Does Attentional Refreshing Modulate Frequency Effect in Working Memory ?

The question of the relationships between working memory (WM) and long-term memory (LTM) has been under intense debate for a long time. The present study addressed this issue by examining the role of attentional refreshing on short-term retention of words that are more or less easily retrievable from LTM, i.e., frequent and rare words respectively

Role of Attention in the Associative Relatedness Effect in Verbal Working Memory: Behavioral and chronometric perspectives

Long-term semantic memory (LTM) is known for affecting recall during working memory (WM) tasks. However, the way LTM intervenes in WM remains unknown. Moreover, the available findings are incongruent concerning how attention modulates the impact of LTM on WM. To examine this issue, the involvement of semantic LTM representations in a complex span task was manipulated through variations of the associative relatedness of the memory items, while the attentional demand of the concurrent task was varied

Role of Attention in the Associative Relatedness Effect in Verbal Working Memory: Behavioral and chronometric perspectives

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Recollective and non-recollective processes in working memory retrieval

International audienceThe aim of this study was to investigate the nature of the processes involved in working memory (WM) retrieval by distinguishing between recollective (direct access) and non-recollective (reconstruction) recall. To this end, the trichotomous theory of recall (Brainerd et al., 2009) was applied to young adults' recall performance in a complex span task in which word lists were presented in three successive study-test trials. In three experiments, factors known to affect WM performance were manipulated, such as the cognitive load (CL) of the concurrent task and the involvement of long-term memory (LTM) knowledge through the associative relatedness of the memory items and the temporally spaced presentation of memory lists. The application of the trichotomous theory of recall proved effective and established that both recollective and non-recollective processes support WM recall, though recollective processes are predominant. The detrimental effect of increased CL on recall performance appeared to result from a reduction in direct access, while leaving reconstruction unaffected. Two manipulations aimed at increasing the involvement of LTM in recall had different effects on retrieval processes. Associative relatedness favored direct access, while spaced presentation reduced it. The implications of these findings for our understanding of the relationships between LTM and WM and for WM theories are discussed

Does long-term memory affect refreshing in verbal working memory?

Attentional refreshing allows the maintenance of information in working memory and has received growing interest in recent years. However, it is still ill-defined and several proposals have been put forward to account for its functioning. Among them, some proposals suggest that refreshing relies on the retrieval of knowledge from semantic long-term memory. To examine such a proposal, the present study examined the impact on refreshing of two effects known to affect the retrieval from semantic long-term memory: word frequency and lexicality. In working memory span tasks, participants had to maintain memoranda varying in either frequency, or lexicality while performing concurrent tasks. By examining recall performance in complex span tasks and response times for the concurrent task in Brown-Peterson tasks, the present study provided evidence that long-term memory effects (a) affected recall without interacting with manipulation of refreshing and (b) did not affect refreshing speed. These findings challenge the idea that refreshing acts through the retrieval of knowledge from semantic long-term memory. Different WM models are discussed to account for these findings