Greater Working Memory Capacity Research Articles

75 Examining the Role of Executive Functions on the Intention-Behavior Gap of Alcohol Harm Reduction Strategy Use

Objective:The Temporal Self-Regulation Theory (Hall and Fong, 2007) proposes that initiation and maintenance of effortful health behaviors relies on executive functions (EF: cognitive abilities associated with goal-directed behavior). Alcohol harm reduction strategies are health behaviors that aim to minimize the likelihood or severity of consequences associated with alcohol use. Some drinkers have the intention to drink safely but lack the ability to effectively initiate and execute the harm reduction behaviors. Executive functions may be one mechanism that helps explain the gap between safe drinking intentions and behavior. Specific components of EF may be differentially associated with alcohol harm reduction strategy use; working memory and set-shifting may be especially important in planning and following through with alcohol harm reduction strategies, and individuals with greater working memory capacity and set-shifting abilities may be more successful in implementing strategies that require preplanning and have a focus on altering typical the manner of drinking (e.g., not mixing types of alcohol). Inhibition may be important for resisting temptations that are inconsistent with safe drinking goals, and those with stronger inhibitory control may be more likely to follow through with strategies that require withholding responses despite desire to engage in the behavior, such as stopping or limiting drinking (e.g., not exceeding a predetermined number of drinks).Participants and Methods:Using ecological momentary assessment, the current study explored the extent to which an intention-behavior gap in harm reduction strategy use exists among college student drinkers (n=77), and investigated how potential individual differences in EF (i.e., working memory, set-shifting, and inhibition) were associated with translating intentions of drinking safely into action. Daily monitoring assessments contained brief measures of intention to use harm reduction strategies, actual strategy use, and alcohol-related behaviors, and were assessed daily for twenty-one days.Results:Multilevel model analyses revealed that although intention to use strategies predicted actual strategy use, measures of EF did not significantly moderate the relationship. Exploratory analyses indicated that set-shifting significantly moderated the intention-behavior gap for a subset of harm reduction strategies that relies more heavily on modifying behavior during a drinking event. Set-shifting did not significantly moderate the intention-behavior gap for a subset of strategies that relies more heavily on pre-planning before the drinking event.Conclusions:Findings from the current study suggests that those who plan to use strategies typically follow through regardless of individual differences in EF. Efforts to increase intention to drink safely can be incorporated into existing alcohol prevention and intervention programs, which would likely lead to increased use of harm reduction strategies and decreased alcohol-related consequences.

Development of Mandarin Lexical Tone Identification in Noise and Its Relation With Working Memory.

This study aimed to examine the developmental trajectory of Mandarin tone identification in quiet and two noisy conditions: speech-shaped noise (SSN) and multitalker babble noise. In addition, we evaluated the relationship between tonal identification development and working memory capacity. Ninety-three typically developing children aged 5-8 years and 23 young adults completed categorical identification of two tonal continua (Tone 1-4 and Tone 2-3) in quiet, SSN, and babble noise. Their working memory was additionally measured using auditory digit span tests. Correlation analyses between digit span scores and boundary widths were performed. Six-year-old children have achieved the adultlike ability of categorical identification of Tone 1-4 continuum under both types of noise. Moreover, 6-year-old children could identify Tone 2-3 continuum as well as adults in SSN. Nonetheless, the child participants, even 8-year-olds, performed worse when tokens from Tone 2-3 continuum were masked by babble noise. Greater working memory capacity was associated with better tone identification in noise for preschoolers aged 5-6 years; however, for school-age children aged 7-8 years, such correlation only existed in Tone 2-3 continuum in SSN. Lexical tone perception might take a prolonged time to achieve adultlike competence in babble noise relative to SSN. Moreover, a significant interaction between masking type and stimulus difficulty was found, as indicated by Tone 2-3 being more susceptible to interference from babble noise than Tone 1-4. Furthermore, correlations between working memory capacity and tone perception in noise varied with developmental stage, stimulus difficulty, and masking type.

Lower cohesion and altered first-person pronoun usage in the spoken life narratives of individuals with schizophrenia.

Usage of computational tools to quantify language disturbances among individuals with psychosis is increasing, improving measurement efficiency and access to fine-grained constructs. However, few studies apply automated linguistic analysis to life narratives in this population. Such research could facilitate the measurement of psychosis-relevant constructs such as sense of agency, capacity to organize one's personal history, narrative richness, and perceptions of the roles that others play in one's life. Furthermore, research is needed to understand how narrative linguistic features relate to cognitive and social functioning. In the present study, individuals with schizophrenia (n=32) and individuals without a psychotic disorder (n=15) produced personal life narratives within the Indiana Psychiatric Illness Interview. Narratives were analyzed using the Coh-Metrix computational tool. Linguistic variables analyzed were indices of connections within causal and goal-driven speech (deep cohesion), unique word usage (lexical diversity), and pronoun usage. Individuals with schizophrenia compared to control participants produced narratives that were lower in deep cohesion, contained more first-person singular pronouns, and contained fewer first-person plural pronouns. Narratives did not significantly differ between groups in lexical diversity, third-person pronoun usage, or total word count. Cognitive-linguistic relationships emerged in the full sample, including significant correlations between greater working memory capacity and greater deep cohesion and lexical diversity. In the schizophrenia group, social problem-solving abilities did not correlate with linguistic variables but were associated with cognition. Findings highlight the relevance of psychotherapies which aim to promote recovery among individuals with psychosis through the construction of coherent life narratives and increasing agency and social connectedness.

Effect of striatal dopamine on Pavlovian bias. A large [¹⁸F]-DOPA PET study.

Interaction between Pavlovian and instrumental control systems is key for adaptive motivated behavior, but also plays an important role in various neuropsychiatric disorders, including depression, addiction, and anxiety. Here, we employed the flouorodopa positron emission tomography ([¹⁸F]-DOPA PET) in healthy participants (N = 100) to assess whether dopamine synthesis capacity (Ki), specifically in the ventral striatum, accounts for individual variation in Pavlovian-to-instrumental transfer (PIT). Surprisingly, this was not the case. Rather, the relationship of ventral striatal Ki with PIT depended on working memory (WM) capacity. Ventral striatal dopamine boosted the effects of Pavlovian cues on instrumental responding to a greater degree in participants with higher WM capacity. Caution is warranted to interpret this post hoc four-way interaction given the modest sample size. Nonetheless, these results chime with prior findings demonstrating that dopaminergic drugs boost Pavlovian biases to a greater degree in participants with greater WM capacity and highlight the importance of interactions between striatal dopamine and WM capacity. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2023 APA, all rights reserved).

L2 processing of filled gaps

Abstract This paper investigates how late L2 learners resolve filler-gap dependencies (FGD) in real-time and how proficiency and working memory (WM) modulate their brain responses in an event-related potential (ERP) experiment. A group of intermediate to highly proficient Mandarin Chinese learners of English listened to sentences such as “The zebra that the hippo kissed *the camel on the nose ran far away,” in which the extra noun phrase “the camel” created a ‘filled-gap’ effect. The results show that although L2 behavioral responses are comparable to native speakers and are positively correlated with proficiency and WM span, the brain responses to the filled gap are qualitatively different. Importantly, L2 processing patterns did not become more nativelike with higher proficiency levels or greater WM capacity. Specifically, while the native speakers exhibited a P600 typically observed for syntactic violations and repair, the L2 group produced a prefrontal-central positivity. Similar ERPs have previously been reported to reflect domain-general attentional and non-structural-based processes, suggesting that the L2 group has a reduced sensitivity to structural requirements for gap positing in the online resolution of FGDs. Our findings are discussed in light of various proposals accounting for L1-L2 processing differences, including the Shallow Structure Hypothesis.

The Relationship between Religiosity and Cognitive Function among Chinese Older Adults in Chicago

Evidence suggests religiosity may be related to cognitive decline in older adults living in the US and China. However, the relationship between religiosity and cognitive function has not been tested in a Chinese community in the US. Immigration and isolation often cause diasporas to differ from communities where they currently reside and their origin. This study aims to determine the relationship between religiosity, cognitive function, and demographic attributes in a sample of older Chinese adults age 60 to 105 living in the Chicago area (N = 3157). Regression analysis showed participation in organized religion significantly predicted higher global cognitive function (β = 0.031, p < 0.001, N = 3051). Of all cognitive function measures including episodic memory (East Boston Memory Immediate and Delayed Recall Test), perceptual speed (Symbol Digit Modalities Test), working memory (Digit Backwards Test), cognitive impairment (Mini Mental State Examination), and a composite measure of (global cognition), the importance of religion only significantly predicted greater working memory capacity (β = 0.045, p = 0.003, N = 3058). Practicing religion at home had a nonsignificant relationship with all measures of cognitive function. All analyses controlled for the following covariates: gender, education, income, number of children, marital status, and health insurance coverage status. Findings suggest that among aspects of religiosity, organized religious involvement may have a positive association with higher cognitive function. Future research should explore between-population differences in the relationships of social factors, religiosity, and cognition function to determine what practices can best benefit older adults in various communities.

Working memory capacity and structure in monolinguals and bilinguals

ABSTRACT Working memory (WM) is memory for processing information for a short time. WM models often distinguish between verbal and visual stores. It is debated whether knowing more than one language leads to advantages in WM capacity. In this study, we tested whether there are WM capacity or structure differences in monolingual and bilingual adults. We predicted: bilinguals would have greater WM capacity and show greater integration between verbal and visuospatial memory than monolinguals. Sixty monolingual and 101 bilingual adults performed verbal and visuospatial WM tasks, both forward and backward. The results showed little difference in WM capacity between groups. Principal component analysis revealed two WM components for the bilingual group: visual WM and verbal WM. In contrast, only one WM component was observed among monolinguals. These results suggest greater specialisation in WM modality among bilinguals. Future research will test whether these differences are causally linked to the acquisition of two languages.

Working memory and alcohol demand relationships differ according to PTSD symptom severity among veterans with AUD.

Posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and alcohol use disorder (AUD) are highly comorbid with complex and often unclear associations. Working memory deficits may represent a shared mechanism implicated in emotion regulation and control over impulsive alcohol use. Here we test whether PTSD symptoms and working memory correlated with performance on a behavioral economic assessment of alcohol demand. 113 veterans (mean age 51 years; 89% male) completed an Alcohol Purchase Task (APT) and were assessed for PTSD, alcohol use, and working memory. We examined the interaction of PTSD symptoms and working memory on four indices of alcohol demand measured from the APT; specifically, we used separate models to test whether associations between working memory and intensity (consumption at $0), Omax (maximum expenditure), Pmax (price at maximum expenditure), and elasticity (price sensitivity), differed as a function of PTSD symptoms. In a model controlling for hazardous drinking, average drinking levels, age, sex, marital status, occupation, and education, we observed a significant interaction between PTSD symptoms and working memory on elasticity, whereby greater working memory capacity was associated with greater elasticity for veterans with lower PTSD symptoms. Follow-up analyses regarding specific PTSD symptom domains indicated that this effect was strongest for avoidance symptoms. Taken together, working memory abilities correlated with subjective valuations of alcohol in a laboratory setting for veterans with less severe PTSD symptoms. This work highlights the conditions under which working memory may be a potential target for interventions geared toward reducing alcohol use in veterans with co-occurring PTSD and AUD. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2021 APA, all rights reserved).

Auditory distraction in school-age children relative to individual differences in working memory capacity.

We examined susceptibility to auditory distraction and its association to working-memory capacity (WMC) in children (N=125) using a dichotic listening task. Performance in a dichotic listening task was measured with and without distracting multi-talker babble (MTB). Intrusion errors from the to-be-ignored ear and the overall errors of any type between the two conditions were modeled to explain the role of WMC and the potential moderating effect of MTB, while controlling for age. Susceptibility to auditory distraction when represented by the absolute difference in errors between MTB and no-MTB conditions was not associated with WMC and age. That is, children with greater WMC were no better at ignoring interference from babble than children with low WMC. This suggests that irrelevant sounds have obligatory access to verbal short-term memory and are not effectively suppressed by the attention-controlled WM system. However, when ratio of errors with and without MTB was analyzed, children with high WMC made more errors compared to children with low WMC. Developmental improvements in children's WMC do not appear to advantage listening in the presence of distracting background noise. Therefore, enhancement of target speech in children's learning environments is crucial.

Romantic partners' working memory capacity facilitates relationship problem resolution through recollection of problem-relevant information.

Intimates often discuss the causes of, and solutions to, their relationship problems with their partners, and this information can shape partners' behavior and thus facilitate problem resolution. Partners' ability to encode and later recall such discussions should lead to greater declines in the severity of those problems. This brief report presents the results from a broader longitudinal study in which newlywed couples completed tasks assessing their working memory capacity (WMC), engaged in problem-solving discussions, recalled those discussions after a short delay, and then reported the severity of the problems discussed over the course of a year. Greater WMC among partners was associated with greater declines in the severity of a relationship problem, mediated by partners' recall of the discussion of that problem, suggesting that WMC facilitated the long-term memory encoding of the problem discussion. This study is among the first to suggest that individual differences in basic cognitive abilities may affect conversation processing and recall, and thereby close relationships. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2020 APA, all rights reserved).

Functional Linking Between Negative and Positive ERPs for Syntactic Processing in Japanese: Mutual Enhancement, Syntactic Prediction, and Working Memory Constraints.

This study attempts to detect the differences in event-related potentials (ERPs) associated with two syntactic processes: the syntactic integration of discontinuous dependency and the detection of a violation of the syntactic island constraint. We recorded the electroencephalogram elicited by complex sentences in Japanese that included a dependency between a quantifier and its head noun, in which we changed the word order of the two words to manipulate the presence and absence of a syntactic integration and a syntactic island violation while keeping the lexical items and construction unchanged. We found significant negative and positive deflections for the syntactic integration only when a quantifier preceded its head noun. We also observed significant negative and positive deflections for the syntactic island violation, for which the negativity was more salient when a quantifier preceded its head noun. This study is the first to report a late positive ERP for a violation of the syntactic island constraints in Japanese, and the results showed that the ERP elicited by syntactic integration and that by syntactic island violation were different in terms of their latency, topography, and duration. More importantly, the ERPs elicited by the two syntactic processes were biphasic, and the amplitudes of the negative ERP and of the positive ERP were positively correlated. This positive correlation could be a characteristic of syntactic processing because it contrasted with the negative correlation reported for the ERP elicited by semantic anomalies in English. Furthermore, the amplitude of the ERP for syntactic integration was negatively correlated with the individual capacity of working memory (WM). That is, a reader with greater WM capacity showed smaller negativity and positivity for the syntactic integration, whereas the amplitude for the syntactic island violation showed no significant correlation with the individual capacity of WM. Our results suggested that linguistic ERPs functionally interacted with each other and that the ERP involving the retention and the retrieval of a distant word could be constrained by the individual differences in WM capacity. We discuss the possible reasons for the contrast between English and Japanese on the basis of the cross-linguistic differences in the two languages.

Mathematics students demonstrate superior visuo-spatial working memory to humanities students under conditions of low central executive processing load

Previous research has demonstrated that working memory performance is linked to mathematics achievement. Most previous studies have involved children and arithmetic rather than more advanced forms of mathematics. This study compared the performance of groups of adult mathematics and humanities students. Experiment 1 employed verbal and visuo-spatial working memory span tasks using a novel face-matching processing element. Results showed that mathematics students had greater working memory capacity in the visuo-spatial domain only. Experiment 2 replicated this and demonstrated that neither visuo-spatial short-term memory nor endogenous spatial attention explained the visuo-spatial working memory differences. Experiment 3 used working memory span tasks with more traditional verbal or visuo-spatial processing elements to explore the effect of processing type. In this study mathematics students showed superior visuo-spatial working memory capacity only when the processing involved had a comparatively low level of central executive involvement. Both visuo-spatial working memory capacity and general visuo-spatial skills predicted mathematics achievement.

A new approach to differentiate states of mind wandering: Effects of working memory capacity

Although widely studied, the process of how mind wandering occurs and is subsequently sustained still remains unclear. Moreover, the traditional concept of mind wandering tendency/frequency based on the self- or probe-caught methods alone is incoherent and problematic. We developed a new approach to characterize the mind wandering process by combining the self-caught and probe-caught methods to estimate the time of focus and time of mind wandering separately, and examined their relationship to working memory capacity. Participants performed an OSPAN task and subsequently a basic Mindfulness Meditation Task (focus on breath). During the meditation task, participants indicated when they became aware that they were mind wandering (self-caught method), or were asked if they were mind wandering when probed (probe-caught method). Results showed that time of focus but not time of mind wandering increased with greater working memory capacity. This suggests that individuals with higher working memory capacity were able to focus on the current task longer, but had little effect on the ability to monitor and terminate mind wandering once it occurred. The theoretical and methodological implications of this new approach are discussed.

Individual differences in working memory capacity and resistance to belief bias in syllogistic reasoning.

In two experiments, we investigated the possibility that individual differences in working memory capacity (WMC) would provide resistance to belief bias in syllogistic reasoning. In Experiment 1 (N = 157), participants showed a belief bias effect in that they had longer response times and decreased accuracy on syllogisms with conflict between the validity and believability of the conclusion than on syllogisms with no such conflict. However, this effect did not differ as a function of individual differences in WMC. Experiment 2 (N = 122) replicated this effect with the addition of decontextualized (i.e., nonsense) syllogisms as a different means of measuring the magnitude of the belief bias effect. Although individual differences in WMC and fluid intelligence were related to better reasoning overall, the magnitude of the belief bias effect was not smaller for participants with greater WMC. The present study offers two novel findings: (a) The belief bias effect is independent of individual differences in WMC and fluid intelligence, and (b) resolving conflict in verbal reasoning is not a type of conflict resolution that correlates with individual differences in WMC, further establishing boundary conditions for the role of WMC in human cognitive processes.

Working memory capacity and mind-wandering during low-demand cognitive tasks.

Individual differences in working memory capacity (WMC) typically predict reduced rates of mind-wandering during laboratory tasks (Randall, Oswald, & Beier, 2014). However, some studies have shown a positive relationship between WMC and mind-wandering during particularly low-demand tasks (Levinson, Smallwood, & Davidson, 2012; Rummel & Boywitt, 2014; Zavagnin, Borella, & De Beni, 2014). More specifically, Baird, Smallwood, and Schooler (2011) found that when individuals with greater WMC do mind-wander, they tend entertain more future-oriented thoughts. This piece of evidence is frequently used to support the context-regulation hypothesis, which states that using spare capacity to think productively (e.g. plan) during relatively simple tasks is indicative of a cognitive system that is functioning in an adaptive manner (Smallwood & Andrews-Hanna, 2013). The present investigation failed to replicate the finding that WMC is positively related to future-oriented off-task thought, which has implications for several theoretical viewpoints.

An investigation of the role of some person and situation variables in multiple cue probability learning

Making decisions using judgements of multiple non-deterministic indicators is an important task, both in everyday and professional life. Learning of such decision making has often been studied as the mapping of stimuli (cues) to an environmental variable (criterion); however, little attention has been paid to the effects of situation-by-person interactions on this learning. Accordingly, we manipulated cue and feedback presentation mode (graphic or numeric) and task difficulty, and measured individual differences in working memory capacity (WMC). We predicted that graphic presentation, fewer cues, and elevated WMC would facilitate learning, and that person and task characteristics would interact such that presentation mode compatible with the decision maker's cognitive capability (enhanced visual or verbal WMC) would assist learning, particularly for more difficult tasks. We found our predicted main effects, but no significant interactions, except that those with greater WMC benefited to a larger extent with graphic than with numeric presentation, regardless of which type of working memory was enhanced or number of cues. Our findings suggest that the conclusions of past research based predominantly on tasks using numeric presentation need to be reevaluated and cast light on how working memory helps us learn multiple cue-criterion relationships, with implications for dual-process theories of cognition.

Bilingualism and working memory capacity: A comprehensive meta-analysis

Bilinguals often outperform monolinguals on executive function tasks, including tasks that tap cognitive flexibility, conflict monitoring, and task-switching abilities. Some have suggested that bilinguals also have greater working memory capacity than comparable monolinguals, but evidence for this suggestion is mixed. We therefore conducted a comprehensive meta-analysis on the effects of bilingualism on working memory capacity. Results from 88 effect sizes, 27 independent studies, and 2,901 participants revealed a significant small to medium population effect size of 0.20 in favor of greater working memory capacity for bilinguals than monolinguals. This suggests that experience managing two languages that compete for selection results in greater working memory capacity over time. Moderator analyses revealed that largest effects were observed in children than other age groups. Furthermore, whether the task was performed in the first (L1) or second (L2) language for bilinguals moderated the effect size of the bilingual advantage; this factor is often overlooked and our results point to the importance of defining language variables that influence critical cognitive outcomes.

Functional brain organization of working memory in adolescents varies in relation to family income and academic achievement.

Working memory (WM) capacity reflects executive functions associated with performance on a wide range of cognitive tasks and education outcomes, including mathematics achievement, and is associated with dorsolateral prefrontal and parietal cortices. Here we asked if family income is associated with variation in the functional brain organization of WM capacity among adolescents, and whether that variation is associated with performance on a statewide test of academic achievement in mathematics. Participants were classified into higher-income and lower-income groups based on family income, and performed a WM task with a parametric manipulation of WM load (N-back task) during functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI). Behaviorally, the higher-income group had greater WM capacity and higher mathematics achievement scores. Neurally, the higher-income group showed greater activation as a function of WM load in bilateral prefrontal, parietal, and other regions, although the lower-income group exhibited greater activation at the lowest load. Both groups exhibited positive correlations between parietal activations and mathematics achievement scores, but only the higher-income group exhibited a positive correlation between prefrontal activations and mathematics scores. Most of these findings were maintained when higher- and lower-income groups were matched on WM task performance or nonverbal IQ. Findings indicate that the functional neural architecture of WM varies with family income and is associated with education measures of mathematics achievement.

The Influence of Attention Set, Working Memory Capacity, and Expectations on Inattentional Blindness.

The probability of inattentional blindness, the failure to notice an unexpected object when attention is engaged on some primary task, is influenced by contextual factors like task demands, features of the unexpected object, and the observer's attention set. However, predicting who will notice an unexpected object and who will remain inattentionally blind has proven difficult, and the evidence that individual differences in cognition affect noticing remains ambiguous. We hypothesized that greater working memory capacity might modulate the effect of attention sets on noticing because working memory is associated with the ability to focus attention selectively. People with greater working memory capacity might be better able to attend selectively to target items, thereby increasing the chances of noticing unexpected objects that were similar to the attended items while decreasing the odds of noticing unexpected objects that differed from the attended items. Our study (N = 120 participants) replicated evidence that task-induced attention sets modulate noticing but found no link between noticing and working memory capacity. Our results are largely consistent with the idea that individual differences in working memory capacity do not predict noticing of unexpected objects in an inattentional blindness task.

Suppression and Working Memory in Auditory Comprehension of L2 Narratives: Evidence from Cross-Modal Priming.

Using a cross-modal priming task, the present study explores whether Chinese-English bilinguals process goal related information during auditory comprehension of English narratives like native speakers. Results indicate that English native speakers adopted both mechanisms of suppression and enhancement to modulate the activation of goals and keep track of the "causal path" in narrative events and that L1 speakers with higher working memory (WM) capacity are more skilled at attenuating interference. L2 speakers, however, experienced the phenomenon of "facilitation-without-inhibition." Their difficulty in suppressing irrelevant information was related to their performance in the test of working memory capacity. For the L2 group with greater working memory capacity, the effects of both enhancement and suppression were found. These findings are discussed in light of a landscape model of L2 text comprehension which highlights the need for WM to be incorporated into comprehensive models of L2 processing as well as theories of SLA.