Decay uncovered in nonverbal short-term memory

Mercer, Tom; McKeown, Denis

doi:10.3758/s13423-013-0472-6

Cited by 27 publications

(28 citation statements)

References 39 publications

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“…Similarly, evidence challenging temporal distinctivenessbut supporting trace decay -has been reported for abstract auditory short-term memory. Two recent studies of acoustical memory did not find any temporal isolation effects using a delayed two-tone comparison task, indicating that distinctiveness cannot explain the loss of auditory representations over the passage of time (McKeown & Mercer, 2012;Mercer & McKeown, 2014). Most recently, Mercer and McKeown (2014, Experiment 2) asked participants to compare two abstract complex tones varying in timbre.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The loss of short-term visual representations over time: Decay or temporal distinctiveness?

Mercer¹

2014

Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Perfor

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There has been much recent interest in the loss of visual short-term memories over the passage of time. According to decay theory, visual representations are gradually forgotten as time passes, reflecting a slow and steady distortion of the memory trace. However, this is controversial and decay effects can be explained in other ways. The present experiment aimed to reexamine the maintenance and loss of visual information over the short term. Decay and temporal distinctiveness models were tested using a delayed discrimination task, in which participants compared complex and novel objects over unfilled retention intervals of variable length. Experiment 1 found no significant change in the accuracy of visual memory from 2 to 6 s, but the gap separating trials reliably influenced task performance. Experiment 2 found evidence for information loss at a 10-s retention interval, but temporally separating trials restored the fidelity of visual memory, possibly because temporally isolated representations are distinct from older memory traces. In conclusion, visual representations lose accuracy at some point after 6 s, but only within temporally crowded contexts. These findings highlight the importance of temporal distinctiveness within visual short-term memory.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The loss of short-term visual representations over time: Decay or temporal distinctiveness?

Mercer¹

2014

Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Perfor

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“…Hence, at least for verbal memoranda, whether or not memory declines over a filled RI depends on the variability of distractor processing (see Figure 7). At the same time, some studies using visual or spatial memoranda have found that extending the duration of the RI impairs memory even in the absence of a concurrent processing task (B3; Lilienthal, Hale, & Myerson, 2014;Mercer & McKeown, 2014;Ricker & Cowan, 2010).…”

Section: Round B: Retention Interval and Distractor Processingmentioning

confidence: 99%

What limits working memory capacity?

Oberauer

Farrell

Jarrold

et al. 2016

Psychological Bulletin

278

213

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We review the evidence for the three principal theoretical contenders that vie to explain why and how working memory capacity is limited. We examine the possibility that capacity limitations arise from temporal decay; we examine whether they might reflect a limitation in cognitive resources; and we ask whether capacity might be limited because of mutual interference of representations in working memory. We evaluate each hypothesis against a common set of findings reflecting the capacity limit: The set-size effect and its modulation by domain-specificity and heterogeneity of the memory set; the effects of unfilled retention intervals and of distractor processing in the retention interval; and the pattern of correlates of working-memory tests. We conclude that---at least for verbal memoranda---a decay explanation is untenable. A resource-based view remains tenable but has difficulty accommodating several findings. The interference approach has its own set of difficulties but accounts best for the set of findings, and therefore appears to present the most promising approach for future development.Keywords: working memory, decay, resources, interference, individual differences WM Capacity 3 What Limits Working Memory Capacity?Working memory (WM) is the system that holds mental representations available for processing. Its limited capacity is a limiting factor for the complexity of our thoughts (Halford, Cowan, & Andrews, 2007;Oberauer, 2009). Measures of WM capacity have been identified as major determinants of cognitive development in childhood (Bayliss, Jarrold, Gunn, & Baddeley, 2003) and in old age (Park et al., 2002;Salthouse, 1994), as well as of individual differences in intellectual abilities (Conway, Kane, & Engle, 2003;Jarrold & Towse, 2006). Understanding why WM capacity is limited is therefore an essential step toward understanding why human cognitive abilities are limited, why individuals differ in these abilities, and how abilities develop over the lifespan.In this article we use the term WM capacity in a descriptive sense, referring to the fact that people can hold only a limited amount of mental content available for processing. The capacity limit is usually operationalized as a limit on how much new information people can remember over short periods of time (in the order of seconds), but there are reasons to believe (discussed below) that the capacity limit also applies to people's ability to make information in the current environment simultaneously available for processing.Hypotheses about what limits WM capacity can be organized into three groups: (1) Some theories assume that representations in WM decay over time, unless decay is prevented by some form of restoration process such as rehearsal. According to this view, WM has limited capacity because only a limited amount of information can be rehearsed before it fades away into an irrecoverable state (Baddeley, Thomson, & Buchanan, 1975;Schweickert & Boruff, 1986). (2) Alternatively, WM capacity has been characterized as a limited resourc...

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“…First, there is strong evidence that at least verbal contents of working memory do not decay (Lewandowsky et al, 2009;Oberauer & Lewandowsky, 2013, 2014. Second, findings that are often cited in support of decay for non-verbal materials -a modest decline of accuracy over several seconds -imply a decay rate much too slow for clearing out working memory at the pace at which our stream of consciousness progresses (McKeown & Mercer, 2012;Mercer & Duffy, 2015;Mercer & McKeown, 2014;Ricker & Cowan, 2010;Ricker, Spiegel, & Cowan, 2014;Zhang & Luck, 2009). Working memory could not function as well as it does without removing outdated information, and the present experiments confirm a role for removal of distractors in keeping working memory working.…”

Section: Distractor Removalmentioning

confidence: 99%