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We investigated the effects of the duration and type of to-be-articulated distractors during encoding of a verbal list into short-term memory (STM). Distractors and to-be-remembered items alternated during list presentation, as in the complex-span task that underlies much of working-memory research. According to an interference model of STM, known as serial order in a box (SOB; Farrell & Lewandowsky, 2002), additional repeated articulations of the same word between list items should cause minimal further disruption of encoding into STM even though the retention interval for early list items is increased. SOB also predicts that the articulation of several different distractor items should lead to much enhanced disruption if the distractor interval is increased. Those predictions were qualitatively confirmed in 4 experiments that found that it is the type of distractors, not their total duration, that determines the success of encoding a list into STM. The results pose a challenge to temporal models of complex-span performance, such as the time-based resource sharing model (Barrouillet, Bernardin, & Camos, 2004). The results add to a growing body of evidence that memory for the short term is not exclusively governed by purely temporal processes.
J Exp Psychol Learn Mem Cogn 2010 Jul
PMID:Turning simple span into complex span: Time for decay or interference from distractors? 2056 12

Four experiments examined the effect of phonological similarity between items and distractors on complex span performance. Item-distractor similarity benefited serial recall when distractors followed the items they were similar to, but not when distractors preceded the items they were similar to. These findings are predicted by C-SOB (contextual serial order in a box), a computational model of complex span. The model assumes that distractors are involuntarily encoded into memory, being associated to the preceding item's list position. Distractors interfere with items by superposition of distributed representations that are associated to the same position. Superposition distorts item memory; this distortion is less severe when the distractor is similar to the item. Further support for the assumption that distractors are encoded at the position of the preceding item comes from the finding that intrusions of distractors at recall tended to come from the position of the target item. In addition, intruding distractors tend to replace items to which they are similar, showing that lack of distinctiveness also contributes to interference.
J Exp Psychol Learn Mem Cogn 2012 May
PMID:Interference between maintenance and processing in working memory: the effect of item-distractor similarity in complex span. 2214 48

The sources of forgetting in working memory remain the matter of intense debate. According to the SOB model (serial order in a box; Farrell & Lewandowsky, 2002), forgetting in complex span tasks does not result from temporal decay but from interference produced by the encoding of distractors that are superimposed over memory items onto a composite memory. The main tenet of the model is that the encoding strength of a distractor is a function of its novelty, with novel distractors being encoded with a large encoding weight that interferes with other memories, whereas repeated distractors would result in negligible encoding weight and no further forgetting. In the present study, we tested the 2 main predictions issuing from this model. First, recall performance should be better in complex span tasks in which distractors are repeated than in tasks in which every distractor is novel. Second, increasing the number of novel distractors should lead to more interference and poorer recall. In 5 experiments in which we controlled for attentional demand and temporal factors, none of these predictions were verified, whereas a strong effect of the pace at which distracting tasks were performed testified that they involved forgetting. We conclude that, contrary to the SOB model, the novelty of distractors plays no role per se in forgetting. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2013 APA, all rights reserved).
J Exp Psychol Learn Mem Cogn 2013 Jan
PMID:Forgetting from working memory: does novelty encoding matter? 2256 35

The causal role of verbal rehearsal in working memory has recently been called into question. For example, the SOB-CS (Serial Order in a Box-Complex Span) model assumes that there is no maintenance process for the strengthening of items in working memory, but instead a process of removal of distractors that are involuntarily encoded and create interference with memory items. In the present study, we tested the idea that verbal working memory performance can be accounted for without assuming a causal role of the verbal rehearsal process. We demonstrate in two experiments using a complex span task and a Brown-Peterson paradigm that increasing the number of repetitions of the same distractor (the syllable ba that was read aloud at each of its occurrences on screen) has a detrimental effect on the concurrent maintenance of consonants whereas the maintenance of spatial locations remains unaffected. A detailed analysis of the tasks demonstrates that accounting for this effect within the SOB-CS model requires a series of unwarranted assumptions leading to undesirable further predictions contradicted by available experimental evidence. We argue that the hypothesis of a maintenance mechanism based on verbal rehearsal that is impeded by concurrent articulation still provides the simplest and most compelling account of our results.
Mem Cognit 2016 Feb
PMID:Working memory still needs verbal rehearsal. 2644 77

This study investigated the effects of serial position and temporal distinctiveness on serial recall of simple visual stimuli. Participants observed lists of five colors presented at varying, unpredictably ordered interitem intervals, and their task was to reproduce the colors in their order of presentation by selecting colors on a continuous-response scale. To control for the possibility of verbal labeling, articulatory suppression was required in one of two experimental sessions. The predictions were derived through simulation from two computational models of serial recall: SIMPLE represents the class of temporal-distinctiveness models, whereas SOB-CS represents event-based models. According to temporal-distinctiveness models, items that are temporally isolated within a list are recalled more accurately than items that are temporally crowded. In contrast, event-based models assume that the time intervals between items do not affect recall performance per se, although free time following an item can improve memory for that item because of extended time for the encoding. The experimental and the simulated data were fit to an interference measurement model to measure the tendency to confuse items with other items nearby on the list-the locality constraint-in people as well as in the models. The continuous-reproduction performance showed a pronounced primacy effect with no recency, as well as some evidence for transpositions obeying the locality constraint. Though not entirely conclusive, this evidence favors event-based models over a role for temporal distinctiveness. There was also a strong detrimental effect of articulatory suppression, suggesting that verbal codes can be used to support serial-order memory of simple visual stimuli.
Mem Cognit 2018 01
PMID:Serial recall of colors: Two models of memory for serial order applied to continuous visual stimuli. 2874 Dec 52