The present study investigated the impact of task-irrelevant emotional images on retention information in spatial working memory (WM). Two experiments employed a delayed matching to-sample task where participants had to maintain locations four briefly presented squares. After short interval, probe item appeared and were required indicate whether position matched one previously occupied square p...

Working memory (WM) designates the retention of objects or events in conscious awareness when these are not present in the environment. Many studies have focused on the interference properties of distracter stimuli in working memory, but these studies have mainly examined the influence of the intensity of these stimuli. Little is known about the memory modulation of hedonic content of distracte...

A major difference between humans and other animals is our capacity to maintain information in working memory (WM) while performing secondary tasks, which enables sustained, complex cognition. A common assumption is that the lateral prefrontal cortex (PFC) is critical for WM performance in the presence of distracters, but direct evidence is scarce. We assessed the relationship between fMRI acti...

As working memory (WM) is compromised with advancing age, older people may have performance deficits in WM tasks. This is probably due to a great number of WM operations which should be performed for extended periods of time. The reduction of a number of these operations was expected to reduce WM load and age-related deficits in WM performance. Fifty younger (29±3 years) and 49 older (55±3 year...

Standard working memory (WM) updating tasks confound updating requirements with generic WM functions. We introduce a method for isolating a process unique to WM updating, namely the removal of no-longer relevant information. In a modified version of an established updating paradigm, tobe-updated items were cued before the new memoranda were presented. Longer cue-stimulus intervals—that is, long...

Event-related potentials (ERPs) were recorded using a large electrode array while subjects engaged in tasks designed to dissociate control from storage/maintenance processes in verbal working memory (WM). Increased ERP negativity (450-900 ms post-stimulus onset) over left frontal regions emerged only when required dynamic updating/revision of WM stores was initiated, with augmentation of right ...

We examined the development of children's engagement of the episodic retrieval processes of recollection and familiarity and their relationship with working memory (WM). Ninety-six children (24 in four groups aged 8, 9, 10, and 11 years) and 24 adults performed an episodic memory (EM) task involving old/new, remember/know (R/K), and source memory judgements and numerous WM tasks that assessed v...

Background: Dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC), posterior parietal cortex, and regions in the occipital cortex have been identified as neural sites for visual working memory (WM). The exact involvement of the DLPFC in verbal and non-verbal working memory processes, and how these processes depend on the time-span for retention, remains disputed. Methods: We used functional MRI to explore the...

Across many areas of study in cognition, the capacity of working memory (WM) is widely agreed to be roughly three to five items: three to five objects (i.e., bound collections of object features) in the literature on visual WM or three to five role bindings (i.e., objects in specific relational roles) in the literature on memory and reasoning. Three experiments investigated the capacity of obse...

A long-standing assumption of cognitive neuroscience has been that working memory (WM) is accomplished by sustained, elevated neural activity. More recently, theories of WM have expanded this view by describing different attentional states in WM with differing activation levels. Several studies have used multivariate pattern analysis (MVPA) of functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) and el...