Updating and feature overwriting in short-term memory for timbre

Mercer, Tom; McKeown, D.

doi:10.3758/app.72.8.2289

Cited by 16 publications

(37 citation statements)

References 77 publications

(127 reference statements)

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“…Dubé, Zhou, Kahana, & Sekuler, 2014). Similar biases from distractors have been shown in auditory (Mercer & McKeown, 2010) and tactile (Bancroft, Servos, & Hockley, 2011) short-term memory.…”

Section: Interferencesupporting

confidence: 69%

What limits working memory capacity?

Oberauer

Farrell

Jarrold

et al. 2016

Psychological Bulletin

276

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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Section: Interferencesupporting

confidence: 69%

What limits working memory capacity?

Oberauer

Farrell

Jarrold

et al. 2016

Psychological Bulletin

276

213

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…In contrast to this suggestion by Campoy (2012) of rapid decay, recently we (Mercer & McKeown, 2013;McKeown & Mercer, 2012;Mercer & McKeown, 2010a, 2010b have documented very gradual decay of short-term memories over periods of 30 seconds and beyond. We developed a non-verbal immediate memory (nime) task in which the stimuli were abstract stimulus patterns (complex tones with distinct timbres) that did not lend themselves to verbal labelling, and thereby avoided any form of maintenance by verbal rehearsal throughout the retention interval.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 80%

Active versus passive maintenance of visual nonverbal memory

et al. 2014

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Forgetting over the short-term has challenged researchers for more than a century, largely because of difficulty in controlling what goes on within the memory retention interval. But the Òrecent negative probesÓ procedure offers a valuable paradigm, by examining influences of (presumably) unattended memoranda from prior trials. Here we used a recent probes task to investigate forgetting for visual non-verbal short-term memory. Target stimuli (2 visually presented abstract shapes) on a trial were followed after a retention interval by a probe, and participants indicated whether the probe matched one of the target items. Proactive interference, and hence memory for old trial probes, was observed whereby participants were slowed in rejecting a nonmatching probe on the present trial that nevertheless matched a target item on the previous trial (a recent negative probe). The attraction of the paradigm is that, by uncovering proactive influences of past trial probe stimuli, it is argued that active maintenance in memory of those probes is unlikely. In two experiments we recorded such proactive interference of prior trial items over a range of interstimulus (ISI) and intertrial (ITI) intervals (between 1 and 6 seconds respectively). Consistent with a proposed t w o -process memory conception (the active-passive memory model or APM), actively maintained memories on current trials decayed but passively Òmaintained,Ó or unattended, visual memories of stimuli on past trials did not.(abstract 221 words)

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“…proposed that a slow decay process is adaptive: when an acoustical event has not re-occurred after a certain period of time, there may be little value in continuously maintaining it within the memory buffer (McKeown & Wellsted, 2009;Mercer & McKeown, 2010b). But by maintaining auditory information for tens of seconds, it is possible to build predictive models of the acoustical environment that can be updated when necessary, so that the time-course of minutes may be ideal for a gradually changing auditory environment, charting changes but maintaining old patterns.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…In the 30 s condition a single alert tone prepared the participant for the presentation of the comparison tone. To eliminate proactive interference from previous trials, the pitch of the tones was varied between trials (see Mercer & McKeown, 2010b). The intensity of the Decay uncovered in nonverbal short-term memory 7 stimuli was also varied between and within trials, to reduce the likelihood that listeners were using intensity information to perform the discrimination (Lentz, 2007).…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…This account states that memories of auditory events are used to build predictive models of the acoustical environment, and consequently TMM is primed to detect and respond to novel sounds (McKeown & Wellsted, 2009;Mercer & McKeown, 2010a, 2010b. This may occur through a rapid memory updating process driven by the occurrence of new auditory events, but slowDecay uncovered in nonverbal short-term memory 4 acting decay would also be advantageous in allowing the removal of memories which are no longer useful (Altmann, 2009, offers a similar argument about decay in episodic memory).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Decay uncovered in nonverbal short-term memory

Mercer

McKeown

2013

Psychon Bull Rev

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Decay theory posits that memory traces gradually fade away over the passage of time unless actively rehearsed. Much recent work exploring verbal short-term memory has challenged this theory, but there does appear to be evidence for trace decay in nonverbal auditory shortterm memory. Numerous discrimination studies have reported a performance decline as the interval separating two tones is increased, consistent with a decay process. However, most of the tone comparison research can be explained in other ways, without reference to decay, and these alternative accounts were tested in the present study. In Experiment 1 signals were employed towards the end of extended retention intervals to ensure that listeners were alert to the presence and frequency content of the memoranda. In Experiment 2 a mask stimulus was employed in an attempt to distinguish between a highly detailed sensory trace and a longerlasting short-term memory, and the distinctiveness of the stimuli was varied. Despite these precautions, slow-acting trace decay was observed. It therefore appears that the mere passage of time can lead to forgetting in some forms of short-term memory.

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Updating and feature overwriting in short-term memory for timbre

Cited by 16 publications

References 77 publications

What limits working memory capacity?

What limits working memory capacity?

Active versus passive maintenance of visual nonverbal memory

Decay uncovered in nonverbal short-term memory

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