Variations in working memory capacity From cognition to brain networks

I feel grateful /ˈɡreɪt.fəl/ feeling gratitude to someone for a helpful act thankful /ˈθaeŋk.fəl/ glad that something has happened, that someone exists indebted /ɪnˈdet.ɪd/ owing gratitude to someone because of help given appreciative /əˈpriː.ʃə.tɪv/ showing an understanding of how good something is beholden /bɪˈhəʊl.dən/ feeling of having a duty to someone because of what they have done to every single one of you. 1 General Introduction General Introduction 3 " Working memory " is the ability to maintain and manipulate information that is no longer available to our senses. We use it when trying to comprehend a story (e.g. linking a pronoun to one of the previously introduced characters), or when following directions of our fellow passenger (e.g., " take the first turn left and then go on a roundabout, third exit "). Minor distractions on the road or thoughts, which are unrelated to the task at hand, sidetrack attention, and the contents of working memory can be lost for good. The above examples indicate that the number of active thoughts kept in our mental cognitive space is limited and vulnerable to distractions. Many studies demonstrate that the " size " of this cognitive space, termed working memory capacity (WMC), varies among healthy people (Redick et al., 2012), is decreased in certain clinical conditions such as Schizophrenia (Johnson et al. Measures of WMC are tightly linked to variability in definitions of the term itself Some researchers have argued that WMC " is not about the storage or memory per se, but about the capacity for controlled, sustained attention in the face of interference or distraction " (Engle, Kane, & Tuholski, 1999; p. 104), emphasizing the critical role of attention control abilities in defining an individual's WMC. Proponents of this approach use complex span tasks (Figure 1.1A), such as operation span (Unsworth, Heitz, Schrock, & Engle, 2005) and symmetry span tasks (Kane et al., 2004), to estimate WMC. The key component of complex span tasks is the need to switch attention back and forth between the primary memory task (remembering sequences of letters or locations) and the secondary processing task (solving math equations or judging symmetry of complex patterns). As such, complex span tasks resemble real-life situations in which one needs to keep in mind some information while processing other information (e.g. mental two-digit multiplication). Other researchers suggested that WMC depends on individual differences in the amount of information that can …