Working memory updating latency reflects the cost of switching between maintenance and updating modes of operation.
Updating and maintenance of information are 2 conflicting demands on working memory (WM). We examined the time required to update WM (updating latency) as a function of the sequence of updated and not-updated items within a list. Participants held a list of items in WM and updated a variable subset of them in each trial. Four experiments that vary the number of to-be-updated and to-be-maintained items, as well as their positions in the list, are reported. The pattern of latencies was best explained by a model assuming forward scanning of the list, updating modified items, and maintaining nonmodified items. Switching between updating and maintenance incurred a response time cost, which increased with overall set-size. The formation of new item-position associations accounted for an additional response time component. The finding of an update-switch cost provides novel behavioral support for a class of physiologically inspired computational models, in which updating and maintenance require 2 different states of WM.
Department of Psychology and Zlotowski Center for Neuroscience, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev.
Yoav
Y
Kessler
Department of Psychology-Cognitive Psychology, University of Zurich.
Klaus
K
Oberauer
D000328:Adult; D001288:Attention / Q000502:physiology*; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008570:Memory, Short-Term / Q000502:physiology*; D011939:Mental Recall / Q000502:physiology; D013647:Task Performance and Analysis; D055815:Young Adult