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"Barrouillet, Pierre"
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Examining distinct working memory processes in children and adolescents using fMRI: Results and validation of a modified Brown-Peterson paradigm
Verbal working memory (WM) comprises different processes (encoding, maintenance, retrieval) that are often compromised in brain diseases, but their neural correlates have not yet been examined in childhood and adolescence. To probe WM processes and associated neural correlates in developmental samples, and obtain comparable effects across different ages and populations, we designed an adapted Brown-Peterson task (verbal encoding and retrieval combined with verbal and visual concurrent tasks during maintenance) to implement during functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI). In a sample of typically developing children and adolescents (n = 16), aged 8 to 16 years, our paradigm successfully identified distinct patterns of activation for encoding, maintenance, and retrieval. While encoding activated perceptual systems in posterior and ventral visual regions, retrieval activated fronto-parietal regions associated with executive control and attention. We found a different impact of verbal versus visual concurrent processing during WM maintenance: at retrieval, the former condition evoked greater activations in visual cortex, as opposed to selective involvement of language-related areas in left temporal cortex in the latter condition. These results are in accord with WM models, suggesting greater competition for processing resources when retrieval follows within-domain compared with cross-domain interference. This pattern was found regardless of age. Our study provides a novel paradigm to investigate distinct WM brain systems with reliable results across a wide age range in developmental populations, and suitable for participants with different WM capacities.
Journal Article
Are small additions solved by direct retrieval from memory or automated counting procedures? A rejoinder to Chen and Campbell (2018)
Contrary to the longstanding and consensual hypothesis that adults mainly solve small single-digit additions by directly retrieving their answer from long-term memory, it has been recently argued that adults could solve small additions through fast automated counting procedures. In a recent article, Chen and Campbell (
Psychonomic Bulletin & Review
,
25
, 739–753,
2018
) reviewed the main empirical evidence on which this alternative hypothesis is based, and concluded that there is no reason to jettison the retrieval hypothesis. In the present paper, we pinpoint the fact that Chen and Campbell reached some of their conclusions by excluding some of the problems that need to be considered for a proper argumentation against the automated counting procedure theory. We also explain why, contrary to Chen and Campbell’s assumption, the network interference model proposed by Campbell (
Mathematical Cognition, 1
, 121–164,
1995
) cannot account for our data. Finally, we clarify a theoretical point of our model.
Journal Article
An empirical test of the independence between declarative and procedural working memory in Oberauer’s (2009) theory
It has recently been suggested that working memory could be conceived as two symmetrical subsystems with analogous structure and processing principles: a declarative working memory storing objects of thought available for cognitive operations, and a procedural working memory holding representations of what to do with these objects (Oberauer, Psychology of learning and motivation 51: 45-100, 2009). Within this theoretical framework, the two subsystems are thought to be independent and fueled by their own capacity. The present study tested this hypothesis through two experiments using a complex span task in which participants were asked to maintain consonants for further recall while performing response selection tasks. In line with Oberauer’s conception, the load of the procedural working memory was varied by manipulating the number of stimulus-response mappings of the response selection task. Increasing the number of these mappings had a strong detrimental effect on recall performance. Besides contradicting Oberauer’s proposal, this finding supports models that assume a resource-sharing between processing and storage in working memory.
Journal Article
Working memory still needs verbal rehearsal
The causal role of verbal rehearsal in working memory has recently been called into question. For example, the SOB-CS (Serial Order in a Box-Complex Span) model assumes that there is no maintenance process for the strengthening of items in working memory, but instead a process of removal of distractors that are involuntarily encoded and create interference with memory items. In the present study, we tested the idea that verbal working memory performance can be accounted for without assuming a causal role of the verbal rehearsal process. We demonstrate in two experiments using a complex span task and a Brown-Peterson paradigm that increasing the number of repetitions of the same distractor (the syllable
ba
that was read aloud at each of its occurrences on screen) has a detrimental effect on the concurrent maintenance of consonants whereas the maintenance of spatial locations remains unaffected. A detailed analysis of the tasks demonstrates that accounting for this effect within the SOB-CS model requires a series of unwarranted assumptions leading to undesirable further predictions contradicted by available experimental evidence. We argue that the hypothesis of a maintenance mechanism based on verbal rehearsal that is impeded by concurrent articulation still provides the simplest and most compelling account of our results.
Journal Article
The maxispan procedure makes the phonological similarity effect disappear while increasing recall performance
Based on the hypothesis of two maintenance mechanisms of verbal information in working memory, an articulatory loop and an attentional executive loop, Barrouillet et al. predicted and observed that facilitating the optimal use and separation of these two systems results in a strong increase in recall performance. They developed for this purpose the maxispan procedure, in which participants cumulatively rehearse aloud a limited number of the first items of the series (i.e., three or four) and keep rehearsing them until the end of the series before recall. Beyond increasing recall performance, the model also predicts that the maxispan procedure should also abolish the phonological similarity effect (PSE, the poorer recall of phonologically similar than dissimilar items) in both the rehearsed and the nonrehearsed items by permitting the perfect maintenance of the former in a nonoverloaded articulatory loop and preventing storage of phonological traces of the latter in the attentional system. However, the PSE should reappear if too many items are verbally rehearsed in the maxispan procedure. In this case, the overload of the articulatory loop should lead to offload its content into the attentional system where phonologically similar traces are prone to confusion. We tested and verified these hypotheses in two experiments.
Journal Article
As Time Goes By: Temporal Constraints in Working Memory
Working memory is the system devoted to the simultaneous processing and storage of information needed to perform many cognitive tasks. We present a theory that assumes that time constraints constitute the main limitation of working memory. According to our theory, processing and storage compete for attention, which constitutes a limited resource. As soon as attention is switched away, memory traces suffer from temporal decay, but they can be refreshed by bringing them back into the focus of attention. Because a central bottleneck constrains controlled cognitive activities that require attention so that they must take place one at a time, memory traces decline when the central bottleneck is occupied by processing activities. This results in a sequential functioning of working memory that alternates between processing and maintenance, leading to a trade-off between these two activities. We review empirical evidence of this trade-off and discuss its implications for the increase in working memory capacity over the course of development.
Journal Article
Working Memory and Executive Control: A Time-based Resource-sharing Account
In this article, we address the question of the relationships between executive control and working memory. Through a review of several studies conducted within the theoretical framework provided by our Time-Based ResourceSharing model, we argue that most of the fractiotions of working memory assumed by Baddeley's standard multi-component model tend to disappear when temporal factors are carefully controlled, and that the system known as the central executive is in charge of both functions of processing and storage. However, this does not mean that the concepts of working memory and executive control are coextensive. As suggested by our recent investigation of verbal working memory, central domain-general and peripheral domainspecific mechanisms operate jointly to maintain information active, extending working memory structure and functioning beyond the boundaries of the central executive.
Journal Article
The maxispan procedure makes the phonological similarity effect disappear while increasing recall performance
Based on the hypothesis of two maintenance mechanisms of verbal information in working memory, an articulatory loop and an attentional executive loop, Barrouillet et al. predicted and observed that facilitating the optimal use and separation of these two systems results in a strong increase in recall performance. They developed for this purpose the maxispan procedure, in which participants cumulatively rehearse aloud a limited number of the first items of the series (i.e., three or four) and keep rehearsing them until the end of the series before recall. Beyond increasing recall performance, the model also predicts that the maxispan procedure should also abolish the phonological similarity effect (PSE, the poorer recall of phonologically similar than dissimilar items) in both the rehearsed and the nonrehearsed items by permitting the perfect maintenance of the former in a nonoverloaded articulatory loop and preventing storage of phonological traces of the latter in the attentional system. However, the PSE should reappear if too many items are verbally rehearsed in the maxispan procedure. In this case, the overload of the articulatory loop should lead to offload its content into the attentional system where phonologically similar traces are prone to confusion. We tested and verified these hypotheses in two experiments.
Journal Article
Do Mental Processes Share a Domain-General Resource?
What determines success and failure in dual-task situations? Many theories propose that the extent to which two activities can be performed concurrently depends on the nature of the information involved in the activities. In particular, verbal and visuospatial activities are thought to be fueled by distinct resources, so that interference occurs between two verbal activities or two visuospatial activities, but little or no interference occurs between verbal and visuospatial activities. The current study examined trade-offs in four dual-task situations in which participants maintained verbal or visuospatial information while concurrently processing either verbal or visuospatial information. We manipulated the cognitive load of concurrent processing and assessed recall performance in each condition. Results revealed that both verbal and visuospatial recall performance decreased as a direct function of increasing cognitive load, regardless of the nature of the information concurrently processed. The observed trade-offs suggest strongly that verbal and visuospatial activities compete for a common domain-general pool of resources.
Journal Article