Ordinal distance effect in working memory: simultaneous and sequential designs

Abstract

Event Abstract Back to Event Ordinal distance effect in working memory: simultaneous and sequential designs Myrtille Dewulf1*, Wim Gevers1 and Sophie Antoine1 1 Free University of Brussels, Belgium Working memory refers to our ability to actively maintain and process a limited amount of information during a brief period of time. Crucial for our daily-life activities are not only the items to be memorized, but also their order. One behavioural signature of the processing of order information in working memory is the ordinal distance effect: when two probes are presented in the same order as in the memorised sequence, participants are slower when the probes are at close than at distant positions in the memorised sequence (e.g., Marshuetz et al., 2000). In these studies, items of the memory set were presented simultaneously, making ordinal and physical distance to co-vary: a larger ordinal distance implies a larger physical distance. It is thus possible that physical distance contributes to the effect, although it was only attributed to the ordinal distance between items. In the present study, we use a within-subject design in which we compare the ordinal distance effect when the items of the memory set are presented simultaneously and when the items are presented sequentially (i.e. one after the other). Interestingly, we did not replicate the typical distance effect, not in the simultaneous nor in the sequential condition. Our results seem to indicate that different processes are at place for small distances and for large distances (serial search strategy versus comparison processes, Turconi et al., 2006). Also, there was no important difference between the two conditions, implying that physical distance does not play a major role. References Marshuetz, C., Smith, E. E., Jonides, J., DeGutis, J., & Chenevert, T. L. (2000). Order information in working memory: fMRI evidence for parietal and prefrontal mechanisms. Journal of cognitive neuroscience, 12(2), 130-144. Turconi, E., Campbell, J. I. D., & Seron, X. (2006). Numerical order and quantity processing in number comparison. Cognition, 98(3), 273-285. Keywords: verbal working memory (VWM), working memory, distance effect, ordinal distance, Physical distance Conference: 13th National Congress of the Belgian Society for Neuroscience , Brussels, Belgium, 24 May - 24 May, 2019. Presentation Type: Poster presentation Topic: Behavioral/Systems Neuroscience Citation: Dewulf M, Gevers W and Antoine S (2019). Ordinal distance effect in working memory: simultaneous and sequential designs. Front. Neurosci. Conference Abstract: 13th National Congress of the Belgian Society for Neuroscience . doi: 10.3389/conf.fnins.2019.96.00022 Copyright: The abstracts in this collection have not been subject to any Frontiers peer review or checks, and are not endorsed by Frontiers. They are made available through the Frontiers publishing platform as a service to conference organizers and presenters. The copyright in the individual abstracts is owned by the author of each abstract or his/her employer unless otherwise stated. Each abstract, as well as the collection of abstracts, are published under a Creative Commons CC-BY 4.0 (attribution) licence (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) and may thus be reproduced, translated, adapted and be the subject of derivative works provided the authors and Frontiers are attributed. For Frontiers’ terms and conditions please see https://www.frontiersin.org/legal/terms-and-conditions. Received: 01 May 2019; Published Online: 27 Sep 2019. * Correspondence: PhD. Myrtille Dewulf, Free University of Brussels, Brussels, Brussels, 1050, Belgium, myrtille.dewulf@ulb.ac.be Login Required This action requires you to be registered with Frontiers and logged in. To register or login click here. Abstract Info Abstract The Authors in Frontiers Myrtille Dewulf Wim Gevers Sophie Antoine Google Myrtille Dewulf Wim Gevers Sophie Antoine Google Scholar Myrtille Dewulf Wim Gevers Sophie Antoine PubMed Myrtille Dewulf Wim Gevers Sophie Antoine Related Article in Frontiers Google Scholar PubMed Abstract Close Back to top Javascript is disabled. Please enable Javascript in your browser settings in order to see all the content on this page.