Low Working Memory Span Research Articles

The relationship between working memory capacity, bilingualism, and ambiguous relative clause attachment.

Working memory (WM) capacity has been shown to influence how readers resolve syntactic ambiguities. Building on the work of Swets et al. (2007, Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 136[1], 64-81), the goal of the present study was to assess the effects of working memory and language proficiency on first language (L1) relative clause attachment decisions across three different language samples: English monolinguals, L1-L2 Spanish-English heritage bilinguals, and L1-L2 Mandarin-English bilinguals. Binomial logistic regression analyses demonstrated that low WM span is associated with a preference to attach ambiguous relative clauses higher in the syntactic structure, as reported by Swets et al. (2007), and contrary to a recency strategy. We also observed that proficiency in L1 and L2 have little effect, suggesting that relative clause attachment preferences primarily reflect the properties of the language and the working memory capacity of the comprehender.

The relationship between noise-induced hearing loss and cognitive function

Introduction NIHL may affect some domains of cognitive function. This study was conducted to assess the relationship between NIHL and working memory, attention and response time. Materials and methods This was a cross-sectional study on 154 textile workers with exposure to noise higher than 85dBA in a textile factory. The participants were divided into two groups: with and without NIHL and some domains of cognitive function were compared between two groups. Wechsler working memory test and Stroop color-word test were used to measure working memory, selective attention and response time. Data were analyzed by SPSS (ver. 24) using student’s T test, and multiple linear regression model. Results Totally, 154 workers entered the study (77 with NIHL and 77 without NIHL). All participants were males. Working memory score and response time were higher and interference score was lower in NIHL group, although only the difference in working memory was significant. Due to the significant difference of age and work history between case and control groups, cognitive parameters were compared between two groups after adjusting for these two variables, but the significance was not changed. Conclusion This study showed that noised-exposed middle-aged males with NIHL had probably a lower working memory span than their counterparts without NIHL.

Effects of Depressed Mood on Syllogistic Reasoning: The Buffering Role of High Working Memory Span.

Previous research provided consistent evidence for the existence of the unique cognitive limitation in depressed mood: the impairment of the construction of mental models. In the current research, we applied the classical paradigm using categorical syllogisms to examine the relationship between depressed mood and integrative reasoning, aiming at gathering research evidence on the moderating role of the operation span of working memory. Specifically, we examine the hypothesis that high working memory capacity is a buffering variable and acts as a protective factor preventing the negative impact of depressed mood on syllogistic reasoning. A categorical syllogism, in the simpler evaluative form, consists of two premises (that are assumed to be true) and a conclusion that is to be evaluated as valid (when it follows logically from the premises) or invalid (when it does not follow from the premises). In the cover story, we informed participants that they would read about some observations carried out in a normal garden (believable conclusions) versus in a garden with radical genetic transformations (unbelievable conclusions) in order to stimulate the emergence of belief bias. The participants were 115 high school students who filled out the BDI scale and completed the OSPAN task. In line with predictions, there were main effects of depressed mood and operation span on the accuracy of performance (worse performance in the group with a high in comparison to a low level of depressed mood and much worse performance in low compared to high OSPAN participants). The analyses yielded a strong interaction effect of Depressed mood × OSPAN × Conflict. For participants with high levels of working memory capacity, there were no limitations related to a high level of depressed mood in syllogistic reasoning. On the other hand, a different pattern emerged for participants with low working memory span. In this group, participants with a high level of depressed mood in comparison to those with a low level of depressed mood showed much higher limitations in syllogistic reasoning, especially in reasoning concerning conflict syllogisms. We discuss the implications of this research for recent therapeutic programs using computerized cognitive tasks aimed at individuals with a high level of depressed mood.

How working memory capacity modulates the time course of indirect replies comprehension: an event-related potential study

ABSTRACT To achieve successful communication, people should decode not only the literal meaning of an utterance, but also the intended meanings conveyed by the speaker. In the present study, event-related potential (ERP) technique was used to explore how working memory capacity modulates the processes of indirect replies comprehension. Conversations of Speaker A and Speaker B were constructed. Speaker A’s question renders Speaker B’s reply to be either direct or indirect replies. Participants of high and low working memory span were instructed to read for comprehension. Our results showed that for the high span group, indirect replies elicited a larger P200, a larger P300 and a larger delayed Late Positive Component (LPC) compared with direct replies. While for the low span group, only a delayed LPC effect was elicited by indirect replies. These findings provide evidence that readers’ working memory capacity modulates the early detection and immediate processing of indirect replies.

Competition and working memory in sentence reading: Evidence from Spanish.

We evaluated the validity, preference, and competition of 2 syntactic cues in Spanish (subject-verb agreement and animacy) and the role of working memory (WM) during cue competition in sentence reading. Spanish participants read noun-verb-noun sentences and performed an agent assignment task. Experiment 1 revealed that readers preferred as agent of the sentence (a) the noun that agreed with the verb and (b) the animate noun over the inanimate noun. The subject-verb agreement cue was preferred over animacy. Cue competition arose in reading: Longer reading times were observed for sentences in which subject-verb agreement and animacy guided toward different interpretations. Experiment 2 revealed that the use of syntactic cues depended on WM. High-WM-span readers made use of lexical-semantic information (animacy) and did not show the interference associated with cue competition. Low WM span readers preferred the favourite cue in Spanish (subject-verb agreement) and showed interference when cues competed. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2020 APA, all rights reserved).

The Effects of Working Memory and Probability Format on Bayesian Reasoning.

Bayesian reasoning is common and critical in everyday life while the performance on Bayesian reasoning is rather poor. Previous studies showed that people could enhance their performance by applying cognitive resources under the natural frequency format condition. Working memory is one of the crucial cognitive resources in the reasoning process. However, the role of working memory on Bayesian reasoning remains unclear. In our study, we verified the effect of working memory on Bayesian reasoning by evaluating the performance of participants with high and low working memory span (WMS); we also investigated if working memory as a kind of cognitive resource can affect Bayesian reasoning performance by manipulating the cognitive load in a dual-task paradigm among participants with no-, low-, and high-loads. We found the following: (1) The Bayesian reasoning performance of high WMS participants was significantly higher than that of low WMS participants. (2) Performance under natural frequency condition was noticeably higher than that in standard probability condition. (3) Interaction between working memory and probability format was significant, and the performance of participants with high-load in natural frequency condition was higher when compared to those of participants with no- and low-load. Therefore, we can conclude that: (1) Working memory resource is a major factor in Bayesian reasoning. The performance of Bayesian reasoning is influenced by working memory span and working memory load. (2) A Bayesian facilitation effect exists, and replacing the standard probability format with a natural frequency format can significantly improve Bayesian performance. (3) Bayesian facilitation occurs only in participants with sufficient working memory resources.

How working memory capacity modulates the time course of semantic integration at sentence and discourse level

During comprehension, language users not only immediately integrate information from local sentence context, but also information from global discourse context for full understanding. In the present study, we examined whether the time course of these integration processes is constrained by language users’ working memory capacity. Sentence and discourse stimuli were constructed. For the sentence stimuli, each sentence contained a critical word that was either congruent or incongruent with its preceding sentence context. For the discourse stimuli, each discourse contained four sentences with a target word embedded at the final sentence and the target word was either congruent or incongruent with the information provided at the first sentence of the discourse. Participants of high and low working memory span were instructed to read for comprehension. Our results showed that while the high span readers showed the N400 and P600 effects to semantically incongruent words, the low span readers only showed the P600 effect. This pattern was found regardless of whether the incongruent words were placed at sentence or discourse context. These results suggest that the low span readers are relatively delayed than the high span ones at both sentence- and discourse-level semantic integration and indicate that working memory functions have greater influence than context scope on the time course of semantic integration.

The role of working memory in sentence processing in normal reading population. A review of related literature.

This essay aims to describe the factors that influence sentence processing with emphasis given on garden path sentences. The latter grammatical phenomenon has been proved more problematic in people with low working memory span. Predictions of the working memory model of Baddeley and Hich and the theory of language comprehension of Just and Carpenter were used to explain sentence processing within text context.

Trial distinctiveness in visuospatial working memory: effects on individual differences

ABSTRACTPrevious research has shown that proactive interference (PI) negatively affects performance on working memory (WM) tasks, particularly when to-be-remembered items are similar across trials, and that individuals with low WM spans are more susceptible to PI than those with high spans. The two experiments of the present study further explored individual differences in susceptibility to PI in the visuospatial domain. The similarity of the to-be-remembered locations was manipulated across trials by varying whether locations were presented in different colours and/or accompanied by unique sounds. It was hypothesised that these manipulations would reduce PI, improving participants’ memory. In addition, because of their increased susceptibility to PI, it also was hypothesised that low spans would benefit more than high spans from increases in distinctiveness. The results of both experiments were consistent with these hypotheses, suggesting that even low-span individuals can overcome the effects of PI, given the right task support.

Individual differences in visuospatial working memory: benefits from environmental support for rehearsal

ABSTRACTPrevious research has suggested that participants with low working memory spans are less likely than those with high spans to engage in rehearsal and other effective strategies during memory tasks. However, most of this research has been conducted in the verbal domain, and less is known about strategy differences in visuospatial working memory. Therefore, the present experiments investigated potential individual differences in the benefit participants receive from environmental support for visuospatial rehearsal. In Experiment 1, memory spans were significantly larger when support was present (i.e. when the array of possible locations remained on the screen) during long inter-item intervals, but importantly, the observed benefit was larger for high-span participants than low-span participants, suggesting that high spans were more likely to use support to facilitate their rehearsal. Other research has suggested that low spans may benefit more than high spans from rehearsal instructions, and so in Experiment 2, participants also were provided with such instructions. However, the rehearsal instructions did not improve memory spans significantly in either group, suggesting that low spans are not only naturally less strategic than high spans, but they may be less capable of taking advantage of effective rehearsal strategies, even when environmental support is present.

Is There a Processing Preference for Object Relative Clauses in Chinese? Evidence From ERPs.

A consistent finding across head-initial languages, such as English, is that subject relative clauses (SRCs) are easier to comprehend than object relative clauses (ORCs). However, several studies in Mandarin Chinese, a head-final language, revealed the opposite pattern, which might be modulated by working memory (WM) as suggested by recent results from self-paced reading performance. In the present study, event-related potentials (ERPs) were recorded when participants with high and low WM spans (measured by forward digit span and operation span tests) read Chinese ORCs and SRCs. The results revealed an N400-P600 complex elicited by ORCs on the relativizer, whose magnitude was modulated by the WM span. On the other hand, a P600 effect was elicited by SRCs on the head noun, whose magnitude was not affected by the WM span. These findings paint a complex picture of relative clause processing in Chinese such that opposing factors involving structural ambiguities and integration of filler-gap dependencies influence processing dynamics in Chinese relative clauses.

Perspective Effects During Reading: Evidence from Text Change-Detection

ABSTRACTWe report two text change-detection studies in which we investigate the influence of reading perspective on text memory. In Experiment 1 participants read from the perspective of one of two characters in a series of short stories, and word changes were either semantically close or distant. Participants correctly reported more changes to perspective-relevant than perspective-irrelevant words and for distant than close changes. However, distance and perspective did not interact, suggesting that adopting a particular perspective did not lead to a more fine-grained analysis of perspective-relevant information. In Experiment 2 participants read one long narrative from the perspective of either a burglar or house-buyer. Results showed that only participants with a low working memory span showed perspective effects, suggesting that individual differences in working memory capacity appear to influence processing of perspective-relevant information.

Working memory over a six-year period in young binge drinkers.

Adolescence and early adulthood are periods of particular vulnerability to the neurotoxic effects of alcohol. Young people with alcohol-use disorders display deficits in working memory (WM). This function is supported by the prefrontal cortex, a late-maturing brain region. However, little is known about the progression of cognitive dysfunctions associated with a binge-drinking (BD) pattern of alcohol consumption among non-clinical adolescents. The objective of this study was to analyze the relationship between BD trajectory and WM in university students. An initial sample of 155 male and female first-year university students was followed prospectively over 6 years. The participants were classified as stable non-BDs, stable BDs, and ex-BDs, according to the third item of the Alcohol Use Disorders Identification Test (AUDIT). WM was assessed using the Self-Ordered Pointing Task. Generalized linear mixed models were applied. The results showed that stable BDs committed more total perseverative errors and showed a lower WM span in the difficult blocks than stable non-BDs. Difficulties in WM span showed some improvement, whereas perseveration errors remained constant throughout the follow-ups in the stable BDs. There were no significant differences between ex-BDs and non-BDs. In conclusion, stable BD is associated with WM deficits, particularly perseverations and low WM span in demanding trials, when compensatory mechanisms may no longer be successful. The partial improvement in WM span may support the notion of a neuromaturational delay, whereas the temporal stability of perseveration deficits may reflect either neurotoxic effects of alcohol or premorbid characteristics. Abandoning the BD pattern of alcohol consumption may lead to partial recovery.

Effects of Age and Working Memory Capacity on Speech Recognition Performance in Noise Among Listeners With Normal Hearing.

This study aimed to determine if younger and older listeners with normal hearing who differ on working memory span perform differently on speech recognition tests in noise. Older adults typically exhibit poorer speech recognition scores in noise than younger adults, which is attributed primarily to poorer hearing sensitivity and more limited working memory capacity in older than younger adults. Previous studies typically tested older listeners with poorer hearing sensitivity and shorter working memory spans than younger listeners, making it difficult to discern the importance of working memory capacity on speech recognition. This investigation controlled for hearing sensitivity and compared speech recognition performance in noise by younger and older listeners who were subdivided into high and low working memory groups. Performance patterns were compared for different speech materials to assess whether or not the effect of working memory capacity varies with the demands of the specific speech test. The authors hypothesized that (1) normal-hearing listeners with low working memory span would exhibit poorer speech recognition performance in noise than those with high working memory span; (2) older listeners with normal hearing would show poorer speech recognition scores than younger listeners with normal hearing, when the two age groups were matched for working memory span; and (3) an interaction between age and working memory would be observed for speech materials that provide contextual cues. Twenty-eight older (61 to 75 years) and 25 younger (18 to 25 years) normal-hearing listeners were assigned to groups based on age and working memory status. Northwestern University Auditory Test No. 6 words and Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers sentences were presented in noise using an adaptive procedure to measure the signal-to-noise ratio corresponding to 50% correct performance. Cognitive ability was evaluated with two tests of working memory (Listening Span Test and Reading Span Test) and two tests of processing speed (Paced Auditory Serial Addition Test and The Letter Digit Substitution Test). Significant effects of age and working memory capacity were observed on the speech recognition measures in noise, but these effects were mediated somewhat by the speech signal. Specifically, main effects of age and working memory were revealed for both words and sentences, but the interaction between the two was significant for sentences only. For these materials, effects of age were observed for listeners in the low working memory groups only. Although all cognitive measures were significantly correlated with speech recognition in noise, working memory span was the most important variable accounting for speech recognition performance. The results indicate that older adults with high working memory capacity are able to capitalize on contextual cues and perform as well as young listeners with high working memory capacity for sentence recognition. The data also suggest that listeners with normal hearing and low working memory capacity are less able to adapt to distortion of speech signals caused by background noise, which requires the allocation of more processing resources to earlier processing stages. These results indicate that both younger and older adults with low working memory capacity and normal hearing are at a disadvantage for recognizing speech in noise.

Individual Differences in Working Memory Capacity and Shooting Behavior

Previous research on the relation between working memory capacity (WMC) and shooting behavior suggests that individuals with low working memory spans are more prone to shooting errors than are individuals with high working memory spans. The present study investigated how WMC interacts with the proportion of “shoot” to “don’t shoot” decisions to affect overall shooting performance. Participants were 186 undergraduate students who completed a series of complex span tasks, rated a series of negative photographs for valence and arousal, and then completed a computerized shooting task in which participants were shooting on 20%, 50%, or 80% of the trials. Results indicated that participants with high working memory spans outperformed participants with low working memory spans in all conditions. Participants also exhibited a greater tendency to inappropriately shoot as the proportion of shoot decisions increased. These results suggest that WMC and the proportion of shoot trials interact to affect shooting behavior.

Older adults do not notice their names: a new twist to a classic attention task.

Although working memory spans are, on average, lower for older adults than young adults, we demonstrate in 5 experiments a way in which older adults paradoxically resemble higher capacity young adults. Specifically, in a selective-listening task, older adults almost always failed to notice their names presented in an unattended channel. This is an exaggeration of what high-span young adults show and the opposite of what low-span young adults show. This striking finding in older adults remained significant after controlling for working memory span and for noticing their names in an attended channel. The findings were replicated when presentation rate was slowed and when the ear in which the unattended name was presented was controlled. These results point to an account of older adults' performance involving not only an inhibition factor, which allows high-span young adults to suppress the channel to be ignored, but also an attentional capacity factor, with more unallocated capacity. This capacity allows low-span young adults to notice their names much more often than older adults with comparably low working memory spans do.

Individuals with low working memory spans show greater interference from irrelevant information because of poor source monitoring, not greater activation.

Although individuals with high and low working memory (WM) span appear to differ in the extent to which irrelevant information interferes with their performance on WM tasks, the locus of this interference is not clear. The present study investigated whether, when performing a WM task, high- and low-span individuals differ in the activation of formerly relevant, but now irrelevant items, and/or in their ability to correctly identify such irrelevant items. This was done in two experiments, both of which used modified complex WM span tasks. In Experiment 1, the span task included an embedded lexical decision task designed to obtain an implicit measure of the activation of both currently and formerly relevant items. In Experiment 2, the span task included an embedded recognition judgment task designed to obtain an explicit measure of both item and source recognition ability. The results of these experiments indicate that low-span individuals do not hold irrelevant information in a more active state in memory than high-span individuals, but rather that low-span individuals are significantly poorer at identifying such information as irrelevant at the time of retrieval. These results suggest that differences in the ability to monitor the source of information, rather than differences in the activation of irrelevant information, are the more important determinant of performance on WM tasks.

Interference due to shared features between action plans is influenced by working memory span

In this study, we examined the interactions between the action plans that we hold in memory and the actions that we carry out, asking whether the interference due to shared features between action plans is due to selection demands imposed on working memory. Individuals with low and high working memory spans learned arbitrary motor actions in response to two different visual events (A and B), presented in a serial order. They planned a response to the first event (A) and while maintaining this action plan in memory they then executed a speeded response to the second event (B). Afterward, they executed the action plan for the first event (A) maintained in memory. Speeded responses to the second event (B) were delayed when it shared an action feature (feature overlap) with the first event (A), relative to when it did not (no feature overlap). The size of the feature-overlap delay was greater for low-span than for high-span participants. This indicates that interference due to overlapping action plans is greater when fewer working memory resources are available, suggesting that this interference is due to selection demands imposed on working memory. Thus, working memory plays an important role in managing current and upcoming action plans, at least for newly learned tasks. Also, managing multiple action plans is compromised in individuals who have low versus high working memory spans.

The role of working memory in inferential sentence comprehension

Existing literature on inference making is large and varied. Trabasso and Magliano (Discourse Process 21(3):255-287, 1996) proposed the existence of three types of inferences: explicative, associative and predictive. In addition, the authors suggested that these inferences were related to working memory (WM). In the present experiment, we investigated whether WM capacity plays a role in our ability to answer comprehension sentences that require text information based on these types of inferences. Participants with high and low WM span read two narratives with four paragraphs each. After each paragraph was read, they were presented with four true/false comprehension sentences. One required verbatim information and the other three implied explicative, associative and predictive inferential information. Results demonstrated that only the explicative and predictive comprehension sentences required WM: participants with high verbal WM were more accurate in giving explanations and also faster at making predictions relative to participants with low verbal WM span; in contrast, no WM differences were found in the associative comprehension sentences. These results are interpreted in terms of the causal nature underlying these types of inferences.

Learning what to learn: The effects of task experience on strategy shifts in the allocation of study time.

Learners typically allocate more resources to learning items that are higher in value than they do to items lower in value. For instance, when items vary in point value for learning, participants allocate more study time to the higher point items than they do to the lower point items. The current experiments extend this research to a context where the value of items is not explicitly labeled by evaluating whether learners' study decisions are sensitive to statistical regularities in the testing environment that signal which items are valuable to learn. In 4 experiments, participants studied English-English and Swahili-English paired associates across 4 study-test trials. On each trial, they were tested on only 1 type of item (e.g., only Swahili-English pairs), and, hence, only 1 type of item was valuable for performance. Some participants were cued to which information was valuable, and other participants had to learn from task experience. Experiment 2 examined the effect of performance incentives on study decisions, and Experiment 3 examined how the organization of the task environment influences learners' decisions. Finally, Experiment 4 examined the role of working memory span, fluid intelligence, and need for cognition on decisions. Findings indicated that some people can learn from task experience which items are important to study. However, many learners fail to do so (in particular, learners with low working memory spans); as a consequence, they dysregulate their study by allocating time to items that are not valuable to performance.