Individual differences in spatial text processing: High spatial ability can compensate for spatial working memory interference

The present study investigates the relation between spatial ability and visuo-spatial and verbal working memory in spatial text processing. In two experiments, participants listened to a spatial text (Experiments 1 and 2) and a non-spatial text (Experiment 1), at the same time performing a spatial or a verbal concurrent task, or no secondary task. To understand how individuals who differ in spatial ability process spatial text during dual task performance, spatial individual differences were analyzed. The tasks administered were the Vandenberg and Kuse [Vandenberg, S. G., & Kuse, A. R. (1978). Mental rotation, a group test of three-dimensional spatial visualization. Perceptual and Motor Skills, 47, 599-604.] mental rotation test (MRT) and a reading comprehension task (RCT). Individuals with high (HMR) and low (LMR) mental rotation differed in MRT scores but had similar RCT performance. Results showed that the HMR group, in contrast with LMR counterparts, preserved good spatial text recall even when a spatial concurrent task was performed; however, Experiment 2 revealed a modification of spatial concurrent task performance in LMR as well in HMR group. Overall, results suggest that HMR individuals have more spatial resources than LMR individuals, allowing them to compensate for spatial working memory interference, but only to a limited extent, given that the processing of spatial information is still mediated by VSWM.     

The existence and extent of spatial working memory ability in honeybees

Honeybees foraged from six locations, each of which was baited with sugar solution prior to each experimental trial. Under a variety of conditions, bees exhibited a small but reliable tendency to avoid revisits to locations that they had visited earlier during the experimental trial. These results replicate those of Brown and Demas (1994), who concluded that bees use working memory to discriminate previously visited locations from those not yet visited. The present experiments included procedures that allowed alternatives to this explanation to be more completely ruled out. The extent of spatial working memory performance exhibited by honeybees in these experiments appears to be limited by a process other than working memory capacity, perhaps the ability of bees to discriminate among several locations in close proximity to one another.     

Search behavior in cats and dogs: Interspecific differences in working memory and spatial cognition

Cats’ and dogs’ search behavior was compared in different problems where an object was visibly moved behind a screen that was then visibly moved to a new position. In Experiments 1 (cats) and 2 (dogs), one group was tested with identical screens and the other group was tested with dissimilar screens. Results showed that in both species, search behavior was based on processing of spatial information rather than on recognition of the visual features of the target screen. Cats and dogs were unable to find the object by inferring its invisible movement. They reached a high level of success only if there was direct perceptual evidence that the object could not be at its initial position. When the position change was indicated by an indirect cue, cats searched more at the object’s initial than final position, whereas dogs searched equally at both positions. Interspecific similarities and differences are interpreted in terms of the requirements for resetting working memory.     

Social working memory: Memory for another rat's spatial choices can increase or decrease choice tendencies

In two experiments using a radial-arm maze, pairs of rats made choices among eight maze locations, each containing a large quantity of one of two food types. The choices made by 1 rat affected the choices made by the other rat. Under most conditions, visits by 1 rat increased the tendency of the other rat to subsequently choose that maze location. However, the effect depended on the quality of the food available in a particular location. When it was possible for the rats to observe each other on the maze arms and a rat had experienced that a location contained the less preferred food type, a previous visit to that location by the foraging partner decreased the tendency to visit that location. These effects are attributed to working memory for the spatial choices of another rat, and they indicate that memory produced by a rat’s own visit to a maze location is integrated with memory for the behavior of another rat to determine spatial choice     

Characteristics of pigeons’ spatial working memory in an open-field task

Although pigeons seem to require special training before they will display accurate spatial working memory in radial-arm mazes, they readily show accurate working memory for recently visited feeder locations in an open-field analog of the radial maze. In this task, pigeons forage among sites located on the floor of an open room, with no constraints on the path they take between sites. Experiment 1 suggested that pigeons’ working memory for recently visited sites is facilitated if they are permitted to develop a stable reference memory “map” of the location of the sites with respect to landmarks in the room: Pigeons for which the landmarks remained constant from day to day displayed more accurate working memory than did pigeons for which the landmarks were rearranged between daily trials. The second experiment investigated the durability of pigeons’ working memory, using a forced-choice procedure. Accuracy remained high for retention intervals of up to 32 min, but dropped significantly with a 2-h delay.     

Fluid/spatial and crystallized intelligence in relation to domain-specific working memory: A latent-variable approach

Fluid/spatial intelligence, crystallized intelligence and their relationships to verbal and visuospatial working memory (WM) were studied. A total of 120 Finnish Air Force recruits participated in this study. Fluid/spatial intelligence was assessed using four different tasks, while crystallized intelligence was defined with the help of test scores of Finnish upper secondary school National Matriculation Tests in three different academic subjects and one additional Verbal Relations task. Complex WM span tasks were used to measure visuospatial and verbal WM capacities. Structural equation modeling indicated that verbal WM was related to crystallized intelligence when both WM tasks were included in the model, whereas performance on the visuospatial WM task was related to fluid/spatial intelligence, but not to crystallized intelligence. Verbal WM was not related to fluid intelligence when used as a single WM predictor. The results indicate that verbal WM might be related to verbal ability and learning at school, while visuospatial WM is relatively strongly related to nonverbal reasoning and spatial visualization. The current results further suggest that WM capacity is not a unitary system.     

The working memory rating scale: A classroom-based behavioral assessment of working memory

The aim of the present study was to investigate the potential of the Working Memory Rating Scale (WMRS), an observer-based rating scale that reflects behavioral difficulties of children with poor working memory. The findings indicate good internal reliability and adequate psychometric properties for use as a screening tool by teachers. Higher (i.e., more problematic) teacher ratings on the WMRS were associated with lower memory scores on direct assessments of working memory skills, as measured by the Automated Working Memory Assessment (AWMA) and the WISC-IV Working Memory Index. The use of the WMRS will allow educators to draw on their expertise in the classroom for early detection of children with working memory failures.     

Further studies of pigeons’ spatial working memory in the open-field task

In Experiments 1 and 2, pigeons’ spatial working memory in an open-field setting was examined under conditions that differed in terms of working-memory load (number of sites visited prior to a retention test) at various delays between initial choices and the retention test. In Experiment 1, pigeons were tested under two conditions of memory load (three or five sites visited prior to the delay) and two delay intervals (15 and 60 min). Accuracy declined as a function of delay but was not affected significantly by memory load. In Experiment 2A, pigeons were tested under three conditions of memory load (two, four, or six sites visited prior to the delay). In separate phases, the delay was 2, 15, and 60 min. Accuracy was not affected by memory load in any of these phases. In Experiment 2B, three conditions of memory load (two, four, or six sites visited prior to the delay) were tested at two delays (2 and 60 min) within a test phase. Accuracy declined with increasing delay, but memory load again had no significant effects. These results are inconsistent with previous suggestions that pigeons’ retention of spatial information may decline as working-memory load is increased. In Experiment 3, cue-manipulation tests confirmed that pigeons’ choice behavior in the open-field task is controlled by memory for previously visitad room locations.     

Working memory for sign language: a window into the architecture of the working memory system

Traditionally, working memory has been divided into two major domains: verbal and visuo-spatial. The verbal domain of working memory can be characterized either by its relationship to language or by its grounding in auditory processing. Because of this ambiguity, languages that are not auditory and vocal (i.e., signed languages) pose a challenge to this conception of working memory. We describe several experiments with deaf users of American Sign Language (ASL) that explore the extent to which the architecture of working memory is determined by the constraints of auditory and visual processing and the extent to which it is determined by the characteristics of language. Various working memory effects were investigated: phonological similarity, word length, and articulatory suppression. The pattern of evidence strongly supports the existence of a sign-based 'rehearsal loop' mechanism parallel to the speech-based rehearsal loop. However, we also discuss evidence pointing to differences between the speech loop and the sign loop from forward and backward digit span tasks with deaf and hearing subjects. Despite their similarities based on linguistic properties, the speech loop and the sign loop appear to diverge due to the differing processing demands of audition and vision. Overall, the results suggest that the architecture of working memory is shaped both by the properties of language structure and by the constraints imposed by sensorimotor modality.     

Modality of language shapes working memory: evidence from digit span and spatial span in ASL signers

Deaf children who are native users of American Sign Language (ASL) and hearing children who are native English speakers performed three working memory tasks. Results indicate that language modality shapes the architecture of working memory. Digit span with forward and backward report, performed by each group in their native language, suggests that the language rehearsal mechanisms for spoken language and for sign language differ in their processing constraints. Unlike hearing children, deaf children who are native signers of ASL were as good at backward recall of digits as at forward recall, suggesting that serial order information for ASL is stored in a form that does not have a preferred directionality. Data from a group of deaf children who were not native signers of ASL rule out explanations in terms of a floor effect or a nonlinguistic visual strategy. Further, deaf children who were native signers outperformed hearing children on a nonlinguistic spatial memory task, suggesting that language expertise in a particular modality exerts an influence on nonlinguistic working memory within that modality. Thus, language modality has consequences for the structure of working memory, both within and outside the linguistic domain.     

Selective spatial working memory impairment in a group of children with mathematics learning disabilities and poor problem-solving skills

This study examines visual and spatial working memory skills in 35 third to fifth graders with both mathematics learning disabilities (MLD) and poor problem-solving skills and 35 of their peers with typical development (TD) on tasks involving both low and high attentional control. Results revealed that children with MLD, relative to TD children, failed spatial working memory tasks that had either low or high attentional demands but did not fail the visual tasks. In addition, children with MLD made more intrusion errors in the spatial working memory tasks requiring high attentional control than did their TD peers. Finally, as a post hoc analysis the sample of MLD was divided in two: children with severe MLD and children with low mathematical achievement. Results showed that only children with severe MLD failed in spatial working memory (WM) tasks if compared with children with low mathematical achievement and TD. The findings are discussed on the basis of their theoretical and clinical implications, in particular considering that children with MLD can benefit from spatial WM processes to solve arithmetic word problems, which involves the ability to both maintain and manipulate relevant information.     

Specific impairment in developmental reading disabilities: a working memory approach

Children with developmental reading disabilities (RD) frequently display impaired working memory functioning. However, research has been divergent regarding the characteristics of the deficit. Our investigation addressed this controversy by assessing Baddeley's working memory model as a whole rather than focusing on particular aspects of it, as has been done by much of the research to date. Participants included 20 children with RD and 20 typical readers between the ages of 9 and 13. The phonological loop, visual-spatial sketchpad, and central executive were assessed according to Baddeley's model. The results demonstrated that children with RD have an impaired phonological loop but intact visual-spatial sketchpad and central executive functioning as compared to controls. In terms of the phonological loop, the deficit appears to be specific to the phonological store. Furthermore, our research supports a relationship between phonological processing and phonological loop functioning.     

Assessing working memory capacity in a non-native language

The present studies directly test the usefulness of two English-language working memory capacity (WMC) assessments with two samples of students whose native language was not English. Participants completed two widely used complex span tasks, Reading Span (RSpan) and Operation Span (OSpan), in English. To determine whether the well-established relationship between WMC and Raven's Advanced Progressive Matrices (RAPM) would be observed when span tasks were not given in the native language of the participant, span scores were regressed against performance on the RAPM. Results indicated that while OSpan was a reliable and valid predictor of RAPM in non-native-English speakers, RSpan administered in English was not.     

Primacy in animals’ working memory: Artifacts

In response to commentaries on an earlier review (Gaffan, 1992), it is acknowledged that there is more recent evidence for primacy in animals’ list memory, which is not susceptible to the methodological criticisms discussed in the review. However, methods advocated by the commentators are liable to produce spurious assessments of primacy, and the original objections still stand.     

The implications of congenital deafness for working memory

A model of the working memory of the congenitally deaf was built based on Baddeley's model. Following an examination of the literature pertaining to encoding used by the congenitally deaf, I concluded that a model of the working memory of the deaf must include subsystems for articulatory, sign, and visual encoding. By highlighting the inherent flexibility of a model such as Baddeley's, the proposed model allows for applications to the deaf, other special, and hearing populations.     

The orthographic code: Developmental trends in reading-disabled and normally-achieving children

An auditory rhyme detection task was employed to examine orthographic code development in 27 reading-disabled (RD) and 27 normally-achieving (NA) children ranging in age from 7-0 to 11-5. The amount of orthographic facilitation (that is, the reduction in response latencies for orthographically similar as opposed to orthographically dissimilar rhyme pairs) was recorded for each subject. Results indicated that RD children exhibit significantly less facilitation overall than NA children and that RD children do not demonstrate comparable orthographic facilitation effects to NA children until they are about two years older than their NA peers. It is concluded that children with a reading disability have a lessened ability to access automatically and make available stored lexical information relating to orthography.     

Distance distortions in memory for spatial locations

The present study examined developmental differences in the effect of route extensity on the memory for the locations of objects in a spatial array. Kindergarten and adult subjects were trained to remember the locations of 4 objects. During this training, objects were either connected by a combination of indirect, looped train tracks and direct train tracks (experimental subjects) or connected by entirely direct train-track routes (control subjects). Analyses of actual interobject distances, from subjects' reproductions of object locations on a response board (without train tracks), revealed that children, but not adults, distort distance in terms of the nature of travel observed between objects. Further testing revealed that differences in the amount of time taken for travel could not account for the results obtained with children.     

谈工作记忆与类比推理

类比推理是一种特殊的推理形式,也是个体抽象思维的一种主要形式。有些心理学家着重研究与类比推理有关的问题,以期可以找到发展类比推理能力的有效策略,以提高学生学习新知识、新技能等的效率。经过大量研究与调查数据显示,工作记忆的各个子成分与类比推理之间有着密切的联系,工作记忆直接影响着个体类比推理能力的发展。因此,文章主要探讨工作记忆与类比推理的含义,以及工作记忆对类比推理的影响,希望能够为相关研究者提供参考。