N Cowan

..We suggest that high-span advantages in reaction time are based on finesse during easy trials, not on overcoming PI...

..Starting with a psychological-process model of WM capacity developed to understand visual arrays, we arrive at a more unified and complete model...

..There appear to be several globalist influences on recall, including distinctiveness factors as well as phonological storage and articulation...

..This was true even when the patients appeared to sleep during the delays. The results show, in a novel manner, that one deficit underlying their amnesias is vulnerability to retroactive interference...

..However, the authors found that output delay and interference act only by lowering the level of performance to a more sensitive range. The modality effect thus originates during encoding of the list to be recalled, not during output...

..We suggest that attention-demanding refreshing of verbal stimuli occurs along with any covert rehearsal...

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..In an alternative interpretation, memory is limited to several well-represented items. We argue that this item-limit model fits the extant data better than the distributed-resources model and is more interpretable theoretically...

..Reasons why pure capacity estimates fall within a narrow range are discussed and a capacity limit for the focus of attention is proposed...

..On average, participants retrieved about four items without PI. We suggest an activation-based account of capacity limits...

..So does digit span in children too young to rehearse...

..In those trials only, evidence of memory loss over time emerged. Further research is needed to identify whether this memory loss is decay or lost distinctiveness...

..The evidence is evaluated and placed within a theoretical framework depicted in Fig. 1...

..About one third that variance was shared between scope an d control, and the rest was unique to one or the other. Scope and control of attention appear to be related but distinct contributors to intelligence...

..People who could remember more objects from a spatial array also more efficiently excluded irrelevant objects. The results raise important questions about what aspect of working memory is most fundamental...

..Response durations thus are important in the interpretation of span task performance...

..With a larger working memory load, this efficiency in young children was compromised. The efficiency of attention cannot be the sole explanation for the capacity difference...

..Although verbal labeling affected performance, age differences persisted across labeling conditions, further supporting the existence of a basic growth in capacity...

..This view is reconciled with evidence previously taken to indicate that the focus of attention only includes a single item at a time, which is reinterpreted here...

..These results have important methodological and theoretical implications for human development...

..Other, attention-demanding processes also contribute to memory for attended lists...

..The results suggest that this brain region, previously well known for working memory of visually presented materials, actually holds or refers to information from more than one modality...

..A developmental increase in the persistence of memory was obtained only for the final item in an ignored list, which is the item for which sensory memory is thought to be the most vivid at short retention intervals...

..We obtained substantial word duration effects. Concerns raised by Service are addressed, and we conclude that both duration and complexity are likely to contribute to the word length effect in serial recall...

..Some working memory processes related to binding undergo life-span development in an inverted-U shape, whereas other, bias- and salience-related processes that influence the use of binding information seem to develop monotonically...

..Here I review theories of working memory and some of the main issues in the field, discuss current behavioral and neuropsychological research that can address these issues, and consider the implications for cognitive development...

..e., the proportion of the items recalled from the group). Access rates increased with age, even with statistical controls for completion rates, implicating development of capacity in chunks...

..Memory span depends on a profile of processing rates in the brain, not only a global rate. Moreover, there appears to be only a partial overlap between the rate variables that change with age and those that differ among individuals...

..Interference also occurred when especially large silent verbal and visual loads were held concurrently. These results suggest central storage along with code-specific passive storage...

..Given these results, the authors propose that mental representations of distractors include information about their task relevance, which modulates disruption of the primary task...

..All 4 groups exhibited MMNs after delays of 1 s, but only the adults and oldest children exhibited MMNs after 8 s, indicating that there are maturational changes in the duration of auditory sensory memory...

..Here we show that a constant capacity of about 3 chunks holds across list lengths and list types, provided that covert phonological rehearsal is prevented. What remains is a core verbal working-memory capacity...

..g., one that could produce semantic priming)...

..In two experiments, we examine the roles of these two strategies and the consequences of two types of interference...

..A second experiment ruled out verbal recoding of the visual arrays as the basis of interference. The results indicate that visual WM and verbal long-term retrieval share a central resource (e.g., attention)...

..We argue that the developmental increase in memory span was due to a growing number of chunks present in working memory with little role of chunk size...

..Here we show that subjects who detect their name in the irrelevant message have relatively low working-memory capacities, suggesting that they have difficulty blocking out, or inhibiting, distracting information...

..The results support recent suggestions that the basal ganglia help control access to working memory...

..These results are in contrast to common characterizations of learning in absolute identification tasks with unidimensional stimuli. We suggest that this learning reflects improvement in short-term processing...

..An age-related decline in working memory capacity measured in chunks appears to account for deficits in memory for spoken language...

..0, a tell-tale characteristic of all-or-none mnemonic representations. Formal model assessment yielded evidence highly consistent with a discrete fixed-capacity model of working memory for this task...

..The results suggest that moderate doses of alcohol impair WM by affecting certain mnemonic strategies and executive processes rather than by shrinking the basic holding capacity of WM...

..The findings suggest a central capacity supplemented by modality- or code-specific storage and point to avenues for further research on the role of processing in central storage...

..Paired-associate knowledge may be used in an implicit manner in serial recall, given that younger adults under divided attention and older adults use it well despite the relatively small chunk capacities displayed by these groups...

..Specifically, there could be an independence of processes that might be estimated to a sufficient degree of accuracy for some theoretical purposes despite a violation of the assumption of stochastic independence...

..However, fifth graders had considerably shorter interword pauses than their third-grade counterparts. Thus, a particular memory span is accompanied by different profiles of processing rates in children of different ages...

..Later developmental improvements seem to be primarily attributable to higher cognitive processes, such as motivation, strategy development and implementation, and voluntary direction and regulation of attention...

..These results are difficult to explain with passive storage alone and indicate that a processing difficulty impedes recall from working memory, presumably by distracting attention away from its storage function...

..Variation observed in subjects' responses to base rate information is explained by the present rational model more fully than by extant models...

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..Both encouragements and precautions for the use of modeling are offered...

..Working memory for digits and visual information thus are both subject to at least one type of shared limit, not just domain-specific limitations. The nature of the shared limit is discussed...

..Other conditions yielded intermediate results suggesting that sometimes both limits may operate together...

..e., postcategorical phonological storage and/or precategorical sensory memory) may be retrieved and become the focus of attention for recall...

..We conclude that some of the cognitive processes helpful in performing a span task may not be beneficial in the presence of irrelevant sounds...

..The task demands of working memory change as a function of task experience, with a combination of accuracy and response timing in novel task situations being the strongest predictor of cognitive attainment...

..We argue that both types of limit might be based on the limited ability to form and preserve bindings between elements in memory...

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..The result suggests that long-term memory is encoded in these patients to a greater extent than had been realised but that their memory is highly vulnerable to interference...

..Thus, sounds closely linked with their auditory context are more likely to be remembered. The representations of acoustic regularities are automatically activated by matching sounds, enabling object recognition...

..Event-related brain potentials demonstrated the survival of an accurate representation of tone pitch in the auditory cortex. This result provides a link between short-duration buffering and permanent storage of acoustic information...

..This theoretical advance also should help in understanding various learning and language disorders, which are known to be marked by poor memory span for theoretical reasons that need clarification. ..

..It could indicate whether normal functioning of working memory depends on attention for storage or just for processing information that is of practical import in formulating plans for clinical treatment and diagnosis. ..

..It could indicate whether normal functioning of working memory depends on attention for storage or just for processing information that is of practical import in formulating plans for clinical treatment and diagnosis. ..

..It could indicate whether normal functioning of working memory depends on attention for storage or just for processing information that is of practical import in formulating plans for clinical treatment and diagnosis. ..

..The present research helps to fill these gaps...

..Practically, it is of considerable importance to understand the temporal limitations of memory for speech, because children clearly need this form of memory for language learning and communication...

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..It could indicate whether normal functioning of working memory depends on attention for storage or just for processing information that is of practical import in formulating plans for clinical treatment and diagnosis. ..