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Working Memory: Recent Outlooks

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A special issue of Brain Sciences (ISSN 2076-3425). This special issue belongs to the section "Behavioral Neuroscience".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (31 October 2022) | Viewed by 38390

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Special Issue Editors

Prof. Dr. Clelia Rossi-Arnaud

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Guest Editor

Department of Psychology, Sapienza University of Rome, Rome, Italy
Interests: working memory; learning; memory in clinical populations; aging; attention; collaborative memory; eyewitness testimony; memory consolidation and reconsolidation

Prof. Dr. Valérie Camos

E-Mail Website
Co-Guest Editor

Département de Psychologie, Université de Fribourg, Fribourg, Switzerland
Interests: cognitive development; working memory; learning; executive function; memory; attention; cognitive neuropsychology

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

Since it was first proposed, the concept of working memory has attracted much attention, and many studies have been devoted to unraveling its components, exploring how they function, and understanding the underlying mechanisms involved. More recently, working memory has also been placed in a broader context, and new links with fields such as clinical or social psychology have been investigated. Research on working memory has important implications for the understanding of a number of deficits. Working memory training and the use of tDCS have become progressively popular topics, hoping that research will help individuals with low working memory capacity or will help to promote emotion regulation.

The aim of this Special Issue is to collect a series of papers that will present the many realms of research on working memory today, ranging from more traditional approaches to more recent outlooks, and drawing upon different methodologies, from experimental behavioral approaches to neuroimaging investigations.

Specifically, our aim is to attract research articles concerning, but not limited to, the following research topics:

Language and working memory;
Visuo-spatial working memory;
The neural correlates of working memory;
Working memory and emotion;
Depression and working memory;
Working memory in schizophrenia;
Working memory and autism;
Working memory and learning disabilities;
Working memory and ADHD;
Working memory training;
Working memory in a social context.

We invite authors and research groups to submit original research, review articles, and commentaries on these topics for this Special Issue.

Prof. Dr. Clelia Rossi-Arnaud
Guest Editors

Prof. Dr. Valérie Camos
Co-Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

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Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Brain Sciences is an international peer-reviewed open access monthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2200 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Keywords

Working memory
Emotion
Clinical psychology
Working memory training
Social psychology

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Published Papers (9 papers)

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Research

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10 pages, 822 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Decomposing Working Memory in Recurrent Major Depression: Impaired Encoding and Limited Maintenance Immune-to-Encoding Constraint

by Zhitang Chen, Zheng Dou, Hui Xu, Zhenghua Wang, Suhua Zeng, Xiangyu Yang, Eiki Takahashi, Milos R. Popovic, Lihui Wang and Weidong Li

Brain Sci. 2023, 13(1), 38; https://doi.org/10.3390/brainsci13010038 - 24 Dec 2022

Viewed by 2158

Abstract

It is generally believed that working memory (WM) is dysfunctional in depression. However, whether this impaired performance originates from impaired encoding, maintenance or both stages is still unclear. Here, we aimed to decompose the abnormal characteristics of encoding and maintenance in patients with recurrent major depressive disorder (MDD). Thirty patients and thirty-nine healthy controls completed a spatial working memory task where the encoding time and the retention time could vary under different load levels. Encoding performance was assessed by comparing accuracies between short and long encoding times, and maintenance performance was assessed by comparing accuracies between short and long retention times. The results show a lower performance in depression than the controls. However, while the decreased accuracy by long retention (vs. short retention) was increased by a short encoding time in the control group, the retention performance of the depression group did not further suffer from the short encoding time. The generally impaired encoding, together with limited maintenance of immunity against the constrained encoding time, suggests a common bias for fixed internal processing over external processing in recurrent MDD. The paradigm provided in this study can be a convenient and efficient clinical test for assessing the WM encoding and maintenance function. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Working Memory: Recent Outlooks)

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22 pages, 2554 KiB

Open AccessArticle

White Matter Correlates of Domain-Specific Working Memory

by Autumn Horne, Junhua Ding, Tatiana T. Schnur and Randi C. Martin

Brain Sci. 2023, 13(1), 19; https://doi.org/10.3390/brainsci13010019 - 22 Dec 2022

Cited by 6 | Viewed by 1925 | Correction

Abstract

Prior evidence suggests domain-specific working memory (WM) buffers for maintaining phonological (i.e., speech sound) and semantic (i.e., meaning) information. The phonological WM buffer’s proposed location is in the left supramarginal gyrus (SMG), whereas semantic WM has been related to the left inferior frontal gyrus (IFG), the middle frontal gyrus (MFG), and the angular gyrus (AG). However, less is known about the white matter correlates of phonological and semantic WM. We tested 45 individuals with left hemisphere brain damage on single word processing, phonological WM, and semantic WM tasks and obtained T1 and diffusion weighted neuroimaging. Virtual dissections were performed for each participants’ arcuate fasciculus (AF), inferior fronto-occipital fasciculus (IFOF), inferior longitudinal fasciculus (ILF), middle longitudinal fasciculus (MLF), and uncinate fasciculus (UF), which connect the proposed domain-specific WM buffers with perceptual or processing regions. The results showed that the left IFOF and the posterior segment of the AF were related to semantic WM performance. Phonological WM was related to both the left ILF and the whole AF. This work informs our understanding of the white matter correlates of WM, especially semantic WM, which has not previously been investigated. In addition, this work helps to adjudicate between theories of verbal WM, providing some evidence for separate pathways supporting phonological and semantic WM. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Working Memory: Recent Outlooks)

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13 pages, 574 KiB

Open AccessArticle

The Impact of Sleep and Mental Health on Working Memory and Academic Performance: A Longitudinal Study

by Abeer F. Almarzouki, Rahaf L. Mandili, Joud Salloom, Lujain K. Kamal, Omimah Alharthi, Samah Alharthi, Nusaiba Khayyat and Alaa M. Baglagel

Brain Sci. 2022, 12(11), 1525; https://doi.org/10.3390/brainsci12111525 - 10 Nov 2022

Cited by 7 | Viewed by 14505

Abstract

Sleep and mental health can affect cognition and academic performance. The present study aimed to investigate the relationships between sleep, mental health, working memory, and academic performance. We collected demographic data from university students during the non-academic summer period and the academic term. We also measured academic performance (GPA), sleep (PSQI), depression (PHQ-9), anxiety (GAD-7), and disordered social media use (SMDS). Working memory was assessed by the Cambridge Neuropsychological Test Automated Battery (CANTAB). We assessed 83 students (42.2% male) with a mean age of 21 years. Compared to the non-academic summer period, students had significantly worse sleep and distress scores in the academic term. Anxiety, depression, and distress scores were significantly correlated with worse sleep quality. Despite worse mental health and sleep in the academic term, working memory improved compared to the non-academic summer period and was also correlated with a higher GPA. However, a higher GPA was significantly associated with longer sleep latency, increased sleep disturbances, and increased use of sleep medication. Students experiencing poor sleep suffered from poor mental health, although they maintained high GPA and working memory scores. Cognitive resilience, including higher working memory, may mask poor sleep quality and mental health among university students. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Working Memory: Recent Outlooks)

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16 pages, 667 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Encode a Letter and Get Its Location for Free? Assessing Incidental Binding of Verbal and Spatial Features

by Molly A. Delooze, Naomi Langerock, Robin Macy, Evie Vergauwe and Candice C. Morey

Brain Sci. 2022, 12(6), 685; https://doi.org/10.3390/brainsci12060685 - 24 May 2022

Cited by 1 | Viewed by 2019

Abstract

Previous studies have demonstrated that when presented with a display of spatially arranged letters, participants seem to remember the letters’ locations when letters are the focus of a recognition test, but do not remember letters’ identity when locations are tested. This strong binding asymmetry suggests that encoding location may be obligatory when remembering letters, which requires explanation within theories of working memory. We report two studies in which participants focused either on remembering letters or locations for a short interval. At test, positive probes were either intact letter–location combinations or recombinations of an observed letter and another previously occupied location. Incidental binding is observed when intact probes are recognized more accurately or faster than recombined probes. Here, however, we observed no evidence of incidental binding of location to letter in either experiment, neither under conditions where participants focused on one feature exclusively for a block, nor where the to-be-remembered feature was revealed prior to encoding with a changing pre-cue, nor where the to-be-remembered feature was retro-cued and therefore unknown during encoding. Our results call into question the robustness of a strong, consistent binding asymmetry. They suggest that while incidental location-to-letter binding may sometimes occur, it is not obligatory. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Working Memory: Recent Outlooks)

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23 pages, 738 KiB

Open AccessArticle

A Short and Engaging Adaptive Working-Memory Intervention for Children with Developmental Language Disorder: Effects on Language and Working Memory

by Lucy A. Henry, Emma Christopher, Shula Chiat and David J. Messer

Brain Sci. 2022, 12(5), 642; https://doi.org/10.3390/brainsci12050642 - 13 May 2022

Cited by 6 | Viewed by 3947

Abstract

Recent research has suggested that working-memory training interventions may benefit children with developmental language disorder (DLD). The current study investigated a short and engaging adaptive working-memory intervention that targeted executive skills and aimed to improve both language comprehension and working-memory abilities in children with DLD. Forty-seven 6- to 10-year-old children with DLD were randomly allocated to an executive working-memory training intervention (n = 24) or an active control group (n = 23). A pre-test/intervention/post-test/9-month-follow-up design was used. Outcome measures included assessments of language (to evaluate far transfer of the training) and working memory (to evaluate near transfer of the training). Hierarchical multiple regression analyses controlling for pre-intervention performance and age found the group to be a significant predictor of sentence comprehension and of performance on six untrained working-memory measures at post-intervention and 9-month follow-up. Children in the intervention group showed significantly higher language comprehension and working-memory scores at both time points than children in the active control group. The intervention programme showed the potential to improve working memory and language comprehension in children with DLD and demonstrated several advantages: it involved short sessions over a short period, caused little disruption in the school day, and was enjoyed by children. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Working Memory: Recent Outlooks)

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9 pages, 293 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Short-Term Memory for Auditory Temporal Patterns and Meaningless Sentences Predicts Learning of Foreign Word Forms

by Elisabet Service, Erin DeBorba, Angie Lopez-Cormier, Meliha Horzum and Daniel Pape

Brain Sci. 2022, 12(5), 549; https://doi.org/10.3390/brainsci12050549 - 26 Apr 2022

Cited by 2 | Viewed by 2327

Abstract

The ability to accurately repeat meaningless nonwords or lists of spoken digits in correct order have been associated with vocabulary acquisition in both first and second language. Individual differences in these tasks are thought to depend on the phonological loop component of working memory. However, phonological working memory may itself depend on more elementary processes. We asked whether auditory non-verbal short-term memory (STM) for patterns in time supports immediate recall of speech-based sequences. Participants tapped temporal sequences consisting of short and long beeps and repeated nonsense sentences sounding like their native language or an unfamiliar language. As a language learning task, they also memorized familiar-word–foreign-word pairs. Word learning was directly predicted by nonsense sentence repetition accuracy. It was also predicted by temporal pattern STM. However, this association was mediated by performance on the repetition measure. We propose that STM for temporal patterns may reflect a component skill that provides the context signal necessary to encode order in phonological STM. It would be needed to support representation of the prosodic profile of language material, which allows syllables in words and words in sentences to be ordered and temporally grouped for short-term representation and long-term learning. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Working Memory: Recent Outlooks)

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10 pages, 1062 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Early Auditory Processing Predicts Efficient Working Memory Functioning in Schizophrenia

by Oded Meiron, Jonathan David and Asaf Yaniv

Brain Sci. 2022, 12(2), 212; https://doi.org/10.3390/brainsci12020212 - 3 Feb 2022

Cited by 5 | Viewed by 1857

Abstract

Early auditory processing (EAP) deficits have been consistently documented in individuals diagnosed with schizophrenia (SZ). However, a relationship between EAP and executive attention has not been confirmed in SZ versus healthy controls (HC). The current study aimed to demonstrate that unlike HC, in SZ patients, auditory change-detection event-related potentials (ERPs) are significantly associated with executive working memory (WM) functioning. Additionally, correlational analyses investigated the relationships between patients’ auditory ERPs, WM performance, and schizophrenia symptom severity scores. We examined verbal WM accuracy associated with “executive-control” prefrontal cortex mechanisms and EAP ERPs under midline prefrontal electrodes in 12 SZ patients versus 12 demographically matched HC. Mismatch negativity (MMN) amplitudes and latencies in SZ patients were not significantly different from HC, however, their verbal WM performance was significantly impaired versus HC. Importantly, prolonged MMN latencies in the SZ group were correlated with better WM accuracy. In the HC group, WM accuracy was unrelated to MMN latencies. Patients’ MMN parameters were unrelated to schizophrenia symptom-domain severity. However, patients’ WM RTs and accuracy were significantly related to illness severity and negative symptom severity, respectively. Therefore, inefficient sensory excitation related to EAP timing may underlie poor executive verbal WM functioning and might indirectly exacerbate the severity of negative symptoms in SZ. Treatments targeting prefrontal cortex dysfunction in schizophrenia are discussed. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Working Memory: Recent Outlooks)

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Review

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16 pages, 331 KiB

Open AccessReview

Toward a New Approach to Investigate the Role of Working Memory in Stereotype Threat Effects

by Margaux Piroelle, Marlène Abadie and Isabelle Régner

Brain Sci. 2022, 12(12), 1647; https://doi.org/10.3390/brainsci12121647 - 1 Dec 2022

Viewed by 2355

Abstract

Stereotype threat arises when the activation of negative stereotypes about a group impairs performance of stigmatized individuals on stereotype relevant tasks. There is ample evidence that stereotype threat leads to performance detriments by consuming executive resources. Several studies indeed showed that working memory (WM) mediates stereotype threat effects among young adults. More recently, researchers have sought to understand whether the same mechanisms underlie age-based stereotype threat, but findings are mixed regarding the role of WM and some authors rather favor a motivational explanation based on regulatory fit. The present review critically appraises the empirical support for distinct forms of stereotype threat effects mediated by distinct mechanisms. We propose a novel approach based on one of the most recent WM models, the time-based resource sharing model, to evaluate the impact of stereotype threat on attentional resources in WM among both young and older adults. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Working Memory: Recent Outlooks)

16 pages, 883 KiB

Open AccessReview

Working Memory Models and Measures in Language and Bilingualism Research: Integrating Cognitive and Affective Perspectives

by Zhisheng (Edward) Wen, Mark Feng Teng, Lili Han and Yong Zeng

Brain Sci. 2022, 12(6), 729; https://doi.org/10.3390/brainsci12060729 - 1 Jun 2022

Cited by 3 | Viewed by 5290

Abstract

Although emotional or affective working memory (WM) is quite well established in general psychology, not much research has looked into its potential implications for the language sciences and bilingualism and second language acquisition (SLA) research until recently. To fill this gap, this paper aims to propose that WM has not just cognitive implications, but its affective dimension may also make complementary and unique contributions to language and bilingualism/SLA research. Towards this end, we first briefly synthesize the cognitive views of WM conceptions and assessment procedures in the current language sciences and bilingualism/SLA research. Next, we turn to discuss the theoretical models and assumptions of affective WM and explore their theoretical implications for bilingualism/SLA research based on emerging empirical evidence. Then, we propose a conceptual framework integrating cognitive and affective WM perspectives and further provide guidelines for designing affective WM span tasks that can be used in future affective WM–language research, focusing on the construction procedures of several emotion-based affective WM span tasks (e.g., the emotional reading span task, the emotional operation span task, and the emotional symmetry span task) as examples. Overall, we argue that affective feelings are also an integral part of the mental representations held in WM and future research in the language sciences and bilingualism/SLA should incorporate both cognitive and affective WM dimensions. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Working Memory: Recent Outlooks)

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