Insensitivity of visual short-term memory to irrelevant visual information

Several authors have hypothesised that visuo-spatial working memory is functionally analogous to verbal working memory. Irrelevant background speech impairs verbal short-term memory. We investigated whether irrelevant visual information has an analogous effect on visual short-term memory, using a dynamic visual noise (DVN) technique known to disrupt visual imagery (Quinn & McConnell, 1996a). Experiment 1 replicated the effect of DVN on pegword imagery. Experiments 2 and 3 showed no effect of DVN on recall of static matrix patterns, despite a significant effect of a concurrent spatial tapping task. Experiment 4 showed no effect of DVN on encoding or maintenance of arrays of matrix patterns, despite testing memory by a recognition procedure to encourage visual rather than spatial processing. Serial position curves showed a one-item recency effect typical of visual short-term memory. Experiment 5 showed no effect of DVN on short-term recognition of Chinese characters, despite effects of visual similarity and a concurrent colour memory task that confirmed visual processing of the characters. We conclude that irrelevant visual noise does not impair visual short-term memory. Visual working memory may not be functionally analogous to verbal working memory, and different cognitive processes may underlie visual short-term memory and visual imagery

Auditory Short-Term Memory Behaves Like Visual Short-Term Memory

Are the information processing steps that support short-term sensory memory common to all the senses? Systematic, psychophysical comparison requires identical experimental paradigms and comparable stimuli, which can be challenging to obtain across modalities. Participants performed a recognition memory task with auditory and visual stimuli that were comparable in complexity and in their neural representations at early stages of cortical processing. The visual stimuli were static and moving Gaussian-windowed, oriented, sinusoidal gratings (Gabor patches); the auditory stimuli were broadband sounds whose frequency content varied sinusoidally over time (moving ripples). Parallel effects on recognition memory were seen for number of items to be remembered, retention interval, and serial position. Further, regardless of modality, predicting an item's recognizability requires taking account of (1) the probe's similarity to the remembered list items (summed similarity), and (2) the similarity between the items in memory (inter-item homogeneity). A model incorporating both these factors gives a good fit to recognition memory data for auditory as well as visual stimuli. In addition, we present the first demonstration of the orthogonality of summed similarity and inter-item homogeneity effects. These data imply that auditory and visual representations undergo very similar transformations while they are encoded and retrieved from memory

Stimulus-specific mechanisms of visual short-term memory

The retention of spatial information in visual short-term memory was assessed by measuring spatial frequency discrimination thresholds with a two-interval forced-choice task varying the time interval between the two gratings to be compared. The memory of spatial frequency information was perfect across 10-sec interstimulus intervals. Presentation of a “memory masker” grating during the interstimulus interval may interfere with short-term memory. This interference depends on the relative spatial frequency of the test and masker gratings, with maximum interference at spatial frequency differences of 1–1.5 octaves and beyond. This range of interference with short-term memory is comparable to the bandwidth of sensory masking or adaptation. A change of the relative orientation of test and masker gratings does not produce interference with spatial frequency discrimination thresholds. These results suggest stimulus-specific interactions at higher-level representations of visual form

The Impact of Stereoscopic 3-D on Visual Short-Term Memory

Visual short-term memory has been studied extensively, however nearly all research on this topic has assessed two-dimensional object properties. This is unexpected, given that most individuals perceive the visual environment in three-dimensions. In the experiments reported here, I investigate the stimuli necessary to assess visual short-term memory while eliminating potential confounds: the use of verbal memory to encode visual information, and the unintentional use of mental resources directed at irrelevant aspects of the memory task. I assess the impact of the amount of disparity, and the distribution of elements in depth, on visual short-term memory. Individuals retain simple visual stimuli equivalently when information is displayed in 2-D or 3-D, regardless of how objects are distributed in 3-D. Conversely, ease of encoding does influence visual short-term memory. Tasks that facilitate encoding result in better visual short-term memory performance. The experiments reported show that stereoscopic 3-D does not improve visual short-term memory

Tree Memory Networks for Modelling Long-term Temporal Dependencies

In the domain of sequence modelling, Recurrent Neural Networks (RNN) have been capable of achieving impressive results in a variety of application areas including visual question answering, part-of-speech tagging and machine translation. However this success in modelling short term dependencies has not successfully transitioned to application areas such as trajectory prediction, which require capturing both short term and long term relationships. In this paper, we propose a Tree Memory Network (TMN) for modelling long term and short term relationships in sequence-to-sequence mapping problems. The proposed network architecture is composed of an input module, controller and a memory module. In contrast to related literature, which models the memory as a sequence of historical states, we model the memory as a recursive tree structure. This structure more effectively captures temporal dependencies across both short term and long term sequences using its hierarchical structure. We demonstrate the effectiveness and flexibility of the proposed TMN in two practical problems, aircraft trajectory modelling and pedestrian trajectory modelling in a surveillance setting, and in both cases we outperform the current state-of-the-art. Furthermore, we perform an in depth analysis on the evolution of the memory module content over time and provide visual evidence on how the proposed TMN is able to map both long term and short term relationships efficiently via a hierarchical structure

COGNITIVE SKILLS AND MATHEMATICAL PERFORMANCE, MEMORY (SHORT-TERM, LONG-TERM, WORKING), MENTAL PERFORMANCE AND THEIR RELATIONSHIP WITH THE MATHEMATICAL PERFORMANCE OF PRE-SCHOOL STUDENTS

The purpose of this research is to examine the effect of cognitive capabilities and flowing intelligence on mathematical proficiency of pre-school students, shortly before attending elementary school. Eighty kindergarten students participated in the survey. Student performance was assessed in terms of short term memory (auditory and verbal short-term memory, visual short-term, semantic and non-semantic memory), working auditory and visual memory, visual long-term memory, fluid intelligence and math performance. Based on the results, there was a strong positive correlation (,777) between verbal working memory and mathematical performance. Moderate positive correlation between mathematical performance and short-term memory, visual spatial working memory, visual long-term memory and fluid intelligence was also found.To identify which factors have predictive value for mathematical competence, regression analysis was used. It has been found that verbal working memory is an important factor in explaining mathematical competence. Combined with long-term visual spatial working memory, they can more accurately predict the level of mathematical performance. The results show that verbal working memory is the best predictor of mathematical performance. Visual long-term memory follows, and finally visual spatial working memory seems to have the lowest impact on a student’s mathematical performance.  Article visualizations

Mindfulness Meditation Improves Visual Short-Term Memory

Research into the effects of mindfulness meditation on behavioral outcomes has received much interest in recent years, with benefits for both short-term memory and working memory identified. However, little research has considered the potential effects of brief mindfulness meditation interventions or the nature of any benefits for visual short-term memory. Here, we investigate the effect of a single, 8-minute mindfulness meditation intervention, presented via audio recording, on a short-term memory task for faces. In comparison with two control groups (listening to an audiobook or simply passing the time however they wished), our mindfulness meditation participants showed greater increases in visual short-term memory capacity from pre- to post-intervention. In addition, only mindfulness meditation resulted in significant increases in performance. In conclusion, a single, brief mindfulness meditation intervention led to improvements in visual short-term memory capacity for faces, with important implications regarding the minimum intervention necessary to produce measurable changes in short-term memory tasks

Cognitive abilities in children with specific language impairment: consideration of visuo-spatial skills

Background: The study is concerned with the cognitive abilities of children with specific language impairment (SLI). Previous research has indicated that children with SLI demonstrate difficulties with certain cognitive tasks despite normal non‐verbal IQ scores. It has been suggested that a general processing limitation might account for the pattern of language and cognitive difficulties seen in children with SLI. The performances on a visuo‐spatial short‐term memory task and a visuo‐spatial processing task were considered in a group of young children with SLI. Verbal short‐term memory was also measured. Aims: To identify whether children with SLI demonstrate difficulties with visuo‐spatial memory as well as verbal short‐term memory. To see whether a visuo‐spatial processing task without short‐term memory requirements is problematic for children with SLI. To consider performance on these tasks over time. Methods & Procedures: Nine children with SLI (mean age 3;9 years at the study outset) and nine typically developing children (mean age 3;9 years at the study outset) were visited on three occasions over 1 year. Verbal short‐term memory, visuo‐spatial short‐term memory and visuo‐spatial processing tasks were administered to the children, and performance over time was compared between the two groups. Outcomes & Results: The children with SLI performed at a lower level than the typically developing children on the verbal short‐term memory task. Both groups showed similar development on the verbal short‐term memory task and the visuo‐spatial processing task over time. Only the visuo‐spatial short‐term memory task showed slower development over time in the children with SLI relative to the typically developing children. Conclusions: Children with SLI demonstrated slower development on a visuo‐spatial short‐term memory task relative to typically developing children of the same chronological age. This finding has implications for speech and language therapists and other professionals working with children with SLI. It may mean that only certain types of visual support are suitable, and that children with SLI will have difficulty with tasks requiring a high level of processing, or a number of mental manipulations