Task Interruption and its Effects on Memory

We investigated the recovery from memory of a primary task after an interruption. If the primary task lacked associative support among its task components, recovery was more difficult following an interruption that overlapped either completely or partially in the amount of information shared with the primary task (an interruption-similarity effect). In addition, memory for completed actions was superior to memory for impending unfinished actions. However, if the primary task had associative support among its task components, there was no adverse effect of interruption similarity, and completed and unfinished actions were recalled equally well. We explore possible explanations and implications of these results.     

The effects of divided attention at encoding on item and associative memory

Divided attention at encoding is well known to have adverse effects on episodic memory performance (e.g., Naveh-Benjamin & Greg, 2000). This article attempts to determine whether these effects are a result of the interruption of encoding of associative information among the components of an episode. Five experiments, using different types of episodes and episodes components, were conducted. Participants studied information under either full or divided attention and were then tested on their memory for both the episodes' components and the associations between them. Divided attention did not produce a differential deficit in memory for associative information; memory for the components suffered to the same degree as memory for the associations among the components. The cause of the divided-attention effect at encoding lies somewhere other than in the associative processes that are engaged.     

How do we handle interruptions? Investigating the processes underlying the resumption of interrupted tasks

Although many researchers have studied interruptions and how detrimental they can be for performance, only a small number of studies have successfully identified the cognitive processes involved in the resumption of the primary task after an interruption. We carried out two experiments in which the complexity and the timing of interruption were manipulated. The participants also completed a set of cognitive tests assessing cognitive functions, such as working memory, inhibition or shifting, etc. Results showed that decreasing the complexity and introducing the interruption later in the task reduced the time needed to resume the primary task [i.e. resumption lag (RL)]. Moreover, the complexity effect was related to inhibition, shifting, selective attention and automation, while timing was related to working memory and divided attention. This study provides clues to help us better understand the processes involved when we interrupt our activities and indicates the need to look more deeply at the processes underlying resumption after interruptions.     

Bidirectional priming in infants

In associative priming, the direct activation of one concept indirectly activates others that are associated with it, depending on the directionality of the association. We asked whether associative priming in preverbal infants is bidirectional. Infants associated a puppet imitation task with an operant train task by watching an adult model target actions on the puppet in the incidental context of the train. Later, priming of the forgotten memory of the train task reactivated the infants' memory of the puppet task (Experiment 1), and priming of the infants' forgotten memory of the puppet task reactivated their memory of the train task (Experiment 2). The finding that associative priming was bidirectional offers new insights into the nature of the mnemonic networks formed early in infancy. Additionally, the fact that the present association was formed rapidly and incidentally suggests that a fast mapping, general learning mechanism, like that posited to mediate word-object learning, was responsible for its encoding.     

Prospective memory performance in preschoolers: Inhibitory control matters

The present study focuses on prospective memory in preschoolers. We specifically investigated the effects of age, retrospective memory, and task interruption on prospective memory performance. In the first experiment, testing 60 children aged 3, 4 and 5 years with a prospective memory task that required active ongoing task interruption we obtained an age effect indicating better prospective memory performance for the two older cohorts. Varying retrospective memory load did influence prospective memory response time but did not affect prospective memory accuracy. However, retrospective memory performance showed an age effect and individual differences in retrospective memory ability were related to individual differences in prospective memory performance, even after partialling age. In the second study, we applied a prospective memory task that did not require active ongoing task interruption. Here, testing 62 children aged 3, 4 and 5 years we still found an age effect in retrospective memory but neither an effect of age nor retrospective memory on prospective memory performance. It is concluded that preschoolers even at the age of 3 years can perform prospective memory tasks to a certain extent. Moreover, while retrospective memory still seems to be somewhat related to prospective memory in preschoolers, inhibitory control required for ongoing task interruption seems to be an especially important factor influencing task performance in preschoolers.     

Predicting performance on the Raven's Matrices: The roles of associative learning and retrieval efficiency

Previous studies have shown that performance on Williams and Pearlberg's (2006) complex associative learning task is a good predictor of fluid intelligence. This task is similar in structure to that used in studying the fan effect (Anderson, 1974), as both tasks involve forming multiple associations and require retrieval in the face of interference. The purpose of the present study was to investigate the relations among complex associative learning, working memory, and fluid intelligence. Specifically, we asked whether retrieval efficiency, as measured by the fan effect, could account for the relation between complex associative learning and performance on Raven's Advanced Progressive Matrices. Consistent with previous findings, complex associative learning predicted Raven's performance, but the fan effect did not account for this relation. Notably, the learning phase of the fan effect task was significantly correlated with both complex associative learning and Raven's performance, providing further support for the importance of learning as a predictor of fluid intelligence.     

The time-course of recovery from interruption during reading: eye movement evidence for the role of interruption lag and spatial memory

Two experiments examined how interruptions impact reading and how interruption lags and the reader's spatial memory affect the recovery from such interruptions. Participants read paragraphs of text and were interrupted unpredictably by a spoken news story while their eye movements were monitored. Time made available for consolidation prior to responding to the interruption did not aid reading resumption. However, providing readers with a visual cue that indicated the interruption location did aid task resumption substantially in Experiment 2. Taken together, the findings show that the recovery from interruptions during reading draws on spatial memory resources and can be aided by processes that support spatial memory. Practical implications are discussed.     

The time-course of recovery from interruption during reading: Eye movement evidence for the role of interruption lag and spatial memory

Two experiments examined how interruptions impact reading and how interruption lags and the reader's spatial memory affect the recovery from such interruptions. Participants read paragraphs of text and were interrupted unpredictably by a spoken news story while their eye movements were monitored. Time made available for consolidation prior to responding to the interruption did not aid reading resumption. However, providing readers with a visual cue that indicated the interruption location did aid task resumption substantially in Experiment 2. Taken together, the findings show that the recovery from interruptions during reading draws on spatial memory resources and can be aided by processes that support spatial memory. Practical implications are discussed.     

工作记忆在监控作业情境意识保持中的作用

本研究通过模拟复杂人机系统的监控作业,考察了长时工作记忆与短时工作记忆在情境意识保持中的作用。研究采用模拟的飞行相撞判断任务,通过考察中断任务对情境意识的影响,分析情境意识在记忆中的存储地点,以及保持时间是否会突破1分钟的限制。本研究选择了心理旋转和算式判断两种中断任务。实验结果表明,在问题回答之前的中断阶段,无论施加心理旋转任务,还是施加算式判断任务,无论中断任务的加工负荷与记忆负荷有多高,熟练被试的情境意识始终保持于较高的水平,并没有因受到中断任务的干扰而出现下降。新手被试的情境意识受到心理旋转任务和算式判断任务的显著影响,而且两种任务的执行速度越快、记忆负荷越大,情绪意识水平就越低。本研究结果说明熟练被试可以利用长时工作记忆存储情境意识,新手被试主要利用短时工作记忆存储情境意识。     

The Role of Interruptions and Contextual Associations in Delayed‐Execute Prospective Memory

We conducted three experiments to examine the dynamics of a delayed‐execute prospective memory task involving task interruptions. In the delayed‐execute paradigm, participants must delay a response until some future condition is met. After an intention was formed to a salient cue, an interruption reduced prospective memory relative to a no‐interruption condition. Prospective memory for cues encountered during an interrupting task was worse than for cues occurring before an interruption, but the location of the cue in either the ongoing task or the interruption did not affect prospective memory. Importantly, reinstating the prevailing context after the interruption alleviated the negative influence of the interruption. Providing participants with information about the future context for making the delayed‐execute response also alleviated some of these deficits presumably because participants could encode more specific features of the performance context. These results highlight the potential importance of contextual associations and reminders in completing everyday intentions successfully. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Increased sensitivity to proactive interference in amnestic mild cognitive impairment is independent of associative and semantic impairment

Episodic memory deficit is the hallmark of amnestic mild cognitive impairment (aMCI). There is, however, an overlap in performance among patients with aMCI and elderly controls (EC). The memory deficit in aMCI therefore needs to be better characterized. Studies have shown that associative memory is selectively impaired in aMCI, and recent work suggested that aMCI may be hypersensitive to semantic proactive interference (PI). It is not known whether this increased PI is related to associative or semantic impairment. EC (n = 44) and patients with aMCI (n = 30) performed two tasks presenting a gradually increasing PI effect across four lists. One task used semantic cueing, the other phonological cueing. We controlled for associative memory by introducing it as a covariate and by matching our subjects for it. Patients with aMCI had a greater PI effect than EC matched for associative memory, regardless of the type of cueing. The increased PI effect in patients with aMCI is independent of their associative and semantic impairment.     

Representation of memory for order of mental operations in cognitive tasks

Recent research shows that people learning a cognitive task acquire a memory for the order of operations applied, independent of the data to which those operations were applied. We designed two experiments to show how this sequence memory is represented. Experiment 1 compared predictions based on 3 possible sequence representation methods: composition, dyad transition, and associative chain. Latency and error results from a simple sequential task supported the associative chain representation. The associative links between operations presumably enhance performance by priming subsequent operations but do not operate in an all-or-none fashion. Experiment 2 explored whether transfer items that matched the first 2 rules and first 3 elements of a training item could bias participants toward executing a composed production learned during training. Latency and undetected error results were consistent with an associative chain representation but not with additional predictions made by the composition representation. These two experiments support the representation of operation sequences in memory as an associative chain.     

Improving the effectiveness of an interruption lag by inducing a memory-based strategy

The memory for goals model (Altmann & Trafton, 2002) posits the importance of a short delay (the ‘interruption lag’) before an interrupting task to encode suspended goals for retrieval post-interruption. Two experiments used the theory of soft constraints (Gray, Simms, Fu & Schoelles, 2006) to investigate whether the efficacy of an interruption lag could be improved by increasing goal-state access cost to induce a more memory-based encoding strategy. Both experiments used a copying task with three access cost conditions (Low, Medium, and High) and a 5-s interruption lag with a no lag control condition. Experiment 1 found that the participants in the High access cost condition resumed more interrupted trials and executed more actions correctly from memory when coupled with an interruption lag. Experiment 2 used a prospective memory test post-interruption and an eyetracker recorded gaze activity during the interruption lag. The participants in the High access cost condition with an interruption lag were best at encoding target information during the interruption lag, evidenced by higher scores on the prospective memory measure and more gaze activity on the goal-state during the interruption lag. Theoretical and practical issues regarding the use of goal-state access cost and an interruption lag are discussed.     

Paying attention to binding: Further studies assessing the role of reduced attentional resources in the associative deficit of older adults

The present experiments investigated whether the observed associative deficit in older adults' episodic memory is mediated by a reduction of attentional resources. Using a dual-task procedure, younger and older participants studied lists of word pairs either under full attention or while performing a concurrent task. Both experiments showed that dividing attention did not cause a greater impairment to memory for associations than to memory for items in either age group. Furthermore, an analysis of concurrent task performance revealed that older adults' attentional costs for both learning and binding items were not larger than for learning items alone, relative to younger adults. These data provide support for a multicausal interpretation of older adults' memory deficits in which common, depleted attentional resources may be a mechanism that reduces memory for components of an episode in both older and younger adults under divided attention at encoding. In addition, older adults have a unique deficit in memory for the associations between the components, which does not seem to be resource dependent.     

Memory for age-face associations in younger and older adults: the role of generation and schematic support

Memory for ages of unfamiliar faces was examined in an associative memory task to determine whether generation as well as schematic support (cues from faces) would enhance later cued recall of the age information and reduce older adults' associative deficit. Participants studied faces and were either presented with the age or first had to guess before being shown the correct age. Later, participants were given a cued-recall test. Both younger and older adults exhibited associative memory enhancements from first generating the ages at encoding (a generation effect) despite the fact the initial generation was often inaccurate. Although older adults recalled fewer ages overall compared with younger adults, older adults were able to remember the age information for older faces equally as well as younger adults. However, when errors committed during generation were large and when schematic support was not available to support encoding and retrieval (when the age information was inconsistent given the cues from the face), generating was no longer beneficial for either older or younger adults. Thus, although older adults display an associative deficit when remembering specific age-face associations, this can be reduced through the use of prior knowledge and generation at encoding.     

An individual differences analysis of ability and strategy influences: age-related differences in associative learning

The relationships among abilities, strategies, and performance on an associative learning task were investigated for young (aged 17 to 34) and older adults (aged 60 to 82). Participants received extensive practice on a noun-pair task in which they could use a visual-scanning strategy or a memory-retrieval strategy. Older adults were more likely to use the scanning strategy. Age differences were reduced when comparisons were made only for participants using a retrieval strategy. Associative memory was predictive of learning on the task, and semantic memory access speed was predictive of practiced performance. Practiced performance on a memory-search task that also required associative learning was predictive of practiced noun-pair performance. Models of ability-performance relationships for skill acquisition are discussed.     

A dissociation between two implicit conceptual tests supports the distinction between types of conceptual processing

Subjects studied words in a classification task (to what categories does it belong?) or in a production task (producing associates to the word) and then completed one of two implicit memory tests—category association or free association. The classification study task and the category-association test emphasize categorical relations between concepts, and the production study task and the free-association test draw on associative relations. As predicted by the transfer-appropriate processing principle, priming in the category-association test was larger for words studied under the classification task than for those studied under the production task, whereas the opposite was true in the free-association test. This crossover dissociation is the first obtained between two implicit conceptual tests, and it provides support for the claim that it is necessary to distinguish between different types of conceptual processing.     

The indirect effect of attention bias on memory via interpretation bias: Evidence for the combined cognitive bias hypothesis in subclinical depression

Little research has investigated functional relations among attention, interpretation, and memory biases in depressed samples. The present study tested the indirect effect of attention bias on memory through interpretation bias as an intervening variable in a mixed sample of non-depressed and subclinically depressed individuals. Subclinically depressed and non-depressed individuals completed a spatial cueing task (to measure attention bias), followed by a scrambled sentences test (to measure interpretation bias), and an incidental free recall task (to measure memory bias). Bias-corrected bootstrapping yielded evidence for the hypothesised indirect effect model, in that an emotional bias in attention is related to a congruent bias in interpretative choices which are in turn reflected in memory. These findings extend previous research and provide further support for the combined cognitive bias hypothesis in depression. Theoretical and clinical implications of our findings are discussed.     

Depth of processing and memory organization

Summary The study examined the idea that the organization of information in memory varies depending on the depth of processing during input, as well as on the conditions for retrieval. Two types of memory organization are distinguished: Conceptual organization implies a hierarchical structure in which items are grouped according to a principled taxonomic system (e.g., cow — horse). Associative organization, in contrast, is based on direct links among the members of a group (e.g., cow — milk). Two experiments examined the propositions that conceptual relations require more effort to be encoded during learning and more effort to be utilized during remenbering than associative relations. In Experiment 1 a list of 28 words was used, which could be grouped into 14 conceptual categories or, alternatively, into 14 associative categories of two words each. The words were presented under either shallow or deep encoding conditions. Increased depth of encoding resulted in increased conceptual clustering but had little effect on amount of associative clustering. Similar amounts of associative and conceptual clustering were observed during early output positions, but conceptual clustering tended to increase with recall trials, suggesting that it might depend on the establishment of a retrieval schema. In Experiment 2, after memorizing a list of words, subjects recalled the words either with or without the requirement to perform a secondary task while recalling. Relative to the undisturbed recall condition, the secondary task condition indicated stronger associative than conceptual clustering. The results were seen to support the idea that different types of memory organization may become salient under different attentional conditions.