Old-Fashioned Responses in an Updating Memory Task

Abstract

Errors in a running memory task are analysed. Participants were presented with a variable-length list of items and were asked to report the last four items. It has been proposed (Morris & Jones, 1990) that this task requires two mechanisms: the temporal storage of the target set by the articulatory loop and its updating by the central executive. Two implicit assumptions in this proposal are (a) the preservation of serial order, and (b) participants' capacity to discard earlier items from the target subset as list presentation is running, and new items are appended. Order preservation within the updated target list and the inhibition of the outdated list items should imply a relatively higher rate of location errors for items from the medial positions of the target list and a lower rate of intrusion errors from the outdated and inhibited items from the pretarget positions. Contrary to these expectations, for both consonants (Experiment 1) and words (Experiment 2) we found recency effects and a relatively high rate of intrusions from the final pretarget positions, most of them from the very last. Similar effects were apparent with the embedded four-item lists for catch trials. These results are clearly at odds with the presumed updating by the central executive.

Absence of hardly pursued updating in a running memory task

“…Alternatively, participants could adopt a passive processing strategy, limited to processing every new item when it is presented (Hamilton & Hockey, 1974). A similar rationale has been put forward more recently by Ruiz et al, (2005) as we will see later. Some recent studies (Miyake, Friedman, Emerson, Witzki, Howerter, & Pager, 2000, p. 57;Bunting, Cowan, & Saults, 2006) have distinguished for updating tasks, between an active manipulation of information in working memory and a passive storage.…”

Validating running memory span: Measurement of working memory capacity and links with fluid intelligence

“…The maximum score possible in the OSpan and RSpan tasks was 75; the maximum score possible in the SymSpan task was 42. & Ruiz, 2008;Palladino & Jarrold, 2008;Ruiz, Elosúa, & Lechuga, 2005) and informs the organization of the present research.…”

Temporal isolation does not facilitate forward serial recall--or does it?

“…The serial position curves for the four to-be-recalled items are shown in Figure 1. The figure shows the pattern typically observed in a forward running memory span task, with extensive recency and no primacy for list lengths exceeding the number of to-berecalled items, and with a more symmetrical serial position curve for list length 4 (see, e.g., Bunting et al, 2006;Morris & Jones, 1990;Ruiz et al, 2005).…”

“…The study was based on the methodology of Ruiz et al (2005). Unlike in the Ruiz et al study, Experiment 1 varied the interstimulus intervals (ISIs) during list presentation.…”

“…Accordingly, Ruiz, Elosùa, and Lechuga (2005) proposed that in a running memory span task, "subjects seemed to be simply trying to retrieve the last items of the presented list from their episodic memory with a pure recency criterion-that is, based on some temporal contextual cue" (p. 906). This assertion that the running memory span task involves temporal cuing is supported by the large recency effects that typically emerge for any list length exceeding the number of to-be-reported items-even when recall is in forward order (see, e.g., Bunting, Cowan, & Saults, 2006;Morris & Jones, 1990;Ruiz et al, 2005). For example, in the study by Ruiz et al, recall accuracy in one of their experiments was .38, .61, .70, and .73 across the four to-be-remembered serial positions; this extensive recency stands in striking contrast with the extensive primacy and the slight upturn for the last one or two items that are typical of forward serial recall with fixed list lengths.…”