The focus of attention in working memory

Evidence from a word updating task

authored by

Markus Janczyk, Joachim Grabowski

Abstract

Three experiments examined the cognitive costs of item switching within working memory with a novel word updating task, thereby extending previous research to the field of linguistic stimuli and linguisticgraphemic updating operations. In Experiments 1 and 2 costs for switching between working memory items were evident on the word level, and they increased with an increasing word set size (Experiment 2). In contrast, a surprisingly similar switch effect on the level of letters was not affected by word set size (Experiment 2). Experiment 3 showed that this effect is not simply based on the need for re-orienting visual spatial attention. To account for the overall picture of results, a recursive model of attentional foci is proposed. Moreover, individual working memory span appears to be associated with the accuracy of item switching, but not with its speed.

Organisation(s)

Institute of Psychology

External Organisation(s)

Julius Maximilian University of Würzburg

Type

Article

Journal

MEMORY

Volume

19

Pages

211-225

No. of pages

15

ISSN

0965-8211

Publication date

02.2011

Publication status

Published

Peer reviewed

Yes

ASJC Scopus subject areas

Arts and Humanities (miscellaneous), General Psychology

Electronic version(s)

https://doi.org/10.1080/09658211.2010.546803 (Access: Unknown)