Abstract
The maintenance of serial order information is a core component of working memory (WM). Many theoretical models assume the existence of specific serial order mechanisms. Those are considered to be independent from the linguistic system supporting maintenance of item information. This is based on studies showing that psycholinguistic factors strongly affect the ability to maintain item information, while leaving order recall relatively unaffected. Recent language-based accounts suggest, however, that the linguistic system could provide mechanisms that are sufficient for serial order maintenance. A strong version of these accounts postulates serial order maintenance as emerging from the pattern of activation occurring in the linguistic system. In the present study, we tested this assumption via a computational modeling approach by implementing a purely activation-based architecture. We tested this architecture against several experiments involving the manipulation of semantic relatedness, a psycholinguistic variable that has been shown to interact with serial order processing in a complex manner. We show that this activation-based architecture struggles to account for interactions between semantic knowledge and serial order processing. This study fails to support activated long-term memory as an exclusive mechanism supporting serial order maintenance.
Highlights
The ability to maintain serial order information is a core component of verbal working memory (WM)
Studies examining the impact of psycholinguistic factors, such as lexicality, on verbal WM performance typically observe effects on item recall, with minimal effects on serial order recall
Most computational models of WM explicitly assume the existence of serial order mechanisms that are distinct from those involved in item information
Summary
The ability to maintain serial order information is a core component of verbal working memory (WM). Mechanisms involved in the maintenance of serial order (i.e., the sequential order of the to-be-remembered items) have been considered to be independent from those involved in the maintenance of item information (i.e., the linguistic content of the to-beremembered items). This assumption is supported by different lines of research. The maintenance of item and serial order information is supported by different neural substrates, as reported by neurostimulation and neuroimaging studies (Attout, Fias, Salmon, & Majerus, 2014; Guidali, Pisoni, Bolognini, & Papagno, 2019; Kalm & Norris, 2014; Majerus et al, 2010; Papagno et al, 2017)
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