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This volume covers a broad range of current research topics addressing the function of visuospatial attention and working memory. It discusses a variety of perspectives ranging from evolutionary and genetic underpinnings to neural substrates/computational processes and the connection between attention and working memory. Contributions address the topic at the molecular, system and evolutionary scales and will be of interest to a range of audiences from animal behaviour specialists, experimental psychologists to clinicians in the field of psychiatry and neurology.
Working memory (WM) and visuospatial attention (VA) are both cognitive constructs that are related to the processing of relevant information. While these processes are capable of functioning independently, there is significant evidence suggesting a relationship between the two. However, the exact nature of this relationship is not well understood, and no testable hypotheses have been advanced. In this dissertation, three experiments were conducted in an effort to uncover the nature of the relationship between WM and VA. It was hypothesized that when WM and VA are simultaneously deployed, a new process is formed (an integrated view). Based on this hypothesis, it was predicted that this new process would operate using the shared resources of WM and VA. This hypothesis was compared against the parallel view, which stated that WM and VA are separate processes that simply interact. The parallel view would not predict processing resources to be shared between WM and VA. The three experiments were designed to provide converging evidence to support one of these views by targeting different aspects of WM and VA and using various measurement techniques. Results showed support for the integrated view. Specifically, it was demonstrated that manipulations in either WM or VA resulted in graded changes in the other process. This suggests a sharing of resources between the two processes, as would be expected if WM and VA had integrated to form a new process. The parallel view would predict that manipulations in either WM or VA would only have resulted in broad changes in the other process, indicative of a lack of resource sharing. These findings were demonstrated in all three experiments. First, it was shown that manipulating WM load resulted in differences in the effect of the timing of attentional deployment on behavioral performance. Second, manipulations in WM load were associated with different attentional distributions. Finally, the constriction of attention resulted in different relationships between working memory capacity (WMC) and the ability to filter out distracting information. This range of evidence provides strong empirical support for the hypothesis that WM and VA form a new process when simultaneously deployed. Current models of WM and VA do not make predictions regarding the nature of the relationship between the two processes. Thus, should these findings be replicated, models of WM and VA will need to be modified accordingly
Working memory (WM) and visuospatial attention (VA) are both cognitive constructs that are related to the processing of relevant information. While these processes are capable of functioning independently, there is significant evidence suggesting a relationship between the two. However, the exact nature of this relationship is not well understood, and no testable hypotheses have been advanced. In this dissertation, three experiments were conducted in an effort to uncover the nature of the relationship between WM and VA. It was hypothesized that when WM and VA are simultaneously deployed, a new process is formed (an integrated view). Based on this hypothesis, it was predicted that this new process would operate using the shared resources of WM and VA. This hypothesis was compared against the parallel view, which stated that WM and VA are separate processes that simply interact. The parallel view would not predict processing resources to be shared between WM and VA. The three experiments were designed to provide converging evidence to support one of these views by targeting different aspects of WM and VA and using various measurement techniques. Results showed support for the integrated view. Specifically, it was demonstrated that manipulations in either WM or VA resulted in graded changes in the other process. This suggests a sharing of resources between the two processes, as would be expected if WM and VA had integrated to form a new process. The parallel view would predict that manipulations in either WM or VA would only have resulted in broad changes in the other process, indicative of a lack of resource sharing. These findings were demonstrated in all three experiments. First, it was shown that manipulating WM load resulted in differences in the effect of the timing of attentional deployment on behavioral performance. Second, manipulations in WM load were associated with different attentional distributions. Finally, the constriction of attention resulted in different relationships between working memory capacity (WMC) and the ability to filter out distracting information. This range of evidence provides strong empirical support for the hypothesis that WM and VA form a new process when simultaneously deployed. Current models of WM and VA do not make predictions regarding the nature of the relationship between the two processes. Thus, should these findings be replicated, models of WM and VA will need to be modified accordingly
The idea of one's memory "filling up" is a humorous misconception of how memory in general is thought to work; it actually has no capacity limit. However, the idea of a "full brain" makes more sense with reference to working memory, which is the limited amount of information a person can hold temporarily in an especially accessible form for use in the completion of almost any challenging cognitive task. This groundbreaking book explains the evidence supporting Cowan's theoretical proposal about working memory capacity, and compares it to competing perspectives. Cognitive psychologists profoundly disagree on how working memory is limited: whether by the number of units that can be retained (and, if so, what kind of units and how many), the types of interfering material, the time that has elapsed, some combination of these mechanisms, or none of them. The book assesses these hypotheses and examines explanations of why capacity limits occur, including vivid biological, cognitive, and evolutionary accounts. The book concludes with a discussion of the practical importance of capacity limits in daily life. This 10th anniversary Classic Edition will continue to be accessible to a wide range of readers and serve as an invaluable reference for all memory researchers.
It is only relatively recently that it has been possible to study the neural processes that might underlie working memory, leading to a proliferation of research in this domain. This volume brings together leading researchers from around the world to summarise current knowledge of this field.
Working memory--the ability to keep important information in mind while comprehending, thinking, and acting--varies considerably from person to person and changes dramatically during each person's life. Understanding such individual and developmental differences is crucial because working memory is a major contributor to general intellectual functioning. This volume offers a state-of-the-art, integrative, and comprehensive approach to understanding variation in working memory by presenting explicit, detailed comparisons of the leading theories. It incorporates views from the different research groups that operate on each side of the Atlantic, and covers working-memory research on a wide variety of populations, including healthy adults, children with and without learning difficulties, older adults, and adults and children with neurological disorders. A particular strength of this volume is that each research group explicitly addresses the same set of theoretical questions, from the perspective of both their own theoretical and experimental work and from the perspective of relevant alternative approaches. Through these questions, each research group considers their overarching theory of working memory, specifies the critical sources of working memory variation according to their theory, reflects on the compatibility of their approach with other approaches, and assesses their contribution to general working memory theory. This shared focus across chapters unifies the volume and highlights the similarities and differences among the various theories. Each chapter includes both a summary of research positions and a detailed discussion of each position. Variation in Working Memory achieves coherence across its chapters, while presenting the entire range of current theoretical and experimental approaches to variation in working memory.
Historically, cognitive sciences have considered selective attention and working memory as largely separated cognitive functions. That is, selective attention as a concept is typically reserved for the processes that allow for the prioritization of specific sensory input, while working memory entails more central structures for maintaining (and operating on) temporary mental representations. However, over the last decades various observations have been reported that question such sharp distinction. Most importantly, information stored in working memory has been shown to modulate selective attention processing – and vice versa. At the theoretical level, these observations are paralleled by an increasingly dominant focus on working memory as (involving) the attended part of long-term memory, with some positions considering that working memory is equivalent to selective attention turned to long-term memory representations – or internal selective attention. This questions the existence of working memory as a dedicated cognitive function and raises the need for integrative accounts of working memory and attention. The next step will be to explore the precise implications of attentional accounts of WM for the understanding of specific aspects and characteristics of WM, such as serial order processing, its modality-specificity, its capacity limitations, its relation with executive functions, as well as the nature of attentional mechanisms involved. This research topic in Frontiers in Human Neuroscience aims at bringing together the latest insights and findings about the interplay between working memory and selective attention.
The Influence of Attention, Learning, and Motivation on Visual Search will bring together distinguished authors who are conducting cutting edge research on the many factors that influence search behavior. These factors will include low-level feature detection; statistical learning; scene perception; neural mechanisms of attention; and applied research in real world settings.