Detection of the Number of Changes in a Display in Working Memory

Here we examine a new task to assess working memory for visual arrays in which the participant must judge how many items changed from a studied array to a test array. As a clue to processing, on some trials in the first 2 experiments, participants carried out a metamemory judgment in which they were...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Journal of experimental psychology. Learning, memory, and cognition memory, and cognition, 2016-02, Vol.42 (2), p.169-185
Main Authors: Cowan, Nelson, Hardman, Kyle, Saults, J. Scott, Blume, Christopher L., Clark, Katherine M., Sunday, Mackenzie A.
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Attention
Auditory Stimuli
Awareness
Cognition & reasoning
College Students
Color
Correlation
Experimental Psychology
Female
Goodness of Fit
Human
Human Channel Capacity
Humans
Individual Differences
Judgment
Male
Mathematical Modeling
Mathematical Models
Memory
Memory, Short-Term
Metacognition
Models, Psychological
Photic Stimulation
Psychological Tests
Short Term Memory
Visual Perception
Visual Stimuli
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Summary:Here we examine a new task to assess working memory for visual arrays in which the participant must judge how many items changed from a studied array to a test array. As a clue to processing, on some trials in the first 2 experiments, participants carried out a metamemory judgment in which they were to decide how many items were in working memory. Trial-to-trial fluctuations in these working memory storage judgments correlated with performance fluctuations within an individual, indicating a need to include trial-to-trial variation within capacity models (through either capacity fluctuation or some other attention parameter). Mathematical modeling of the results achieved a good fit to a complex pattern of results, suggesting that working memory capacity limits can apply even to judgments that involve an entire array rather than just a single item that may have changed, thus providing the expected conscious access to at least some of the contents of working memory.
ISSN:0278-7393
1939-1285
DOI:10.1037/xlm0000163