Working memory and inhibitory control across the life span: Intrusion errors in the Reading Span Test

Robert, Christelle; Borella, Erika; Fagot, Delphine; Lecerf, Thierry; Ribaupierre, Anik De

doi:10.3758/mc.37.3.336

Cited by 70 publications

(58 citation statements)

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“…The analysis of intrusion errors in this task, computed as the number of nonfinal words that the subjects recall, provides a direct and objective measurement of interference control abilities. Using this task, some researchers have found significantly more intrusion errors in older than in young adults (Robert, Borella, Fagot, Lecerf, & Ribaupierre, 2009), while other researchers have not (Schelstraete & Hupet, 2002). However, variations in the reading span test have demonstrated that an interference control failure might account for poor performance on this task, but so also might proactive interference from previous trials (Lustig, May, & Hasher, 2001;May, Hasher, & Kane, 1999), the length of the reading span task (Robert et al, 2009), or the subjects' reading skills (Chiappe, Hasher, & Siegel, 2000;De Beni, Palladino, Pazzaglia, & Cornoldi, 1998).…”

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confidence: 97%

Effects of aging on interference control in selective attention and working memory

et al. 2011

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Working memory decay in advanced age has been attributed to a concurrent decrease in the ability to control interference. The present study contrasted a form of interference control in selective attention that acts upon the perception of external stimuli (access) with another form that operates on internal representations in working memory (deletion), in order to determine both of their effects on working memory efficiency in younger and older adults. Additionally, we compared memory performance under these access and deletion functions to performance in their respective control conditions. The results indicated that memory accuracy improved in both age groups from the access functions, but that only young adults benefited from the deletion functions. In addition, intrusion effects in the deletion condition were larger in older than in younger adults. The ability to control the irrelevant perception-and memory-elicited interference did not decline in general with advancing age; rather, the control mechanisms that operate on internal memory representations declined specifically.

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confidence: 97%

Effects of aging on interference control in selective attention and working memory

et al. 2011

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“…Two tasks were used for WM assessment: one verbal (the reading span test, RSpan; de Ribaupierre & Bailleux, 1995;de Ribaupierre, Ghisletta, & Lecerf, 2006;Robert, Borella, Fagot, Lecerf, & de Ribaupierre, 2009, adapted from Daneman & Carpenter, 1980 and one visuospatial (the matrices task; de Ribaupierre et al, 2006;Lecerf & de Ribaupierre, 2005). Each task contained two phases: (a)span assessment and (b)administration of ten trials at span level and administration of ten trials at span+1 level.…”

Section: Working Memory Assessmentmentioning

confidence: 99%

Working memory and intraindividual variability in processing speed: A lifespan developmental and individual-differences study

et al. 2014

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Working memory (WM) and intraindividual variability (IIV) in processing speed are both hypothesized to reflect general attentional processes. In the present study, we aimed at exploring the relationship between WM capacity and IIV in reaction times (RTs) and its possible variation with development across the lifespan. Two WM tasks and six RT tasks of varying complexity were analyzed in a sample of 539 participants, consisting of five age groups: two groups of children (9-10 and 11-12 years of age), one group of young adults, and two groups of older adults (59-69 and 70-89 years of age). Two approaches were adopted. First, low-span and high-span individuals were identified, and analyses of variance were conducted comparing these two groups within each age group and for each RT task. The results consistently showed a span effect in the youngest children and oldest adults: High-span individuals were significantly faster and less variable than low-span individuals. In contrast, in young adults no difference was observed between high-and lowspan individuals, whether in terms of their means or IIV. Second, multivariate analyses were conducted on the entire set of tasks, to determine whether IIV in RTs brought different information than the mean RT. The results showed that, although very strongly correlated, the mean and IIV in speed should be kept separate in terms of how they account for individual differences in WM. Overall, our results support the assumption of a link between WM capacity and IIV in RT, more strongly so in childhood and older adulthood.Keywords Aging . Development . Individual differences . Reaction time analyses/methods . Working memory . Intraindividual variabilityThe objective of the present article is to address the issue of the relationship between working memory (WM) capacity and within-task intraindividual variability (IIV) in reaction time (RT) tasks, investigating whether this relationship might vary across the lifespan. In this introduction, we will briefly present our approach to WM-in conformity with the demand of the editor of this special issue-and then discuss why a potential relationship can be hypothesized between WM and IIV and whether individual differences in WM could be related to IIV.As a number of researchers interested in developmental and/ or individual differences in WM, we consider the performance in WM tasks to be determined by a set of underlying attentional processes. These processes, such as the activation and inhibition of relevant informational units, are considered to become more efficient with age, accounting for part of cognitive development in children, and to vary in efficacy across individuals. We consider WM to be an index of what has frequently, and rather loosely, been labeled general resources. WM capacity, while remaining severely limited, increases with age both because of an increase in neurobiological mechanisms and because the use of resources becomes more efficient with experience. There is here a major point of departure between cognitive ex...

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“…Therefore, the span tasks may not be conceived as pure working memory tasks but as double tasks that challenge our ability to successfully divide our attention. Indeed, for this reason, this task has been extensively used to investigate interference control mechanisms, such as inhibition (e.g., Robert et al 2009). …”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The decline of verbal and visuospatial working memory across the adult life span

Cansino

Hernández-Ramos

Estrada-Manilla

et al. 2013

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It has been well established that working memory abilities decrease with advancing age; however, the specific time point in the adult life span at which this deficit begins and the rate at which it advances are still controversial. There is no agreement on whether working memory declines equally for visuospatial and verbal information, and the literature disagrees on how task difficulty may influence this decay. We addressed these questions in a lifespan sample of 1,500 participants between 21 and 80 years old. The n-back task was used, with letters and circles presented at different positions around an imaginary circle, to evaluate working memory in the verbal and visuospatial domains, respectively. The participants' task was to judge whether the current stimulus matched a stimulus that was shown n trials prior. Both domains were evaluated in two levels of difficulty: 1-back and 2-back. The comparison across decades showed that discrimination in the visuospatial and 1-back tasks started to decline earlier in women than in men; however, discrimination was equal between the sexes in the verbal and 2-back tasks. Performance on tasks in the visuospatial domain exhibited more pronounced decline than in those in the verbal domain. The rate of decline in working memory accuracy was superior in 2-back tasks than in 1-back tasks, independent of the domain. These results revealed that the effects of aging on working memory are less dependent on the type of information and more reliant on the resources demanded by the task.

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Working memory and inhibitory control across the life span: Intrusion errors in the Reading Span Test

Cited by 70 publications

References 46 publications

Effects of aging on interference control in selective attention and working memory

Effects of aging on interference control in selective attention and working memory

Working memory and intraindividual variability in processing speed: A lifespan developmental and individual-differences study

The decline of verbal and visuospatial working memory across the adult life span

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