TY  - JOUR
A1  - Soemer, Alexander
T1  - Task-unrelated thoughts and forgetting in working memory
JF  - Journal of memory and language
N2  - The present article reports four experiments that investigated the effects of task-unrelated thoughts (TUTs) on forgetting in non-verbal working memory. Participants had to remember three non-verbal stimuli over unfilled retention intervals (RIs) and then judge whether or not a subsequently presented probe stimulus matched one of the to-be-remembered stimuli. Participants additionally responded to randomly appearing probes that measured different aspects of their TUT engagement during the RI of the preceding trial. Forgetting over unfilled RIs was observed in three of four experiments and reliably associated with the proportion of time spent on TUTs. In contrast, the visual and auditory nature of the TUTs and the number of different TUTs did not reliably predict forgetting. The results support the view that TUTs block attention-based processes that are needed for restoring decaying memory representations rather than an alternative account in terms of interference caused by the content of the TUTs.
KW  - Short-term memory
KW  - Working memory
KW  - Forgetting
KW  - Decay
KW  - Interference
KW  - Mind wandering
Y1  - 2019
U6  - https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jml.2019.03.004
SN  - 0749-596X
SN  - 1096-0821
VL  - 106
SP  - 118
EP  - 134
PB  - Elsevier
CY  - San Diego
ER  - 
TY  - JOUR
A1  - Vock, Miriam
A1  - Preckel, Franzis
A1  - Rolling, Heinz
T1  - Mental abilities and school achievement a test of a mediation hypothesis
JF  - Intelligence
N2  - This study analyzes the interplay of four cognitive abilities - reasoning, divergent thinking, mental speed, and short-term memory - and their impact on academic achievement in school in a sample of adolescents in grades seven to 10 (N = 1135). Based on information processing approaches to intelligence, we tested a mediation hypothesis, which states that the complex cognitive abilities of reasoning and divergent thinking mediate the influence of the basic cognitive abilities of mental speed and short-term memory on achievement. We administered a comprehensive test battery and analyzed the data through structural equation modeling while controlling for the cluster structure of the data. Our findings support the notion that mental speed and short-term memory, as ability factors reflecting basic cognitive processes, exert an indirect influence on academic achievement by affecting reasoning and divergent thinking (total indirect effects: beta=.22 and .24. respectively). Short-term memory also directly affects achievement (beta=.22).
KW  - Academic achievement
KW  - Mental speed
KW  - Short-term memory
KW  - Reasoning
KW  - Divergent thinking
KW  - Grades
KW  - Prediction
Y1  - 2011
U6  - https://doi.org/10.1016/j.intell.2011.06.006
SN  - 0160-2896
VL  - 39
IS  - 5
SP  - 357
EP  - 369
PB  - Elsevier
CY  - New York
ER  - 
TY  - JOUR
A1  - Lange, Elke B.
A1  - Starzynski, Christian
A1  - Engbert, Ralf
T1  - Capture of the gaze does not capture the mind
JF  - Attention, perception, & psychophysics : AP&P ; a journal of the Psychonomic Society, Inc.
N2  - Sudden visual changes attract our gaze, and related eye movement control requires attentional resources. Attention is a limited resource that is also involved in working memory-for instance, memory encoding. As a consequence, theory suggests that gaze capture could impair the buildup of memory respresentations due to an attentional resource bottleneck. Here we developed an experimental design combining a serial memory task (verbal or spatial) and concurrent gaze capture by a distractor (of high or low similarity to the relevant item). The results cannot be explained by a general resource bottleneck. Specifically, we observed that capture by the low-similar distractor resulted in delayed and reduced saccade rates to relevant items in both memory tasks. However, while spatial memory performance decreased, verbal memory remained unaffected. In contrast, the high-similar distractor led to capture and memory loss for both tasks. Our results lend support to the view that gaze capture leads to activation of irrelevant representations in working memory that compete for selection at recall. Activation of irrelevant spatial representations distracts spatial recall, whereas activation of irrelevant verbal features impairs verbal memory performance.
KW  - Attention
KW  - Memory
KW  - Cognitive eye movements
KW  - Visual working memory
KW  - Short-term memory
Y1  - 2012
U6  - https://doi.org/10.3758/s13414-012-0318-8
SN  - 1943-3921
VL  - 74
IS  - 6
SP  - 1168
EP  - 1182
PB  - Springer
CY  - New York
ER  -