title: The focus of attention in working memory: evidence from a word updating task.
abstract: Three experiments examined the cognitive costs of item switching within working memory with a novel word updating task, thereby extending previous research to the field of linguistic stimuli and linguistic-graphemic updating operations. In Experiments 1 and 2 costs for switching between working memory items were evident on the word level, and they increased with an increasing word set size (Experiment 2). In contrast, a surprisingly similar switch effect on the level of letters was not affected by word set size (Experiment 2). Experiment 3 showed that this effect is not simply based on the need for re-orienting visual spatial attention. To account for the overall picture of results, a recursive model of attentional foci is proposed. Moreover, individual working memory span appears to be associated with the accuracy of item switching, but not with its speed.
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology III, University of Würzburg, Würzburg, Germany. markus.janczyk@uni-wuerzburg.de
authors.forename: Markus
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Janczyk
authors.forename: Joachim
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Grabowski
mesh_terms: D000223:Adaptation, Psychological; D000328:Adult; D000704:Analysis of Variance; D001288:Attention; D004192:Discrimination, Psychological; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008570:Memory, Short-Term; D021641:Recognition, Psychology; D014706:Verbal Learning; D055815:Young Adult