artuso, Cavallini, Bottiroli, & Palladino, 2017;Artuso & Palladino, 2011;McCormick-Huhn, Chen, Wyble, & Dennis, 2018;Old & Naveh-Benjamin, 2008;Pelegrina, Borella, Carretti, & Lechuga, 2012) and the delays in selection were longer with a function of memory load (Artuso et al, 2017), implying that proactive control was impaired with aging. But Xiang et al (2016) reported that older adults had selective deficits in reactive control.…”