What is attentional refreshing in working memory?

Camos, Valérie; Johnson, Matthew D.; Loaiza, Vanessa M.; Portrat, Sophie; Souza, Alessandra S.; Vergauwe, Evie

doi:10.1111/nyas.13616

Cited by 117 publications

(114 citation statements)

References 69 publications

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“…They observed that these dual-task conditions reduced spatial memory span compared to the single-task blank condition, and this reduction was more accentuated when the distractor task was visuospatial. These results suggest that that reactivates representations thereby preventing them from getting lost Camos et al, 2018) or that refreshing boosts the accessibility of WM representations above baseline (Souza & Oberauer, 2017;Souza, Rerko, & Oberauer, 2015). Results from the blank condition in all experiments, show that spatial representations are getting lost throughout the retention interval in a way that refreshing cannot fully counteract.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 77%

Gaze-based and attention-based rehearsal in spatial working memory.

Souza¹,

Czoschke²,

Lange³

2020

Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cogni

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How do we maintain information about spatial configurations in mind? Many working memory (WM) models assume that rehearsal processes are used to counteract forgetting in WM. Here, we investigated the contributions of gaze-based and attention-based rehearsal for protecting spatial representations from time-based forgetting. Participants memorized six locations selected from a grid of 30 scattered dots. Memory was tested after 1.5 or 4.5 s, and this interval was either blank or the grid remained onscreen (which is assumed to provide rehearsal support). In two experiments, we monitored eye movements during the retention phase, or asked participants to fixate the screen center. In three subsequent experiments, we tested spatial WM under dual-task conditions inhibiting shifts of visuospatial attention or central attention to the memoranda. Memory was better and more resistant to time-based forgetting in the grid than blank condition. Recording of fixations showed more frequent and efficient gaze-based rehearsal in the presence of the grid. Fixations towards distractor locations occurred at a similar frequency in the blank and grid conditions, and it did not predict incorrect recalls. Inhibition of eye-movements or shifts of visuospatial attention impaired memory overall, but it did not change the grid benefit nor the rate of time-based forgetting. In contrast, distracting central attention increased time-based forgetting regardless of grid presence. These results indicate that (a) the grid benefit is only partially explained by rehearsal; (b) gaze-errors (i.e., distractor fixations) do not lead to more forgetting; and (c) the maintenance of spatial representations over time depends on central processing.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 77%

Gaze-based and attention-based rehearsal in spatial working memory.

Souza¹,

Czoschke²,

Lange³

2020

Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cogni

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“…Initially, it has been proposed that by semantically enriching representations in WM through elaboration, these transform into associative structures in LTM, and thus benefit WM in two ways: 1) Information transferred into LTM frees capacity in WM and 2) elaborately enriched representations provide stronger retrieval cues than those of representations that were simply repeated through articulatory rehearsal. Further, a maintenance process called attentional refreshing has been proposed, which has been shown to be distinct from articulatory rehearsal and elaboration (Bartsch, Singmann, & Oberauer, 2018;Camos et al, 2018;Johnson, Reeder, Raye, & Mitchell, 2002;Raye, Johnson, Mitchell, Greene, & Johnson, 2005). Refreshing is understood as a domain-general process through which representations in WM are reactivated during maintenance.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Adult age differences in refreshing and elaboration and their consequences for working memory and long-term memory

Bartsch¹,

Oberauer²

2019

Preprint

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Older adults show a pronounced decline in long-term memory (LTM), but the source of this deficit is still debated. The present study investigated whether deficient engagement in refreshing and elaboration at the level of working memory (WM) causes this deficit. Our results show that the benefit of refreshing in WM was unaffected by age. Refreshing had no effect on LTM in both young and older adults. Elaboration benefited LTM in young adults, but not in older adults. Therefore, the LTM deficit of older adults might arise at least in part from a deficit in the process of elaboration.

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“…Some researchers have also posited and studied a higher-speed version of refreshing that operates over all WM representations serially, fleetingly, and relatively automatically in service of WM maintenance(Barrouillet, Bernardin & Camos, 2004;Camos et al, 2018). This "swift" refreshing has been likened to plate spinning, in that each representation is visited in turn, receiving a slight boost in activity that maintains its neural momentum until it is next visited again.…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Refreshing and Removing Items in Working Memory: Different Approaches to Equivalent Processes?

Lintz¹,

Johnson²

2019

Preprint

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Researchers have investigated “refreshing” of items in working memory (WM) as ameans of preserving them, while concurrently, other studies have examined “removal” of items from WM that are irrelevant. However, it is unclear whether refreshing and removal in WM truly represent different processes, or if participants, in an effort to avoid the to-be-removed items, simply refresh alternative items. We conducted two experiments to test whether these putative processes can be distinguished from one another. Participants were presented with sets of three words and then cued to either refresh one item or remove two items from WM, followed by a lexical decision probe containing either one of the just-seen words or a non-word. In Experiment 1, all probes were valid and in Experiment 2, probes were occasionally invalid (the probed word was one of the removed/non-refreshed items). In both experiments, participants also received a subsequent surprise long-term memory test. Results from both experiments suggested the expected advantages for refreshed (or non-removed) items in both short-term response time and long-term recognition, but no differences between refresh and remove instructions that would suggest a fundamental difference in processes. Thus, we argue that a functional distinction between refreshing and removal may not be necessary, and propose that both of these putative processes could potentially be subsumed under an overarching conceptual perspective based on the flexible reallocation of mental or reflective attention.

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What is attentional refreshing in working memory?

Cited by 117 publications

References 69 publications

Gaze-based and attention-based rehearsal in spatial working memory.

Gaze-based and attention-based rehearsal in spatial working memory.

Adult age differences in refreshing and elaboration and their consequences for working memory and long-term memory

Refreshing and Removing Items in Working Memory: Different Approaches to Equivalent Processes?

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