TY - GEN A1 - Nicenboim, Bruno A1 - Logacev, Pavel A1 - Gattei, Carolina A1 - Vasishth, Shravan T1 - When High-Capacity Readers Slow Down and Low-Capacity Readers Speed Up BT - Working Memory and Locality Effects N2 - We examined the effects of argument-head distance in SVO and SOV languages (Spanish and German), while taking into account readers' working memory capacity and controlling for expectation (Levy, 2008) and other factors. We predicted only locality effects, that is, a slowdown produced by increased dependency distance (Gibson, 2000; Lewis and Vasishth, 2005). Furthermore, we expected stronger locality effects for readers with low working memory capacity. Contrary to our predictions, low-capacity readers showed faster reading with increased distance, while high-capacity readers showed locality effects. We suggest that while the locality effects are compatible with memory-based explanations, the speedup of low-capacity readers can be explained by an increased probability of retrieval failure. We present a computational model based on ACT-R built under the previous assumptions, which is able to give a qualitative account for the present data and can be tested in future research. Our results suggest that in some cases, interpreting longer RTs as indexing increased processing difficulty and shorter RTs as facilitation may be too simplistic: The same increase in processing difficulty may lead to slowdowns in high-capacity readers and speedups in low-capacity ones. Ignoring individual level capacity differences when investigating locality effects may lead to misleading conclusions. T3 - Zweitveröffentlichungen der Universität Potsdam : Humanwissenschaftliche Reihe - 288 KW - locality KW - working memory capacity KW - individual differences KW - Spanish KW - German KW - ACT-R Y1 - 2016 U6 - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:kobv:517-opus4-90663 SP - 1 EP - 24 ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Nicenboim, Bruno A1 - Logacev, Pavel A1 - Gattei, Carolina A1 - Vasishth, Shravan T1 - When High-Capacity Readers Slow Down and Low-Capacity Readers Speed Up BT - Working Memory and Locality Effects JF - Frontiers in psychology N2 - We examined the effects of argument-head distance in SVO and SOV languages (Spanish and German), while taking into account readers' working memory capacity and controlling for expectation (Levy, 2008) and other factors. We predicted only locality effects, that is, a slowdown produced by increased dependency distance (Gibson, 2000; Lewis and Vasishth, 2005). Furthermore, we expected stronger locality effects for readers with low working memory capacity. Contrary to our predictions, low-capacity readers showed faster reading with increased distance, while high-capacity readers showed locality effects. We suggest that while the locality effects are compatible with memory-based explanations, the speedup of low-capacity readers can be explained by an increased probability of retrieval failure. We present a computational model based on ACT-R built under the previous assumptions, which is able to give a qualitative account for the present data and can be tested in future research. Our results suggest that in some cases, interpreting longer RTs as indexing increased processing difficulty and shorter RTs as facilitation may be too simplistic: The same increase in processing difficulty may lead to slowdowns in high-capacity readers and speedups in low-capacity ones. Ignoring individual level capacity differences when investigating locality effects may lead to misleading conclusions. KW - locality KW - working memory capacity KW - individual differences KW - Spanish KW - German KW - ACT-R Y1 - 2016 U6 - https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2016.00280 SN - 1664-1078 VL - 7 SP - 1 EP - 24 PB - Frontiers Research Foundation CY - Lausanne ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Nicenboim, Bruno A1 - Vasishth, Shravan A1 - Gattei, Carolina A1 - Sigman, Mariano A1 - Kliegl, Reinhold T1 - Working memory differences in long-distance dependency resolution JF - Frontiers in psychology N2 - There is a wealth of evidence showing that increasing the distance between an argument and its head leads to more processing effort, namely, locality effects: these are usually associated with constraints in working memory (DLT: Gibson, 2000: activation-based model: Lewis and Vasishth, 2005). In SOV languages, however, the opposite effect has been found: antilocality (see discussion in Levy et al., 2013). Antilocality effects can be explained by the expectation based approach as proposed by Levy (2008) or by the activation-based model of sentence processing as proposed by Lewis and Vasishth (2005). We report an eye-tracking and a self-paced reading study with sentences in Spanish together with measures of individual differences to examine the distinction between expectation- and memory based accounts, and within memory-based accounts the further distinction between DLT and the activation-based model. The experiments show that (i) antilocality effects as predicted by the expectation account appear only for high-capacity readers; (ii) increasing dependency length by interposing material that modifies the head of the dependency (the verb) produces stronger facilitation than increasing dependency length with material that does not modify the head; this is in agreement with the activation-based model but not with the expectation account; and (iii) a possible outcome of memory load on low-capacity readers is the increase in regressive saccades (locality effects as predicted by memory-based accounts) or, surprisingly, a speedup in the self-paced reading task; the latter consistent with good-enough parsing (Ferreira et al., 2002). In sum, the study suggests that individual differences in working memory capacity play a role in dependency resolution, and that some of the aspects of dependency resolution can be best explained with the activation-based model together with a prediction component. KW - locality KW - antilocality KW - working memory capacity KW - individual differences KW - Spanish KW - activation KW - DLT KW - expectation Y1 - 2015 U6 - https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2015.00312 SN - 1664-1078 VL - 6 PB - Frontiers Research Foundation CY - Lausanne ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Nicenboim, Bruno A1 - Vasishth, Shravan A1 - Gattei, Carolina A1 - Sigman, Mariano A1 - Kliegl, Reinhold T1 - Working memory differences in long-distance dependency resolution JF - Frontiers in psychology N2 - There is a wealth of evidence showing that increasing the distance between an argument and its head leads to more processing effort, namely, locality effects; these are usually associated with constraints in working memory (DLT: Gibson, 2000; activation-based model: Lewis and Vasishth, 2005). In SOV languages, however, the opposite effect has been found: antilocality (see discussion in Levy et al., 2013). Antilocality effects can be explained by the expectation-based approach as proposed by Levy (2008) or by the activation-based model of sentence processing as proposed by Lewis and Vasishth (2005). We report an eye-tracking and a self-paced reading study with sentences in Spanish together with measures of individual differences to examine the distinction between expectation- and memory-based accounts, and within memory-based accounts the further distinction between DLT and the activation-based model. The experiments show that (i) antilocality effects as predicted by the expectation account appear only for high-capacity readers; (ii) increasing dependency length by interposing material that modifies the head of the dependency (the verb) produces stronger facilitation than increasing dependency length with material that does not modify the head; this is in agreement with the activation-based model but not with the expectation account; and (iii) a possible outcome of memory load on low-capacity readers is the increase in regressive saccades (locality effects as predicted by memory-based accounts) or, surprisingly, a speedup in the self-paced reading task; the latter consistent with good-enough parsing (Ferreira et al., 2002). In sum, the study suggests that individual differences in working memory capacity play a role in dependency resolution, and that some of the aspects of dependency resolution can be best explained with the activation-based model together with a prediction component. KW - locality KW - antilocality KW - working memory capacity KW - individual differences KW - Spanish KW - activation KW - DLT KW - expectation Y1 - 2015 U6 - https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2015.00312 SN - 1664-1078 VL - 6 IS - 312 PB - Frontiers Research Foundation CY - Lausanne ER - TY - GEN A1 - Nicenboim, Bruno A1 - Vasishth, Shravan A1 - Gattei, Carolina A1 - Sigman, Mariano A1 - Kliegl, Reinhold T1 - Working memory differences in long-distance dependency resolution N2 - There is a wealth of evidence showing that increasing the distance between an argument and its head leads to more processing effort, namely, locality effects; these are usually associated with constraints in working memory (DLT: Gibson, 2000; activation-based model: Lewis and Vasishth, 2005). In SOV languages, however, the opposite effect has been found: antilocality (see discussion in Levy et al., 2013). Antilocality effects can be explained by the expectation-based approach as proposed by Levy (2008) or by the activation-based model of sentence processing as proposed by Lewis and Vasishth (2005). We report an eye-tracking and a self-paced reading study with sentences in Spanish together with measures of individual differences to examine the distinction between expectation- and memory-based accounts, and within memory-based accounts the further distinction between DLT and the activation-based model. The experiments show that (i) antilocality effects as predicted by the expectation account appear only for high-capacity readers; (ii) increasing dependency length by interposing material that modifies the head of the dependency (the verb) produces stronger facilitation than increasing dependency length with material that does not modify the head; this is in agreement with the activation-based model but not with the expectation account; and (iii) a possible outcome of memory load on low-capacity readers is the increase in regressive saccades (locality effects as predicted by memory-based accounts) or, surprisingly, a speedup in the self-paced reading task; the latter consistent with good-enough parsing (Ferreira et al., 2002). In sum, the study suggests that individual differences in working memory capacity play a role in dependency resolution, and that some of the aspects of dependency resolution can be best explained with the activation-based model together with a prediction component. T3 - Zweitveröffentlichungen der Universität Potsdam : Humanwissenschaftliche Reihe - paper 273 KW - locality KW - antilocality KW - working memory capacity KW - individual differences KW - Spanish KW - activation KW - DLT KW - expectation Y1 - 2015 U6 - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:kobv:517-opus4-75694 ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Rodriguez-Villagra, Odir Antonio A1 - Göthe, Katrin A1 - Oberauer, Klaus A1 - Kliegl, Reinhold T1 - Working memory capacity in a go/no-go task - age differences in interference, processing speed, and attentional control JF - Developmental psychology N2 - We tested the limits of working-memory capacity (WMC) of young adults, old adults, and children with a memory-updating task. The task consisted of mentally shifting spatial positions within a grid according to arrows, their color signaling either only go (control) or go/no-go conditions. The interference model (IM) of Oberauer and Kliegl (2006) was simultaneously fitted to the data of all groups. In addition to the 3 main model parameters (feature overlap, noise, and processing rate), we estimated the time for switching between go and no-go steps as a new model parameter. In this study, we examined the IM parameters across the life span. The IM parameter estimates show that (a) conditions were not different in interference by feature overlap and interference by confusion; (b) switching costs time; (c) young adults and children were less susceptible than old adults to interference due to feature overlap; (d) noise was highest for children, followed by old and young adults; (e) old adults differed from children and young adults in lower processing rate; and (f) children and old adults had a larger switch cost between go steps and no-go steps. Thus, the results of this study indicated that across age, the IM parameters contribute distinctively for explaining the limits of WMC. KW - working memory capacity KW - interference model KW - inhibition KW - children KW - old adults and young adults Y1 - 2013 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1037/a0030883 SN - 0012-1649 VL - 49 IS - 9 SP - 1683 EP - 1696 PB - American Psychological Association CY - Washington ER - TY - THES A1 - Rodríguez-Villagra, Odir Antonio T1 - Inhibition, attentional control, and causes of forgetting in working memory: a formal approach T1 - Hemmung, Aufmerksamkeitskontrolle und Ursachen für das Vergessen im Arbeitsgedächtnis: ein formaler Ansatz BT - experimental effects, age differences, and individual differences in working memory capacity BT - experimentelle Effekte, Altersunterschiede und individuelle Unterschiede in der Kapazität des Arbeitsgedächtnisses N2 - In many cognitive activities, the temporary maintenance and manipulation of mental objects is a necessary step in order to reach a cognitive goal. Working memory has been regarded as the process responsible for those cognitive activities. This thesis addresses the question: what limits working-memory capacity (WMC)? A question that still remains controversial (Barrouillet & Camos, 2009; Lewandowsky, Oberauer, & Brown, 2009). This study attempted to answer this question by proposing that the dynamics between the causes of forgetting and the processes helping the maintenance, and the manipulation of the memoranda are the key aspects in understanding the limits of WMC. Chapter 1 introduced key constructs and the strategy to examine the dynamics between inhibition, attentional control, and the causes of forgetting in working memory. The study in Chapter 2 tested the performance of children, young adults, and old adults in a working-memory updating-task with two conditions: one condition included go steps and the other condition included go, and no-go steps. The interference model (IM; Oberauer & Kliegl, 2006), a model proposing interference-related mechanisms as the main cause of forgetting was used to simultaneously fit the data of these age groups. In addition to the interference-related parameters reflecting interference by feature overwriting and interference by confusion, and in addition to the parameters reflecting the speed of processing, the study included a new parameter that captured the time for switching between go steps and no-go steps. The study indicated that children and young adults were less susceptible than old adults to interference by feature overwriting; children were the most susceptible to interference by confusion, followed by old adults and then by young adults; young adults presented the higher rate of processing, followed by children and then by old adults; and young adults were the fastest group switching from go steps to no-go steps. Chapter 3 examined the dynamics between causes of forgetting and the inhibition of a prepotent response in the context of three formal models of the limits of WMC: A resources model, a decay-based model, and three versions of the IM. The resources model was built on the assumption that a limited and shared source of activation for the maintenance and manipulation of the objects underlies the limits of WMC. The decay model assumes that memory traces of the working-memory objects decay over time if they are not reactivated via different mechanisms of maintenance. The IM, already described, proposes that interference-related mechanisms explain the limits of WMC. In two experiments and in a reanalysis of data of the second experiment, one version of the IM received more statistical support from the data. This version of the IM proposes that interference by feature overwriting and interference by confusion are the main factors underlying the limits of WMC. In addition, the model suggests that experimental conditions involving the inhibition of a prepotent response reduce the speed of processing and promotes the involuntary activation of irrelevant information in working memory. Chapter 4 summed up Chapter 2 and 3 and discussed their findings and presented how this thesis has provided evidence of interference-related mechanisms as the main cause of forgetting, and it has attempted to clarify the role of inhibition and attentional control in working memory. With the implementation of formal models and experimental manipulations in the framework of nonlinear mixed models the data offered explanations of causes of forgetting and the role of inhibition in WMC at different levels: developmental effects, aging effects, effects related to experimental manipulations and individual differences in these effects. Thus, the present approach afforded a comprehensive view of a large number of factors limiting WMC. N2 - Bei vielen kognitiven Aktivitäten ist die vorübergehende Speicherung und Manipulation von Mental Objects ein notwendiger Schritt um ein kognitiven Ziel zu erreichen. Diese Prozesse finden im Arbeitsgedächtnis statt. Diese Dissertation behandelt die Frage wodurch die Kapazität des Arbeitsgedächtnisses (Working Memory Capacity, WMC) limitiert wird. Dieses Thema wurde in der Literatur bislang kontrovers diskutiert (Barrouillet & Camos, 2009; Lewandowsky, Oberauer, & Brown, 2009). Es wird hier vorgeschlagen, dass die Dynamik zwischen den Ursachen des Vergessens und den Prozessen, welche die Aufrechterhaltung unterstützen, und die Manipulation der Memoranda die Grundlagen für das Verständnis der WMC-Limitierung bildet. Kapitel 1 führt in das Thema ein und erklärt die Strategie um die Dynamik zwischen Hemmung, Aufmerksamkeitskontrolle und den Ursachen des Vergessens im Arbeitsgedächtnis zu untersuchen. Die Untersuchung in Kapitel 2 testet die Leistung von Kindern, jungen und alten Erwachsenen in einem Working Memory Updating Task mit zwei Bedingungen; eine beinhaltet Go-Steps, die andere Go- und No-Go Steps. Die Daten der Experimentalgruppen wurden mithilfe des Interferenzmodells (IM; Oberauer & Kliegl, 2006), welches Interferenz-ähnliche Mechanismen als Hauptursache des Vergessens postuliert, simultan gefitted. Zusätzlich zu Interferenz-ähnlichen Parametern, die Interferenz durch Feature-Overwriting oder Ablenkung beinhalten, sowie Parametern welche die Geschwindigkeit der Informationsverarbeitung repräsentieren, wurde ein neuer Parameter eingeführt. Dieser beschreibt die benötigte Zeit um zwischen Go- und No-Go Steps zu unterscheiden. Es wird gezeigt, dass Kinder und junge Erwachsene weniger anfällig für Interferenz durch Feature-Overwriting waren als alte Erwachsene. Kinder waren am anfälligsten für Interferenz durch Ablenkung, gefolgt von alten Erwachsenen und jungen Erwachsenen. Junge Erwachsene zeigten die schnellste Verarbeitungsrate, gefolgt von Kindern und alten Erwachsenen. Weiterhin wechselten junge Erwachsene am schnellsten zwischen Go- und No-Go Steps. In Kapitel 3 werden die Dynamik zwischen den Ursachen des Vergessens und der Hemmung einer Prepotent Response im Kontext von folgenden drei formellen Modellen der Beschränkung des WMC beschrieben: Ein Ressource-Modell, ein Decay-Based-Modell und drei Versionen des IMs. Die Annahme, dass der Begrenzung der WMC eine beschränkte und eine gemeinsame Ursache der Aktivierung für die Aufrechterhaltung und Manipulation von Objekten zugrunde liegt wurde benutzt um das Ressource-Modell zu konstruieren. Das Decay-Modell nimmt an, dass Memory-Traces von Objekten im Arbeitsgedächtnis mit der Zeit verblassen, wenn sie nicht durch Mechanismen zur Aufrechterhaltung reaktiviert werden. Das IM (s.o.) besagt, dass Interferenz-ähnliche Mechanismen die Limitierung des WMC erklären können. In zwei Experimenten sowie einer Reanalyse der Daten des zweiten Experiments konnte eine der Versionen des IM als statistisch plausibler als die anderen beiden erkannt werden. In dieser Version des IM werden Feature-Overwriting und Interferenz durch Ablenkung als Hauptfaktoren für die Limitierung des WMCs beschrieben. Zusätzlich werden experimentelle Bedingungen welche eine Hemmung der Prepotent Response beinhalten als reduzierende Faktoren für die Geschwindigkeit der Informationsverarbeitung sowie für die unfreiwillige Aktivierung irrelevanter Information im WM genannt. Kapitel 4 fasst Kapitel 2 und 3 zusammen und zeigt, wie diese Arbeit Evidenz für Interferenz-ähnliche Mechanismen als Hauptursache des Vergessens liefert; weiterhin wird versucht die Rolle der Hemmung und Aufmerksamkeitskontrolle im Arbeitsgedächtnis zu erklären. Mit der Implementierung von formalen Modellen und experimentellen Manipulationen im Rahmen von Nonlinear-Mixed-Models konnten die Ursachen des Vergessens und die Rolle der Hemmung im WMC auf verschiedenen Ebenen erklärt werden. Entwicklungseffekte, altersbedingte Effekte, Effekte durch experimentelle Manipulationen sowie individuelle Unterschiede in diesen Effekten spielten eine wichtige Rolle. Die hier vorgestellte Herangehensweise ermöglicht daher einen umfassenden Blick auf eine große Anzahl auf WMC-limitierende Faktoren. KW - working memory capacity KW - attentional control KW - inhibition KW - formal cognitive models KW - age differences KW - Arbeitsgedächtniskapazität KW - Aufmerksamkeitskontrolle KW - Hemmung KW - formale kognitive Modelle KW - Altersunterschiede Y1 - 2013 U6 - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:kobv:517-opus4-76434 N1 - Chapter 2 of this dissertation is presented as: Rodríguez-Villagra, Odir Antonio; Göthe, Katrin; Oberauer, Klaus; Kliegl, Reinhold (2013). Working memory capacity in a go/no-go task: Age differences in interference, processing speed, and attentional control. Developmental Psychology, 49 (9), 1683-1696. doi:10.1037/a0030883 ER -