Running Memory Task Research Articles

Effects of auditory and visual interference control on visuospatial working memory in children with ADHD

Background: Interference control is the cognitive control needed to prevent interference due to competition of relevant and irrelevant information that closely related to working memory. The aim of this study was to examine the effects of auditory and visual interference control on visuospatial working memory of children with ADHD. Methods: The participants included thirty children with ADHD and thirty normal control children aged 7–12 years old. All children took the computerized test of visuospatial working memory assessment. The test comprised the N-back and running Memory tasks divided into three conditions: noninterference, auditory interference, and visual interference in three levels of difficulty. Results: The results revealed that there was a significant difference in N-back with auditory interference (t = 2.13, P = 0.04) and N-back with visual interference task (t = 2.48, P = 0.02) between normal control children and children with ADHD. However, there was no significant difference in N-back with noninterference task (t = 1.61, P = 0.11) between normal control children and children with ADHD. There was a significant difference in running memory with noninterference (t = 5.34, P ≤ 0.001), running memory with auditory interference (t = 6.23, P ≤ 0.001), and running memory with visual interference task (t = 5.86, P ≤ 0.001) between normal control children and children with ADHD. In addition, the comparison of the mean score revealed that children with ADHD had poorer performance of interference control on visuospatial working memory tasks than normal control children in overall tasks. Conclusion: Children with ADHD exhibited inefficient control over themselves, especially in the interference condition tasks in which they performed more error responses when interacting in the tasks. The present study supports the evidence-based mechanisms of auditory and visual interference control in visuospatial working memory of children with ADHD.

Working memory training improves emotion regulation in drug abstainers: Evidence from frontal alpha asymmetry

Drug addiction has been associated with unsuccessful emotion regulation, which can be improved by working memory training (WMT) in healthy populations. This study aimed to assess the effect of WMT on emotion regulation in drug abstainers. We divided 40 male drug abstainers into two groups: (i) the training group (n=20) participated in a running memory task for 20 days, and (ii) the control group (n=20) did not participate in any training task. We assessed the emotion regulation questionnaire (ERQ) and frontal electroencephalographic (EEG) activity while viewing pictures (including neutral, positive, negative and drug-related contents) for all participants before and after the training. After WMT for 20 days, the training group adopted more spontaneous emotion regulation strategies compared with control group. The asymmetry scores of training group improved while viewing negative and drug-related pictures compared to pretest, which suggests that they converted from right-brain asymmetry to left-brain asymmetry. However, the control group declined both in the ERQ scores and the asymmetry scores. These results suggest that WMT improves the emotion regulation of drug abstainers.

Can working memory capacity be expanded by boosting working memory updating efficiency in older adults?

Working memory updating (updating) and working memory capacity (WMC) have been assumed to share a common mechanism. However, it is unclear whether WMC can be expanded by boosting the efficiency of updating, particularly during late adulthood. In this randomized controlled study, 33 older adults (aged 60 years and above, M = 69.53, SD = 5.21) were assigned to updating training (n = 17) and contact control (n = 16) groups. In the training group, updating was targeted by a running memory task and a chess game in each training session; whereas in the control group, motivational effects were estimated by their attendance to a series of mental health-related lectures. The boosted updating efficiency was demonstrated by direct training gains over sessions on updating criterion/training tasks, and significant frontocentral inflation at the N2 time range. Near transfer effects were revealed on untrained similar measures immediately after training and partly maintained at a 3-month follow-up. Far transfer effects to WMC were revealed by a significant increase in contralateral delay activity (CDA) ERP measures, although these effects did not manifest on WMC span tasks and other far transfer measures. Note that increased CDA was significantly correlated with the extent of direct gains in updating training. Our findings suggest that updating efficiency can be boosted in older adults; although it has not yet brought about an explicit expansion of WMC in our behavioral measures (i.e., on span tasks), capacity-related neural changes (i.e., on CDA) have nevertheless, started to show up in our short-term updating training program. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2018 APA, all rights reserved).

Working Memory Training Improves Emotion Regulation Ability

Emotion regulation deficits are associated with various emotional disorders. Therefore, studies have attempted to improve emotion regulation ability to prevent psychopathological symptoms. Studies have revealed that working memory training—specifically attention control—can promote emotion regulation. In the present study, participants completed a running memory task in a 20-day training period. The participants’ pre- and post-test data on attention network functions and late positive potential (LPP) were assessed and analyzed. Compared with the control group, the training group’s orientation function improved markedly. In addition, LPP in relation to emotion regulation decreased during the 20-day training period. These results suggest that working memory training can improve emotion regulation ability, and the orientation function in the attention network may also contribute to this improvement.

基于手机APP的双维n-back训练的认知与情绪效益

<p id="C2">Audiovisual dual channel n-back training offers the ability to transfer to basic cognitive processes that are closely related to the working memory process. However, dual-channel training based on a computer is highly demanding for a training environment. Thus, it is not conducive to its application promotion. Moreover, emotional working memory training is developed to enhance the emotional control ability of individuals. Only negative material working memory training has been examined. Thus, the general problems of emotional working memory training have not been clarified. A new type of emotional dual dimension n-back training based on smartphone applications was designed in this study. The general applicability and emotional effects of emotion (both positive and negative) and neutral working memory training were examined through the design of a randomized controlled group. <p id="C102">This study developed an app based on n-back task, which is a visual single-channel with two dimensions. A total of 66 healthy college students (34 males and 32 females) participated in the experiment and were randomly divided into control, negative training, neutral training, and positive training groups. All participants were trained with their smartphones. Participants in the training groups must remember the Chinese characters and the position of the Chinese characters in the 3*3 matrix and make two independent n-back tasks on the characters and the position. In the neutral, positive, and negative training groups, the valences of Chinese characters were neutral, positive, and negative, respectively. The participants in the control group completed the digital parity task in an interface similar to a training task. Before and after the training session, participants were asked to complete the visual-spatial working memory task, running memory task, Stroop task, digital shifting task, emotion Stroop task, and a profile of mood states. <p id="C103">Short-term dual-dimension n-back training can make more progress on the visual space work memory task, running memory task, digital shifting task, and classic Stroop task than placebo training. These tasks test the working memory capacity, as well as the update, shift, and inhibit the function, and fully characterize the working memory of the whole picture. However, training based on different emotional materials did not vary greatly across the various types of transfer effects. Short-term training cannot transfer into the emotional Stroop task, which is unable to produce specific emotional control benefits. <p id="C104">The dual-dimensional n-back training app can produce a favorable basic cognitive transfer. This indicates that the cognitive training app has a wide application prospect, and the dual-dimensional training paradigm is worthy of improved employment. For the invisible emotional benefits of the emotional version of n-back training manifested that simply incorporate emotional material into the work memory task must be examined carefully in the future.

Working Memory Updating Training Improves Mathematics Performance in Middle School Students With Learning Difficulties.

Working memory (WM) deficit is considered the key cause of learning difficulties (LDs). Studies have shown that WM is plastic and thus can be improved through training. This positive effect is transferable to fluid intelligence and academic performance. This study investigated whether WM updating ability and academic performance in children with LDs could be improved through WM updating training and explored the effects of this training on the children’s brain activity. We used a running memory task lasting approximately 40 min per day for 28 days to train a group of 23 children with LDs (TLDs group). We also selected two control groups of 22 children with LDs (CLDs group) and 20 children without LDs (normal control [NC] group). The behavioral results of a pretest indicated that WM updating ability and academic performance in the TLDs and CLDs groups were significantly lower than those in the NC group before training. Compared with the CLDs group, the TLDs group exhibited significant performance improvement in a 2-back WM task, as well as in mathematical ability. Event-related potentials (ERPs) results suggested that the amplitudes of N160 (representative of visual recognition) and P300 (representative of updating processing, which is a valid index for updating WM) in the TLDs and CLDs groups were markedly lower than those in the NC group before training. In the TLDs group, these two components increased considerably after training, approaching levels similar to those in the NC group. The results of this study suggest that WM updating training can improve WM updating ability in children with LDs and the training effect can transfer to mathematical performance in such children. Furthermore, the participants’ brain activity levels can exhibit positive changes. This article provides experimental evidence that WM updating training could mitigate the symptoms of LDs to a certain degree.

Test–retest reliability of five frequently used executive tasks in healthy adults

ABSTRACTExecutive tasks are important instruments for neuropsychological and cognitive research, but only a limited number of studies have investigated the test–retest reliability of these tasks. Such information is needed for optimizing task usage, for example, in longitudinal and intervention studies. In this study with healthy adults, we investigated the temporal stability of five executive tasks: the Simon task, a visuoverbal N-back task, a visuospatial N-back task, a running memory task, and the Number–letter task. These five tasks are frequently used in research, but previously published reliability data is very limited or totally lacking. The results from the present study showed considerable variability with the highest test–retest reliabilities amongst the three working memory tasks. Furthermore, reaction time measures indicated practice effects between the two sessions across the tasks. The present results set constraints to the interpretation of the results of longitudinal and intervention studies using these tasks.

Working memory training improves emotion regulation ability: Evidence from HRV

Emotion regulation during social situations plays a pivotal role in health and interpersonal functioning. In this study, we propose a working memory training approach to improve emotion regulation ability. This training promotes an updating function that is a crucial modulated process for emotion regulation. In the present study, the participants in the training group completed a running memory task over 20days of training. Their working memory capability and high-frequency heart rate variability (HF-HRV) data on pretest and posttest were assessed and analyzed. Compared with the control group, the training group's reaction time in the 2-back working memory task was reduced significantly. In addition, the HF-HRV in the emotion regulation condition was increased after the 20-day training, which indicates that the working memory training effect could transfer to emotion regulation. In other words, working memory training improved emotion regulation ability.

Running with emotion: when affective content hampers working memory performance.

This study tested the hypothesis that affective content may undermine rather than facilitate working memory (WM) performance. To this end, participants performed a running WM task with positive, negative and neutral words. In typical running memory tasks, participants are presented with lists of unpredictable length and are asked to recall the last three or four items. We found that accuracy with affective words decreased as lists lengthened, whereas list length did not influence recall of neutral words. We interpreted this pattern of results in terms of a limited resource model of WM in which valence represents additional information that needs to be manipulated, especially in the context of difficult trials.

When working memory updating requires updating: Analysis of serial position in a running memory task

This study aimed to investigate updating in working memory (WM), analyzing the effects of task demand and memory resources on serial position curve (SPC), in a running memory task with slow pace presentation and a probed recognition procedure. These task conditions were supposed to produce an easier WM updating task, which may allow evidencing whether the task is performed through an active or a passive updating.Serial position curves were compared in conditions of high or low memory load, and with or without interference of a secondary (prospective memory, PM) task. With either a high WM load, or a high PM load, results showed a SPC with both primacy and recency effects, indicating the use of an active strategy. When resources were taken up by both PM task and high WM demand the usual pattern with only recency effect was obtained.Taken together, these findings support the ideas that 1 — people can effectively update WM, and 2 — the performance is dependent on both memory and executive resource availability.

Relations between running memory and fluid intelligence

A total of 1734 adults performed two running memory tasks and a battery of cognitive tests representing four cognitive abilities. Simultaneous analyses were used to identify unique relations of each cognitive ability, including fluid intelligence, on the running memory measures. The large sample size allowed powerful analyses of the relations at the level of individual trials, separate list lengths, and different serial positions. The results indicated that the relations of running memory performance with cognitive abilities were remarkably constant from the first to the last trial, across different list lengths, and on successive input positions. It is proposed that an important aspect of fluid intelligence is the ability to cope with novelty and complexity, and that running memory tasks may merely be one of many ways in which those processes can be operationalized.

Improvements in Children's Fluid Intelligence with Working Memory Training

Fluid intelligence is one of the general intelligence types originally proposed by Cattell(1963), which refers to the innate ability of analytically solving novel problems and logically identifying new patterns and relationships. Increasing evidence has shown that cognitive training, especially those aiming at enhancing working memory, can significantly improve fluid intelligence. Moreover, central executive functions, especially working memory updating, were reported to positively correlate with individual intelligence. Thus, it is of great theoretical and practical significance to investigate whether working memory training can improve fluid intelligence. Recent studies have shown that, after short-term working memory training, performance in fluid intelligence tests, including running memory task and n-back paradigm, was improved both in adults and school-aged children. It is therefore suggested that the transfer of an improved working memory updating ability contributed to the reported training effects. However, there remain 2 major unsolved problems. On the one hand, although training has been reported effective for adults and school-aged children, few studies have focused on pre-school children. On the other hand, the demonstration of long-term effects was unreliable, because the reported studies either failed to examine lasting effects or lacked time for confirmation.In our study, 96 children aged 4-5 from one kindergarten participated in the experiment. They were randomly selected from 3 classes and assigned to 3 groups- experimental group, control group 1, and control group 2. Participants in experimental group were trained for 15 minutes per day for a period of 14 days using an n-back working memory training program displayed on tablet computers. In this program, participants were shown a series of stimuli and asked to judge whether the current stimulus is the same as the one displayed before the previous n items. As n increased, the task difficulty increased, resulting in higher demands of working memory. Each participant started training at 1-back level with n being continuously adjusted based on their performance. To account for the possibility that better fluid IQ performance is essentially due to attention improvement, participants in control group 1 played the Fruit Ninja game for the same period of time, which was designed to yield comparable attention improvements. For control group 2, children received no training. Parallel versions of Raven's Standard Progressive Matrices(SPM) and the Test of Nonverbal Intelligence(TONI-4) were used to assess participants' fluid intelligence in pretest, posttest and a follow-up test 6 months after training respectively. All experimental manipulations and the data analysis were designed and performed double-blinded. Results indicated that, after 14-day training, participants' task performance in the training task was significantly improved. Children in experimental group significantly outperformed 2 other control groups in the posttest, which remained equally significant 6 months after training. As task motivation and attitude were balanced, our results were convincing in demonstrating training effects. In conclusion, our results proved that the n-back working memory task can efficiently improve kindergarten children's fluid intelligence, whose effect is sustainable in the long term.

Caffeine, extraversion and working memory

Research has shown that extraverts performing a working memory task benefit more from caffeine than do introverts. The present study aimed to replicate this and extend our knowledge by using a lower dose of caffeine (65 mg) and a range of tasks related to different components of working memory. In addition, tasks assessing psychomotor speed and the encoding of new information were included to determine whether caffeine-extraversion interactions were restricted to working memory tasks. A double-blind design was used, with 128 participants being randomly assigned to caffeinated or de-caffeinated coffee conditions. The results showed that caffeine interacted with extraversion in the predicted direction for serial recall and running memory tasks. Caffeine improved simple reaction time and the speed of encoding of new information, effects which were not modified by extraversion. These results suggest possible biological mechanisms underlying effects of caffeine on cognitive performance.

Age differences in verbal and visuo-spatial working memory updating: Evidence from analysis of serial position curves

Memory updating is the ability to select and update relevant information and suppress no-longer-relevant data. The few studies in this area, targeting mainly the verbal domain, have investigated and confirmed an age-related decline in working memory updating ability (De Beni & Palladino, 2004; Van der Linden, Bredart, & Beerten, 1994). The present research examines the ability of younger and older adults to update information in verbal and visuo-spatial running memory tasks. Results showed that the participants’ performance was higher in the verbal than in the visuo-spatial task. Nonetheless, independently of the task domain, an age-related decline in updating performance was found. Moreover, analysis of serial positions suggested that, in the updating procedure, the participants were not attempting to actively maintain items, preferring to adopt a low-effort, “recency-based” strategy. The use of this type of strategy is more evident in older participants, as shown in both the accuracy performance and the proportion of intrusion errors.

Effect of updating training on fluid intelligence in children

Recent studies have indicated that working memory (WM) training can improve fluid intelligence. However, these earlier studies confused the impact of WM storage and central executive function on the effects of training. The current study used the running memory task to train the updating ability of 9–11 year-old children using a double-blind controlled design. The results revealed that children’s fluid intelligence was significantly improved by memory-updating training. Overall, our findings suggest that the increase in fluid intelligence achieved with WM training is related to improving central executive function.

Bimodal Stimulus Presentation and Expanded Auditory Bandwidth Improve Older Adults’ Speech Perception

A pair of experiments investigated the hypothesis that bimodal (auditory-visual) speech presentation and expanded auditory bandwidth would improve speech intelligibility and increase working memory performance for older adults by reducing the cognitive effort needed for speech perception. Although telephone communication is important for helping older adults maintain social engagement, age-related sensory and working memory limits may make telephone conversations difficult. Older adults with either age-normal hearing or mild-to-moderate sensorineural hearing loss performed a running memory task. Participants heard word strings of unpredictable length and at the end of each string were required to repeat back the final three words.Words were presented monaurally in telephone bandwidth (300 Hz to 3300 Hz) or expanded bandwidth (50 Hz to 7500 Hz), in quiet (65 dBZ SPL), or in white noise (65 dBZ SPL with noise at 60 dBZ SPL), with or without a visual display of the talker. In quiet listening conditions, bimodal presentation increased the number of words correctly reported per trial but only for listeners with hearing loss and with high lipreading proficiency. Stimulus bandwidth did not affect performance. In noise, bimodal presentation and expanded bandwidth improved performance for all participant groups but did so by improving speech intelligibility, not by improving working memory. Expanded bandwidth and bimodal presentation can improve speech perceptibility in difficult listening conditions but may not always improve working memory performance. Results can inform the design of telephone features to improve ease of communication for older adults.

Temporal isolation does not facilitate forward serial recall--or does it?

In numerous recent studies in short-term memory, it has been established that forward serial recall is unaffected by the temporal isolation of to-be-remembered items. These findings contradict the temporal distinctiveness view of memory, which expects items that are temporally isolated from their neighbors to be more distinct and hence remembered better. To date, isolation effects have only been found with tests that do not constrain output order, such as free recall. This article reports two experiments that, for the first time, report a temporal isolation effect with forward serial recall, using a running memory task in which the end of the list is unpredictable. The results suggest that people are able to encode and use temporal information in situations in which positional information is of little value. We conclude that the overall pattern of findings concerning temporal isolation supports models of short-term memory that postulate multidimensional representations of items.

Absence of hardly pursued updating in a running memory task

In a running memory span task, the participants are presented with a list of items (e.g. numbers or words) of an unknown length, because this length varies from trial to trial. In one variation of the procedure the participants must report a certain fixed number of items (e.g. four) from the end of the list. According to Morris and Jones (British Journal of Psychology, 81, 111-121, 1990), the recalled items must be updated in memory as the presentation of the list progresses. Ruiz, Elosúa and Lechuga (The Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology, 5, 887-905, 2005) noted that an active strategy implies an inhibition in memory of the final discarded items, and did not find results which supported this hypothesis. The aim of this study is to check whether or not participants adopt an active processing strategy in extreme conditions. Experiment 1 uses catch trials, which induce the participants not to discard the first items of the lists, and also short lists (of 4, 7, 8, 9 and 10 items); these could be considered optimal conditions for updating. However, it should also be pointed out that with an upper limit of 10 items per list, participants could try to memorise the whole list in most of the trials. One way to discourage this strategy is including lists well over span (e.g. 14-26 items). The purpose of Experiment 2 was to analyse the 10-item lists in two conditions: within a context of much longer lists (well over span) in most of the trials and within a context of shorter lists (data of Experiment 1). Results in both experiments, from the analysis of location errors, indicate that even in these conditions the participants do not seem to carry out the supposed active updating of the memory set.

Verbal and spatial working memory in older individuals: A positron emission tomography study

Recent reviews of a substantial number of studies have partially resolved questions concerning the brain regions used by working memory for manipulation and representation. We report a large single experiment in middle-aged to older adults ( n = 89), classified by hypertensive status. Our design addresses the question of regions related to manipulation and representation, most particularly comparing spatial and verbal working memory. A control, memory search, and 2-back running memory task were performed with identical stimuli and responses during whole-brain 15O water positron emission tomography (PET) scans. Letter or spatial position instructions created verbal or spatial working memory versions of the tasks. We assessed agreement with the literature using regions of interest that were defined by clusters of activation empirically derived from the literature by Wager and Smith (Wager, T.D. and Smith, E.E., Neuroimaging studies of working memory: a meta-analysis, Cognitive, Affective and Behavioral Neuroscience, 3 (2003) 255–274). Our results largely confirmed conclusions from the review on the organization of working memory into dorsal prefrontal manipulation and ventrolateral prefrontal maintenance areas and representation in dorsal and ventral paths. Specific verbal versus spatial comparisons were also concordant with prior work establishing posterior lateralized representation for different contents by working memory. The similarity of results between this older sample and results derived by others from younger participants is notable.

Old-Fashioned Responses in an Updating Memory Task

Errors in a running memory task are analysed. Participants were presented with a variable-length list of items and were asked to report the last four items. It has been proposed (Morris & Jones, 1990) that this task requires two mechanisms: the temporal storage of the target set by the articulatory loop and its updating by the central executive. Two implicit assumptions in this proposal are (a) the preservation of serial order, and (b) participants' capacity to discard earlier items from the target subset as list presentation is running, and new items are appended. Order preservation within the updated target list and the inhibition of the outdated list items should imply a relatively higher rate of location errors for items from the medial positions of the target list and a lower rate of intrusion errors from the outdated and inhibited items from the pretarget positions. Contrary to these expectations, for both consonants (Experiment 1) and words (Experiment 2) we found recency effects and a relatively high rate of intrusions from the final pretarget positions, most of them from the very last. Similar effects were apparent with the embedded four-item lists for catch trials. These results are clearly at odds with the presumed updating by the central executive.