Maintaining cross-domain objects and features in working memory : implications for storage in models of working memory

The entire dissertation/thesis text is included in the research.pdf file; the official abstract appears in the short.pdf file (which also appears in the research.pdf); a non-technical general description, or public abstract, appears in the public.pdf file.Title from title screen of research.pdf file (viewed on February 26, 2008)Vita.Thesis (Ph. D.) University of Missouri-Columbia 2007.A great deal of evidence, both from behavioral studies of cross-domain interference and from neuroimaging, suggests the need for a domain-general store in models of working memory. Baddeley included such a store in an updated version of the influential multiple component model (2000), but it is still unknown how this new component interacts with better-known working memory components. Using cross-domain objects (letters in spatial locations) for memoranda, the following experiments aimed to learn whether domain-specific and domain-general stores can be used concurrently, and in doing so to better understand how components of a working memory system interact. A critical finding shows that concurrent articulatory suppression impairs memory for integrated cross-domain objects that include spatial location features, but does not affect spatial locations when they are represented as isolated features. This evidence is interpreted as support for a domain-general store capable of accommodating different representations for spatial materials and capable of interfacing with verbal rehearsal mechanisms, depending on memory demands.Includes bibliographical reference

Flexible attention allocation to visual and auditory working memory tasks: manipulating reward induces a trade-off

Prominent roles for general attention resources are posited in many models of working memory, but the manner in which these can be allocated differs between models or is not sufficiently specified. We varied the payoffs for correct responses in two temporally-overlapping recognition tasks, a visual array comparison task and a tone sequence comparison task. In the critical conditions, an increase in reward for one task corresponded to a decrease in reward for the concurrent task, but memory load remained constant. Our results show patterns of interference consistent with a trade-off between the tasks, suggesting that a shared resource can be flexibly divided, rather than only fully allotted to either of the tasks. Our findings support a role for a domain-general resource in models of working memory, and furthermore suggest that this resource is flexibly divisible

Lexical access speed and the development of phonological recoding during immediate serial recall

A recent Registered Replication Report (RRR) of the development of verbal rehearsal during serial recall revealed that children verbalized at younger ages than previously thought, but did not identify sources of individual differences. Here, we use mediation analysis to reanalyze data from the 934 children ranging from 5 to 10 years old from the RRR for that purpose. From ages 5 to 7, the time taken for a child to label pictures (i.e. isolated naming speed) predicted the child’s spontaneous use of labels during a visually presented serial reconstruction task, despite no need for spoken responses. For 6- and 7-year-olds, isolated naming speed also predicted recall. The degree to which verbalization mediated the relation between isolated naming speed and recall changed across development. All relations dissipated by age 10. The same general pattern was observed in an exploratory analysis of delayed recall for which greater demands are placed on rehearsal for item maintenance. Overall, our findings suggest that spontaneous phonological recoding during a standard short-term memory task emerges around age 5, increases in efficiency during the early elementary school years, and is sufficiently automatic by age 10 to support immediate serial recall in most children. Moreover, the findings highlight the need to distinguish between phonological recoding and rehearsal in developmental studies of short-term memory

Combined Analysis: E1 & E2

A peer reviewer requested an analysis combining data from experiments 1 and 2, which is given here. This script depends on data files that can be found in the directories for Experiments 1 and 2

Extent of the Color-sharing Bonus

Morey et al. (see project Color-sharing Bonus) observed a color-sharing bonus in visual recognition similar to that shown previously (e.g., Peterson & Berryhill, 2013; Quinlan & Cohen, 2012), but confirmed that the color-sharing bonus extends also to the non-repeated colors in the display. The aim of the current project is to probe the extent of this effect by further manipulating the amount of color repetition in the display and to replicate the eye movement patterns that Morey et al. documented during visual change detection tasks

Preliminary plans

Reviews and analysis plans written prior to data collection/analysi

The case against a specialized visual short-term memory system: Meta-analysis

These files support a meta-analysis of interference to visual short-term memory. The .csv file is a spreadsheet recording data culled from papers included in the literature review. The visMeta.R file is the analysis script. The readMe file describes the contents of each column. Figures are included and shall be covered by the CC-By license. The corresponding manuscript (published in 2018 in Psychological Bulletin) is freely available here: http://orca.cf.ac.uk/110624