Klaus Oberauer

Access to information in working memory: Exploring the focus of attention

Participants memorized briefly presented sets of digits, a subset of which had to be accessed as input for arithmetic tasks (the active set), whereas another subset had to be remembered independently of the concurrent task (the passive set). Latencies for arithmetic operations were a function of the setsize of active but not passive sets. Object-switch costs were observed when successive operations were applied to different digits within an active set. Participants took 2 s to encode a passive set so that it did not affect processing latencies (Experiment 2). The results support a model distinguishing 3 states of representations in working memory: the activated part of long-term memory, a capacity limited region of direct access, and a focus of attention.

WORKING-MEMORY CAPACITY EXPLAINS REASONING ABILITY - AND A LITTLE BIT MORE

A 1,3,5-trialkoxy benzene having 1-2 carbon atoms in each of the alkoxy-groups is prepared at high overall yields, with minimal formation of hazardous or polluting by-products, by reacting 1,3,5-tribromo benzene with an alkalimetal alcoholate having 1-3 carbon atoms in the molecule in the presence of a copper salt, e.g. cuprous iodide or cupric chloride, and an aprotic solvent such as e.g. dimethylformamide. The product is readily recovered from the reaction mixture in an overall yield as high as 90%.

Working memory capacity — facets of a cognitive ability construct

Abstract Working memory capacity is differentiated theoretically along two dimensions: contents and functions. The resulting 3×3 matrix was operationalized by 23 tasks sampled from the literature. Data for these tasks from 128 participants were analyzed by exploratory and confirmatory factor analysis. Regarding the content facet, spatial working memory was clearly distinct from the other two content categories. A distinction between verbal and numerical working memory was not warranted. On the functional dimension the postulated categories of simultaneous storage and transformation and of coordination could not be separated. The third category was clearly separate from the first two functions. This factor could be interpreted to reflect a mixture of variance due to mental speed and to supervisory functions of the central executive.

The multiple faces of working memory: Storage, processing, supervision, and coordination

Investigated the distinctiveness of working memory functions and their components against the background of a multi-facet model. 133 university students (mean age 26 years) performed a series of specially constructed working memory tasks. Each task represented an operationalization of specific cells of the proposed taxonomy of working memory functional and content-related facets. Dependent variables included recall performance and reaction time. Structural equation modeling yielded 3 distinct working memory functions: (1) simultaneous storage of information in the context of processing, (2) supervision, and (3) coordination of elements into structures. Further analyses allowed for a more detailed subdivision of each function into specific components. Only a minimal portion of the variance associated with working memory functions is specific to the verbal or the spatial domain. Overall, the findings demonstrate that working memory is best characterized as a highly interrelated collection of cognitive functions.

Binding and inhibition in working memory: individual and age differences in short-term recognition.

Two studies investigated the relationship between working memory capacity (WMC), adult age, and the resolution of conflict between familiarity and recollection in short-term recognition tasks. Experiment 1 showed a specific deficit of young adults with low WMC in rejecting intrusion probes (i.e., highly familiar probes) in a modified Sternberg task, which was similar to the deficit found in old adults in a parallel experiment (K. Oberauer, 2001). Experiment 2 generalized these results to 3 recognition paradigms (modified Sternberg, local recognition, and n back tasks). Old adults showed disproportional performance deficits on intrusion probes only in terms of reaction times, whereas young adults with low WMC showed them only in terms of errors. The generality of the effect across paradigms is more compatible with a deficit in content-context bindings subserving recollection than with a deficit in inhibition of irrelevant information in working memory. Structural equation models showed that WMC is related to the efficiency of recollection but not of familiarity.

Neural evidence for a distinction between short-term memory and the focus of attention

It is widely assumed that the short-term retention of information is accomplished via maintenance of an active neural trace. However, we demonstrate that memory can be preserved across a brief delay despite the apparent loss of sustained representations. Delay period activity may, in fact, reflect the focus of attention, rather than STM. We unconfounded attention and memory by causing external and internal shifts of attention away from items that were being actively retained. Multivariate pattern analysis of fMRI indicated that only items within the focus of attention elicited an active neural trace. Activity corresponding to representations of items outside the focus quickly dropped to baseline. Nevertheless, this information was remembered after a brief delay. Our data also show that refocusing attention toward a previously unattended memory item can reactivate its neural signature. The loss of sustained activity has long been thought to indicate a disruption of STM, but our results suggest that, even for small memory loads not exceeding the capacity limits of STM, the active maintenance of a stimulus representation may not be necessary for its short-term retention.

NASA Faked the Moon Landing—Therefore, (Climate) Science Is a Hoax: An Anatomy of the Motivated Rejection of Science

Although nearly all domain experts agree that carbon dioxide emissions are altering the world’s climate, segments of the public remain unconvinced by the scientific evidence. Internet blogs have become a platform for denial of climate change, and bloggers have taken a prominent role in questioning climate science. We report a survey of climate-blog visitors to identify the variables underlying acceptance and rejection of climate science. Our findings parallel those of previous work and show that endorsement of free-market economics predicted rejection of climate science. Endorsement of free markets also predicted the rejection of other established scientific findings, such as the facts that HIV causes AIDS and that smoking causes lung cancer. We additionally show that, above and beyond endorsement of free markets, endorsement of a cluster of conspiracy theories (e.g., that the Federal Bureau of Investigation killed Martin Luther King, Jr.) predicted rejection of climate science as well as other scientific findings. Our results provide empirical support for previous suggestions that conspiratorial thinking contributes to the rejection of science. Acceptance of science, by contrast, was strongly associated with the perception of a consensus among scientists.

Working Memory and Intelligence—Their Correlation and Their Relation: Comment on Ackerman, Beier, and Boyle (2005)

On the basis of a meta-analysis of pairwise correlations between working memory tasks and cognitive ability measures, P. L. Ackerman, M. E. Beier, and M. O. Boyle (2005; see record 2004-22408-002) claimed that working memory capacity (WMC) shares less than 25% of its variance with general intelligence (g) and with reasoning ability. In this comment, the authors argue that this is an underestimation because of several methodological shortcomings and biases. A reanalysis of the data reported in Ackerman et al. using the correct statistical procedures demonstrates that g and WMC are very highly correlated. On a conceptual level, the authors point out that WMC should be regarded as an explanatory construct for intellectual abilities. Theories of working memory do not claim that WMC is isomorphic with intelligence factors but that it is a very strong predictor of reasoning ability and also predicts general fluid intelligence and g.

Chapter 2 Design for a Working Memory

Starting from the premise that working memory is a system for providing access to representations for complex cognition, six requirements for a working memory system are delineated: (1) maintaining structural representations by dynamic bindings, (2) manipulating structural representations, (3) flexible reconfiguration, (4) partial decoupling from long-term memory, (5) controlled retrieval from long-term memory, and (6) encoding of new structures into longterm memory. The chapter proposes an architecture for a system that meets these requirements. The working memory system consists of a declarative and a procedural part, each of which has three embedded components: the activated part of long-term memory, a component for creating new structural representations by dynamic bindings (the ‘‘region of direct access’’ for declarative working memory, and the ‘‘bridge’’ for procedural working memory), and a mechanism for selecting a single element (‘‘focus of attention’’ for declarative working memory, and ‘‘response focus’’ for procedural working memory). The architecture affords two modes of information processing, an analytical and an associative mode. This distinction provides a theoretically founded formulation of a dual-process theory of reasoning.

Forgetting in Immediate Serial Recall : Decay, Temporal Distinctiveness, or Interference?

Three hypotheses of forgetting from immediate memory were tested: time-based decay, decreasing temporal distinctiveness, and interference. The hypotheses were represented by 3 models of serial recall: the primacy model, the SIMPLE (scale-independent memory, perception, and learning) model, and the SOB (serial order in a box) model, respectively. The models were fit to 2 experiments investigating the effect of filled delays between items at encoding or at recall. Short delays between items, filled with articulatory suppression, led to massive impairment of memory relative to a no-delay baseline. Extending the delays had little additional effect, suggesting that the passage of time alone does not cause forgetting. Adding a choice reaction task in the delay periods to block attention-based rehearsal did not change these results. The interference-based SOB fit the data best; the primacy model overpredicted the effect of lengthening delays, and SIMPLE was unable to explain the effect of delays at encoding. The authors conclude that purely temporal views of forgetting are inadequate.