The removal of information from working memory

Lewis-Peacock, Jarrod A.; Kessler, Yoav; Oberauer, Klaus

doi:10.1111/nyas.13714

Cited by 128 publications

(130 citation statements)

References 87 publications

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“…The interpretation was that the IMI had been removed from WM after the second retrocue, an operation that would include the removal of that item's synaptic trace. (For a more detailed consideration of how information might be removed from WM, see Lewis-Peacock et al, (2018).) Finally, to assess whether there were functional consequences of UMI decodability from the spTMS-evoked response, Rose et al (2016) carried out an additional experiment in which 40% of nonmatching recognition probes were the UMI (i.e., lures).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Cognitive Control, Not Time, Determines the Status of Items in Working Memory

Fulvio

Postle

2020

Journal of Cognition

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Despite the fact that multiple items can be held in working memory (WM), it is often the case that only one of these is relevant for guiding in-the-moment behavior. Therefore, understanding how priority is established and controlled in WM is an important problem. Data from Rose et al. (2016) have provided evidence that although neuroimaging evidence for an active trace of an "unprioritized memory item" (UMI) held in WM drops to baseline levels, evidence for its retention in WM can be "reactivated" by a single pulse of transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS). Critically, this TMS-reactivation effect was specific to the first delay period of a dual serial retrocue (DSR) task, when the UMI could be needed for the trial's second memory probe, and was not observed during the second delay period, when the uncued item was no longer needed (i.e., when it is an "irrelevant memory item" [IMI]). A problem for the interpretation of these results, however, is that the status of the UMI/IMI was confounded with time spent in WM, as well as with the number of intervening cognitive operations. Here, we report data from a follow-up study designed to replicate the findings Rose et al. (2016) and to add a condition that unconfounds time-since-sample-presentation and UMI/IMI status. The results indicate that the TMS-reactivation effect is, indeed, an index of status in WM (UMI vs. IMI), and not a mere consequence of time elapsed since sample presentation.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Cognitive Control, Not Time, Determines the Status of Items in Working Memory

Fulvio

Postle

2020

Journal of Cognition

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“…As yet there is no detailed cognitive model of the processes involved in active updating in running span. One possibility derived from the removal account of updating (Kessler & Oberauer, 2014;Lewis-Peacock, Kessler & Oberauer, 2018;Oberauer, 2018) is that all items in the target set could be actively unbound from their current positions successively. The first item would remain unbound (and thus removed) while the remaining relevant items would then be rebound to new positions allowing the new item to be incorporated into the target set.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Serial order in this model is encoded as a context code associated with each item using Hebbian learning. It was proposed that item removal is supported by an opposite process of Hebbian anti-learning involving unbinding an item from its positional context (Lewis-Peacock et al, 2018;Oberauer, 2018).…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

The time course of updating in running span

Kaur

Norris

Gathercole

2019

Preprint

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Running span can be performed by either passively listening to to-be-remembered items or actively updating the target set during presentation. This choice of strategy is influenced by the rate of presentation in the task. Previous research suggests that the active updating process is demanding and time-consuming. It is favored at relatively slow rates of presentation, while the passive strategy is more successful when applied at fast rates. In two experiments the time course of resource demand during task performance and its sensitivity to presentation rate was examined. We hypothesized that running span imposes a high cognitive load only when active updating is employed. Participants performed running span simultaneously with a spatial reaction time (RT) task, and RTs on the concurrent task were used to index the resource demands of the memory task. A slow-paced running span exhibited a large overall resource demand in comparison with the serial recall tasks (Experiment 1) and fast-paced running span (Experiment 2). This demand was observed from the position in the list from which participants are presumed to start updating, suggesting a cognitive shift to a demanding mode of updating. In addition, a demand burst was found approximately 1000ms following item onset at these later positions. These data establish that the process of active updating in running span task is slow and cognitively demanding and indicate that this limits its application during fast presentation rates.

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“…Alternatively, we could conceptualize distractor inhibition as a mechanism that ultimately aims to permanently remove irrelevant items from working memory. Such a permanent removal has been conceptualized to operate through an un-binding mechanism, that unties the present item-context bindings 39 , rather than affecting the representation of the item itself. This is in line with recent evidence, demonstrating that alpha oscillations carry information about the maintained location (i.e., the "context" in the present case) but not about location-unrelated stimulus-features (i.e., the sound's identity) 25 .…”

Section: Alpha Lateralization As a Proxy Of Target Prioritization Andmentioning

confidence: 99%

A dual mechanism underlying retroactive shifts of auditory spatial attention: dissociating target- and distractor-related modulations of alpha lateralization

Klatt

Getzmann

Begau

et al. 2019

Preprint

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Attention can be allocated to mental representations to select information from working memory. To date, it remains ambiguous whether such retroactive shifts of attention involve the inhibition of irrelevant information or the prioritization of relevant information.Investigating asymmetries in posterior alpha-band oscillations during an auditory retroactive cueing task, we aimed at differentiating those mechanisms. Participants were cued to attend two out of three sounds in an upcoming sound array. Importantly, the resulting working memory representation contained one laterally and one centrally presented item. A centrally presented retro-cue then indicated the lateral, the central, or both items as further relevant for the task (comparing the cued item(s) to a memory probe). Time-frequency analysis revealed opposing patterns of alpha lateralization depending on target eccentricity: A contralateral decrease in alpha power in target lateral trials indicated the involvement of target prioritization. A contralateral increase in alpha power when the central item remained relevant (distractor lateral trials) suggested the de-prioritization of irrelevant information. No lateralization was observed when both items remained relevant, supporting the notion that auditory alpha lateralization is restricted to situations in which spatial information is taskrelevant. Altogether, the data demonstrate that retroactive attentional deployment involves excitatory and inhibitory control mechanisms.

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The removal of information from working memory

Cited by 128 publications

References 87 publications

Cognitive Control, Not Time, Determines the Status of Items in Working Memory

Cognitive Control, Not Time, Determines the Status of Items in Working Memory

The time course of updating in running span

A dual mechanism underlying retroactive shifts of auditory spatial attention: dissociating target- and distractor-related modulations of alpha lateralization

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