Alexander P Burgoyne, David J Frank, Brooke N Macnamara
{"title":"Which \"working memory\" are we talking about? Complex span tasks versus N-back.","authors":"Alexander P Burgoyne, David J Frank, Brooke N Macnamara","doi":"10.3758/s13423-024-02622-0","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3758/s13423-024-02622-0","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Psychologists and neuroscientists often use complex span tasks or the n-back to measure working memory capacity. At first glance, both tasks require many cognitive processes attributed to the construct, including the maintenance of information amidst interference. Nevertheless, evidence for their convergent validity is mixed. This poses consequences for the interpretation of working memory performance in cognitive neuroscience, developmental psychology, applied psychology, and executive functioning research. We recruited a large and diverse sample using a multisite approach (N = 1,272; community and university participants) and had them complete multiple working memory capacity, updating, and fluid intelligence tests. We found strong evidence for a dissociation between complex span and n-back tests, and more broadly, between working memory capacity and updating factors. Observed correlations between complex span and n-back performance were modest (r̄ = .25), and at the latent level, the two factors only shared 20% of their variance. Each explained unique variance in fluid intelligence, and each was more strongly related to fluid intelligence than to each other, with updating measures demonstrating stronger relations to fluid intelligence. These results were interpreted via the disengagement hypothesis. What distinguishes updating measures from working memory capacity measures is their relative emphasis on disengagement from outdated information; disengagement drives their strong relation with fluid intelligence because problem-solving requires generating hypotheses but also discarding those discovered to be false. We suggest that researchers who want to measure and draw conclusions about working memory capacity or updating should not use complex span tasks and the n-back interchangeably.</p>","PeriodicalId":20763,"journal":{"name":"Psychonomic Bulletin & Review","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":3.2,"publicationDate":"2024-12-04","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142780558","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"心理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Tianying Qing, Christoph Strauch, Leendert Van Maanen, Stefan Van der Stigchel
{"title":"Shifting reliance between the internal and external world: A meta-analysis on visual-working memory use.","authors":"Tianying Qing, Christoph Strauch, Leendert Van Maanen, Stefan Van der Stigchel","doi":"10.3758/s13423-024-02623-z","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3758/s13423-024-02623-z","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Visual working memory (VWM) is a fundamental cognitive capacity that allows us to temporarily hold visual information, but storage is effortful and content-fragile. Rather than loading VWM to the maximum, individuals usually rely on the external world and access information just in time. However, participants do rely on VWM more as access costs to external information increase. This phenomenon is commonly investigated with so-called copy tasks, which differ across paradigms, manipulations, and dependent variables. We here present findings of a meta-analysis into the reliability and consistency of shifts in the assumed trade-off between storing and sampling across manipulations and dependent variables, using data from 28 experiments. We found that all cost manipulations led to substantial shifts from external sampling to storage in VWM. Cost manipulations did not differ in their effect across studies even though such differences are reported within studies. All dependent variables were associated with clear but different strong effects. We argue that the differences observed between indicators are not only due to sensitivity differences but also due to differential aspects of behavior that are measured. New variables and techniques might now pave the way to understanding the trade-off between storing and sampling more in-depth. Collectively, our findings suggest that the reliance on VWM or the external world shifts consistently as access cost is increased, is largely irrespective of cost manipulations, and expresses itself reliably across dependent variables. With this work, we seek to help establish standards and comparability across this growing body of work.</p>","PeriodicalId":20763,"journal":{"name":"Psychonomic Bulletin & Review","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":3.2,"publicationDate":"2024-12-04","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142780473","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"心理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"The influence of shifts in visual perspective on emotion in event memories: A meta-analytical review.","authors":"Selen Küçüktaş, Peggy L St Jacques","doi":"10.3758/s13423-024-02611-3","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3758/s13423-024-02611-3","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Memories for events can be remembered from an own-eyes perspective, which mimics the original experience by visualizing the event through our own eyes, or from an observer-like perspective, such that we can visualize ourselves and our surroundings in the memory. Shifting across these two visual perspectives during retrieval influences how the emotional aspects of the events are recalled, although the effect differs based on the direction of shifting. While shifting from an own-eyes to an observer-like perspective reduces emotion, shifting from an observer-like to an own-eyes perspective does not. The current meta-analysis aimed to quantify this asymmetrical pattern of shifting perspectives on emotion in event memories. A multilevel model of 12 publications with 49 individual effects revealed a small effect (Hedges's g = -.255, 95% CI [-.359, -.151]), reflecting a reduction in emotion when shifting to a novel visual perspective compared with the initial viewpoint adopted. Moderator analyses revealed that this effect was significant when shifting from an own-eyes to an observer-like perspective but not when shifting in the reverse direction. This asymmetrical pattern was associated with differences in the subjective vividness between initial and shifted conditions. Together, these results reveal that shifting perspective is a powerful way to reduce the emotions elicited in event memories by reshaping event characteristics. However, there are also limits in the effectiveness of this strategy in regulating emotional experiences.</p>","PeriodicalId":20763,"journal":{"name":"Psychonomic Bulletin & Review","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":3.2,"publicationDate":"2024-12-03","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142771667","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"心理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
W Miro Ebert, Leonardo Jost, Petra Jansen, Biljana Stevanovski, Daniel Voyer
{"title":"Visual working memory as the substrate for mental rotation: A replication.","authors":"W Miro Ebert, Leonardo Jost, Petra Jansen, Biljana Stevanovski, Daniel Voyer","doi":"10.3758/s13423-024-02602-4","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3758/s13423-024-02602-4","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>An experimental study by Hyun and Luck suggests that object working memory, but not spatial working memory, is employed during mental rotation. In contrast, correlational research points to the relevance of spatial working memory in mental rotation. Considering these somewhat conflicting results and the fact that a small sample was acquired in the study of Hyun and Luck, a replication of their study was conducted. Additionally, potential sex effects were explored. We collected (usable) data from 213 individuals across two experiments. All participants performed a mental-rotation task alone, a working-memory task alone, and both tasks concurrently. We expected greater rotation-dependent interference between tasks when the working memory task concerned object features (Experiment 1) than when it concerned spatial locations (Experiment 2). In Experiment 1, dual-task interference was observed in working-memory accuracy. In Experiment 2, there were interference effects in both mental rotation accuracy and working-memory accuracy. However, interference did not differ between experiments. Moreover, interference was not rotation dependent in either of the experiments. Thus, we could not replicate the findings of Hyun and Luck. No sex differences were found in exploratory analyses. The general interference effects found in this study may reflect the involvement of visual working memory in the processing and decision-making stages of the mental rotation of letters. This study underscores the need for further research to fully understand the role of visual working memory in mental rotation, especially with more complex stimuli.</p>","PeriodicalId":20763,"journal":{"name":"Psychonomic Bulletin & Review","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":3.2,"publicationDate":"2024-12-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142771681","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"心理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Karolina J Krzyś, Louisa L Y Man, Jeffrey D Wammes, Monica S Castelhano
{"title":"Foreground bias: Semantic consistency effects modulated when searching across depth.","authors":"Karolina J Krzyś, Louisa L Y Man, Jeffrey D Wammes, Monica S Castelhano","doi":"10.3758/s13423-024-02515-2","DOIUrl":"10.3758/s13423-024-02515-2","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>When processing visual scenes, we tend to prioritize information in the foreground, often at the expense of background information. The foreground bias has been supported by data demonstrating that there are more fixations to foreground, and faster and more accurate detection of targets embedded in foreground. However, it is also known that semantic consistency is associated with more efficient search. Here, we examined whether semantic context interacts with foreground prioritization, either amplifying or mitigating the effect of target semantic consistency. For each scene, targets were placed in the foreground or background and were either semantically consistent or inconsistent with the context of immediately surrounding depth region. Results indicated faster response times (RTs) for foreground and semantically consistent targets, replicating established effects. More importantly, we found the magnitude of the semantic consistency effect was significantly smaller in the foreground than background region. To examine the robustness of this effect, in Experiment 2, we strengthened the reliability of semantics by increasing the proportion of targets consistent with the scene region to 80%. We found the overall results pattern to replicate the incongruous effect of semantic consistency across depth observed in Experiment 1. This suggests foreground bias modulates the effects of semantics so that performance is less impacted in near space.</p>","PeriodicalId":20763,"journal":{"name":"Psychonomic Bulletin & Review","volume":" ","pages":"2776-2790"},"PeriodicalIF":3.2,"publicationDate":"2024-12-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"141162455","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"心理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Margaret A McDevitt, Jeffrey M Pisklak, Roger M Dunn, Marcia L Spetch
{"title":"Temporal context effects on suboptimal choice.","authors":"Margaret A McDevitt, Jeffrey M Pisklak, Roger M Dunn, Marcia L Spetch","doi":"10.3758/s13423-024-02519-y","DOIUrl":"10.3758/s13423-024-02519-y","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Choice can be driven both by rewards and stimuli that signal those rewards. Under certain conditions, pigeons will prefer options that lead to less probable reward when the reward is signaled. A recently quantified model, the Signal for Good News (SiGN) model, assumes that in the context of uncertainty, signals for a reduced delay to reward reinforce choice. The SiGN model provides an excellent fit to previous results from pigeons and the current studies are the first to test a priori quantitative predictions. Pigeons chose between a suboptimal alternative that led to signaled 20% food and an optimal alternative that led to 50% food. The duration of the choice period was manipulated across conditions in two experiments. Pigeons strongly preferred the suboptimal alternative at the shorter durations and strongly preferred the optimal alternative at the longer durations. The results from both experiments fit well with predictions from the SiGN model and show that altering the duration of the choice period has a dramatic effect in that it changes which of the two options pigeons prefer. More generally, these results suggest that the relative value of options is not fixed, but instead depends on the temporal context.</p>","PeriodicalId":20763,"journal":{"name":"Psychonomic Bulletin & Review","volume":" ","pages":"2737-2745"},"PeriodicalIF":3.2,"publicationDate":"2024-12-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"140959252","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"心理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Individual differences in attention control: A meta-analysis and re-analysis of latent variable studies.","authors":"Nash Unsworth, Ashley L Miller, Deanna L Strayer","doi":"10.3758/s13423-024-02516-1","DOIUrl":"10.3758/s13423-024-02516-1","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>A meta-analysis and re-analysis of prior latent variable studies was conducted in order to assess whether there is evidence for individual differences in broad attention control abilities. Data from 90 independent samples and over 23,000 participants suggested that most (84.4%) prior studies find evidence for a coherent attention control factor with average factor loadings of .51. This latent attention control factor was related to other cognitive ability factors including working memory, shifting, fluid intelligence, long-term memory, reading comprehension, and processing speed, as well as to self-reports of task-unrelated thoughts and task specific motivation. Further re-analyses and meta-analyses suggest that the results remained largely unchanged when considering various possible measurement issues. Examining the factor structure of attention control suggested evidence for sub-components of attention control (restraining, constraining and sustaining attention) which could be accounted for a by a higher-order factor. Additional re-analyses suggested that attention control represents a broad ability within models of cognitive abilities. Overall, these results provide evidence for attention control abilities as an important individual differences construct.</p>","PeriodicalId":20763,"journal":{"name":"Psychonomic Bulletin & Review","volume":" ","pages":"2487-2533"},"PeriodicalIF":3.2,"publicationDate":"2024-12-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"141071924","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"心理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Using theoretical constraints and the TASI taxonomy to delineate predictably replicable findings.","authors":"Klaus Fiedler, David Trafimow","doi":"10.3758/s13423-024-02521-4","DOIUrl":"10.3758/s13423-024-02521-4","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>The focus of the present article is not on failures to replicate but on the more optimistically framed and more fruitful question: What stable findings can be reproduced reliably and can be trusted by decision makers, managers, health agents, or politicians? We propagate the working hypothesis that a twofold key to stable and replicable findings lies in the existence of theoretical constraints and, no less important, in researchers' sensitivity to metatheoretical, auxiliary assumptions. We introduce a hierarchy of four levels of theoretical constraints-a priori principles, psychophysical, empirical, and modelling constraints-combined with the TASI taxonomy of theoretical, auxiliary, statistical, and inferential assumptions Trafimow, Journal for the Theory of Social Behaviour, 52, 37-48, (2022). Although theoretical constraints clearly facilitate stable and replicable research findings, TASI reminds us of various reasons why even perfectly valid hypotheses need not always be borne out. The presented framework should help researchers to operationalize conditions under which theoretical constraints render empirical findings most predictable.</p>","PeriodicalId":20763,"journal":{"name":"Psychonomic Bulletin & Review","volume":" ","pages":"2581-2598"},"PeriodicalIF":3.2,"publicationDate":"2024-12-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"141470393","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"心理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"The neural implausibility of the diffusion decision model doesn't matter for cognitive psychometrics, but the Ornstein-Uhlenbeck model is better.","authors":"Jia-Shun Wang, Christopher Donkin","doi":"10.3758/s13423-024-02520-5","DOIUrl":"10.3758/s13423-024-02520-5","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>In cognitive psychometrics, the parameters of cognitive models are used as measurements of the processes underlying observed behavior. In decision making, the diffusion decision model (DDM) is by far the most commonly used cognitive psychometric tool. One concern when using this model is that more recent theoretical accounts of decision-making place more emphasis on neural plausibility, and thus incorporate many assumptions not found in the DDM. One such model is the Ising Decision Maker (IDM), which builds from the assumption that two pools of neurons with self-excitation and mutual inhibition receive perceptual input from external excitatory fields. In this study, we investigate whether the lack of such mechanisms in the DDM compromises its ability to measure the processes it does purport to measure. We cross-fit the DDM and IDM, and find that the conclusions of DDM would be mostly consistent with those from an analysis using a more neurally plausible model. We also show that the Ornstein-Uhlenbeck Model (OUM) model, a variant of the DDM that includes the potential for leakage (or self-excitation), reaches similar conclusions to the DDM regarding the assumptions they share, while also sharing an interpretation with the IDM in terms of self-excitation (but not leakage). Since the OUM is relatively easy to fit to data, while being able to capture more neurally plausible mechanisms, we propose that it be considered an alternative cognitive psychometric tool to the DDM.</p>","PeriodicalId":20763,"journal":{"name":"Psychonomic Bulletin & Review","volume":" ","pages":"2724-2736"},"PeriodicalIF":3.2,"publicationDate":"2024-12-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC11680627/pdf/","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"140923090","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"心理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Too hard, too easy, or just right? The effects of context on effort and boredom aversion.","authors":"Jake R Embrey, Alice Mason, Ben R Newell","doi":"10.3758/s13423-024-02528-x","DOIUrl":"10.3758/s13423-024-02528-x","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Despite people's general desire to avoid cognitive effort, there is a limit to our parsimony: boredom, a state defined by a lack of successful mental engagement, is found to be similarly aversive. The work presented here investigates how context - the alternative tasks present and the environmental context - impacts people's aversion to exerting cognitive effort and avoiding boredom via a demand-selection task. In a population of undergraduate students, we assessed how people's willingness to exert mental effort (in a working memory task) is affected by the presence of an easier alternative (less cognitively demanding) or a boring alternative (doing nothing at all). To manipulate environmental context, we conducted the experiment online, where participants completed the task remotely, and in a controlled laboratory setting. We find people willingly seek out effortful tasks to avoid boredom, despite avoiding high demands when both tasks on offer required some effort. We also find large effects of the participants' environmental context, with preferences for the most demanding task increasing by over 150% in the lab compared to online. These results bear relevance to theories that argue the costs of effort are determined relative to the alternatives available (e.g., opportunity cost theories). Moreover, the results demonstrate that researchers who deliberately (or inadvertently) manipulate effort and boredom must consider the effects context (both choice and environmental) may have on people's behaviour.</p>","PeriodicalId":20763,"journal":{"name":"Psychonomic Bulletin & Review","volume":" ","pages":"2801-2810"},"PeriodicalIF":3.2,"publicationDate":"2024-12-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC11680605/pdf/","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"141262709","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"心理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}