Working-Memory Capacity and the Control of Attention: The Contributions of Goal Neglect, Response Competition, and Task Set to Stroop Interference

Journal of Experimental Psychology: General

Volumn 132, Issue 1, 2003, Pages 47-70

  Kane, Michael J ^a   Engle, Randall W ^b  

^a UNIVERSITY OF NORTH CAROLINA AT GREENSBORO   (United States)

^b GEORGIA INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY   (United States)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

ADULT; ARTICLE; ATTENTION; COMPETITIVE BEHAVIOR; HUMAN; MEMORY; MOTIVATION; PSYCHOLOGIC TEST; RANDOMIZATION; REACTION TIME;

ADULT; ATTENTION; COMPETITIVE BEHAVIOR; GOALS; HUMANS; MEMORY; PSYCHOLOGICAL TESTS; RANDOM ALLOCATION; REACTION TIME;

EID: 0037968236     PISSN: 00963445     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1037/0096-3445.132.1.47     Document Type: Article

References (107)

1. Ahola, K., Vilkki, J., & Servo, A. (1996). Frontal tests do not detect frontal infarctions after ruptured intracranial aneurysm. Brain and Cognition, 31, 1-16.
2. Baddeley, A. D. (1986). Working memory. London/New York: Oxford University Press.
3. Baddeley, A. D. (1993). Working memory or working attention? In A. Baddeley & L. Weiskrantz (Eds.), Attention: Selection, awareness, and control (pp. 152-170). Oxford, England: Oxford University Press.
4. Baddeley, A. D., & Hitch, G. (1974). Working memory. In G. A. Bower (Ed.), The psychology of learning and motivation (Vol. 8, pp. 47-89). New York: Academic Press.
5. Bench, C. J., Frith, C. D., Grasby, P. M., Friston, K. J., Paulesu, E., Frackowiak, R. S. J., & Dolan, R. J. (1993). Investigations of the functional anatomy of attention using the Stroop test. Neuropsychologia, 31, 907-922.
6. Bleckley, M. K. (2001). Individual differences in visual attention and working memory capacity: Further distinctions between where and what. Unpublished doctoral dissertation, Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta, GA.
7. Braver, T. S., & Cohen, J. D. (2000). On the control of control: The role of dopamine in regulating prefrontal function and working memory. In S. Monsell & J. Driver (Eds.), Attention and performance XVIII: Control of cognitive processes (pp. 713-737). Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
8. Brewin, C. R., & Beaton, A. (2002). Thought suppression, intelligence, and working memory capacity. Behavior Research and Therapy, 40, 923-930.
9. Buckley, T. C., Blanchard, E. B., & Hickling, E. J. (2002). Automatic and strategic processing of threat stimuli: A comparison between PTSD, panic disorder, and nonanxiety controls. Cognitive Therapy and Research, 26, 97-115.
10. Cohen, J. D., Barch, D. M., Carter, C., & Servan-Schreiber, D. (1999). Context-processing deficits in schizophrenia: Converging evidence from three theoretically motivated cognitive tasks. Journal of Abnormal Psychology, 108, 120-133.
11. Cohen, J. D., Dunbar, K., & McClelland, J. L. (1990). On the control of automatic processes: A parallel distributed processing account of the Stroop effect. Psychological Review, 97, 332-361.
12. Cohen, J. D., & Servan-Schreiber, D. (1992). Context, cortex, and dopamine: A connectionist approach to behavior and biology in schizophrenia. Psychological Review, 99, 45-77.
13. Conway, A. R. A., Cowan, N., & Bunting, M. F. (2001). The cocktail party phenomenon revisited: The importance of working memory capacity. Psychonomic Bulletin and Review, 8, 331-335.
14. Conway, A. R. A., Cowan, N., Bunting, M. P., Therriault, D., & Minkoff, S. (2002). A latent variable analysis of working memory capacity, short term memory capacity, processing speed, and general fluid intelligence. Intelligence, 30, 163-183.
15. Conway, A. R. A., & Engle, R. W. (1994). Working memory and retrieval: A resource-dependent inhibition model. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 123, 354-373.
16. Conway, A. R. A., & Engle, R. W. (1996). Individual differences in working memory capacity: More evidence for a general capacity theory. Memory, 4, 577-590.
17. Conway, A. R. A., & Kane, M. J. (2001). Capacity, control and conflict: An individual differences perspective on attentional capture. In C. Folks & B. Gibson (Eds.), Attraction, distraction and action: Multiple perspectives on attention capture (pp. 349-372). Amsterdam: Elsevier Science.
18. Conway, A. R. A., Tuholski, S. W., Shisler, R. J., & Engle, R. W. (1999). The effect of memory load on negative priming: An individual differences investigation. Memory & Cognition, 27, 1042-1050.
19. Daneman, M., & Carpenter, P. A. (1980). Individual differences in working memory and reading. Journal of Verbal Learning and Verbal Behavior, 19, 450-466.
20. De Jong, R. (2000). An intention-activation account of residual switch costs. In S. Monsell & J. Driver (Eds.), Control of Cognitive Processes: Attention and Performance XVIII (pp. 357-376). Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
21. De Jong, R. (2001). Adult age differences in goal activation and goal maintenance. European Journal of Cognitive Psychology, 13, 71-89.
22. De Jong, R. D., Berendsen, E., & Cools, R. (1999). Goal neglect and inhibitory limitations: Dissociable causes of interference effects in conflict situations. Acta Psychologica, 101, 379-394.
23. Dempster, F. N. (1991). Inhibitory processes: A neglected dimension in intelligence. Intelligence, 15, 157-173.
24. Dempster, F. N. (1992). The rise and fall of the inhibitory mechanism: Toward a unified theory of cognitive development and aging. Developmental Review, 12, 45-75.
25. Duncan, J. (1990). Goal weighting and the choice of behavior in a complex world. Ergonomics, 33, 1265-1279.
26. Duncan, J. (1993). Selection of input and goal in the control of behavior. In A. Baddeley & L. Weiskrantz (Eds.), Attention: Selection, awareness, and control (pp. 53-71). Oxford, England: Oxford University Press.
27. Duncan, J. (1995). Attention, intelligence, and the frontal lobes. In M. Gazzaniga (Ed.), The cognitive neurosciences (pp. 721-733). Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
28. Duncan, J., Burgess, P., & Emslie, H. (1995). Fluid intelligence after frontal lobe lesions. Neuropsychologia, 33, 261-268.
29. Duncan, J., Emslie, H., Williams, P., Johnson, R., & Freer, C. (1996). Intelligence and the frontal lobe: The organization of goal-directed behavior. Cognitive Psychology, 30, 257-303.
30. Engle, R. W. (1996). Working memory and retrieval: An inhibition-resource approach. In J. T. E. Richardson, R. W. Engle, L. Hasher, R. H. Logie, E. R. Stoltzfus, & R. T. Zacks (Eds.), Working memory and human cognition (pp. 89-119). New York: Oxford University Press.
31. Engle, R. W. (2001). What is working memory capacity? In H. L. Roediger, J. S. Nairne, I. Neath, & A. M. Suprenant (Eds.), The nature of remembering: Essays in honor of Robert C. Crowder (pp. 297-314). Washington, DC: American Psychological Association.
32. Engle, R. W. (2002). Working memory capacity as executive attention. Current Directions in Psychological Science, 11, 19-23.
33. Engle, R. W., Cantor, J., & Carullo, J. J. (1992). Individual differences in working memory and comprehension: A test of four hypotheses. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition, 18, 972-992.
34. Engle, R. W., Kane, M. J., & Tuholski, S. W. (1999). Individual differences in working memory capacity and what they tell us about controlled attention, general fluid intelligence and functions of the prefrontal cortex. In A. Miyake & P. Shah (Eds.), Models of working memory: Mechanisms of active maintenance and executive control (pp. 102-134). New York: Cambridge University Press.
35. Engle, R. W., Tuholski, S. W., Laughlin, J. E., & Conway, A. R. A. (1999). Working memory, short-term memory and general fluid intelligence: A latent variable approach. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 128, 309-331.
36. Ericsson, K. A., & Delaney, P. F. (1999). Long-term working memory as an alternative to capacity models of working memory in everyday skilled performance. In A. Miyake & P. Shah (Eds.), Models of working memory: Mechanisms of active maintenance and executive control (pp. 257-297). New York: Cambridge University Press.
37. Hallett, P. E. (1978). Primary and secondary saccades to goals defined by instructions. Vision Research, 18, 1279-1296.
38. Hallett, P. E., & Adams, B. D. (1980). The predictability of saccadic latency in a novel voluntary oculomotor task. Vision Research, 20, 329-339.
39. Hasher, L., & Zacks, R. T. (1988). Working memory, comprehension, and aging: A review and a new view. In G. H. Bower (Ed.), The psychology of learning and motivation: Advances in research and theory (Vol. 22, pp. 193-225). San Diego, CA: Academic Press.
40. Heathcote, A., Popiel, S. J., & Mewhort, D. J. K. (1991). Analysis of response time distributions: An example using the Stroop task. Psychological Bulletin, 109, 340-347.
41. Jacoby, L. L., McElree, B., & Trainham, T. N. (1999). Automatic influences as accessibility bias in memory and Stroop tasks: Toward a formal model. In D. Gopher & A. Koriat (Eds.), Attention and performance XVII: Cognitive regulation of performance: Interaction of theory and application (pp. 461-486). Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
42. Jensen, A. R. (1965). Scoring the Stroop test. Acta Psychologica, 24, 398-408.
43. Jensen, A. R., & Rohwer, W. D. (1966). The Stroop color-word test: A review. Acta Psychologica, 25, 36-93.
44. Kane, M. J., Bleckley, M. K., Conway, A. R. A., & Engle, R. W. (2001). A controlled-attention view of working-memory capacity. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 130, 169-183.
45. Kane, M. J., & Engle, R. W. (2000). Working memory capacity, proactive interference, and divided attention: Limits on long-term memory retrieval. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition, 26, 336-358.
46. Kane, M. J., & Engle, R. W. (in press). The role of prefrontal cortex in working-memory capacity, executive attention, and general fluid intelligence: An individual-differences perspective. Psychonomic Bulletin and Review.
47. Klein, K., & Boals, A. (2001). Expressive writing can increase working memory capacity. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 130, 520-533.
48. Klein, K., & Fiss, W. H. (1999). The reliability and stability of the Turner and Engle working memory task. Behavior Research Methods, Instruments and Computers, 31, 429-432.
49. Kyllonen, P. C., & Christal, R. E. (1990). Reasoning ability is (little more than) working-memory capacity?! Intelligence, 14, 389-433.
50. La Pointe, L. B., & Engle, R. W. (1990). Simple and complex word spans as measures of working memory capacity. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition, 16, 1118-1133.
51. Lehto, J. (1996). Are executive function tests dependent on working memory capacity? Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Experimental Psychology, 49(A), 29-50.
52. Lindsay, D. S., & Jacoby, L. L. (1994). Stroop process dissociations: The relationship between facilitation and interference. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance, 20, 219-234.
53. Liotti, M., Woldorff, M. G., Perez, R., & Mayberg, H. S. (2000). An ERP study of the temporal course of the Stroop color-word interference effect. Neuropsychologia, 38, 701-711.
54. Logan, G. D., & Zbrodoff, N. J. (1979). When it helps to be misled: Facilitative effects of increasing the frequency of conflicting stimuli in a Stroop-like task. Memory & Cognition, 7, 166-174.
55. Logan, G. D., & Zbrodoff, N. J. (1998). Stroop-type interference: Congruity effects in color naming with typewritten responses. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance, 24, 978-992.
56. Long, D. L., & Prat, C. S. (2002). Working memory and Stroop interference: An individual differences investigation. Memory & Cognition, 3, 294-301.
57. Lowe, D. G., & Mitterer, J. O. (1982). Selective and divided attention in a Stroop task. Canadian Journal of Psychology, 36, 684-700.
58. Lundh, L. G., Wikstroem, J., & Westerlund, J. (2001). Cognitive bias, emotion, and somatic complaints in a normal sample. Cognition & Emotion, 15, 249-277.
59. MacDonald, A. W., III, Cohen, J. D., Stenger, V. A., & Carter, C. S. (2000, June). Dissociating the role of the dorsolateral prefrontal and anterior cingulate cortex in cognitive control. Science, 288, 1835-1838.
60. MacLeod, C. M. (1991). Half a century of research on the Stroop effect: An integrative review. Psychological Bulletin, 109, 163-203.
61. MacLeod, C. M. (1998). Training on integrated versus separated Stroop tasks: The progression of interference and facilitation. Memory & Cognition, 26, 201-211.
62. MacLeod, C. M., & MacDonald, P. A. (2000a). Facilitation in the Stroop task is illusory: The inadvertent reading hypothesis. Manuscript under review.
63. MacLeod, C. M., & MacDonald, P. A. (2000b). Interdimensional interference in the Stroop effect: Uncovering the cognitive and neural anatomy of attention. Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 4, 383-391.
64. McNamara, D. S., & Scott, J. L. (2001). Working memory capacity and strategy use. Memory & Cognition, 29, 10-17.
65. Miller, E. K. (2000). The prefrontal cortex and cognitive control. Nature Neuroscience Reviews, 1, 59-65.
66. Miller, G. A. (1956). The magical number seven, plus or minus two: Some limits on our capacity for processing information. Psychological Review, 63, 81-97.
67. Miyake, A., Friedman, N. P., Emerson, M. J., Witzki, A. H., & Howerter, A. (2000). The unity and diversity of executive functions and their contributions to complex "frontal lobe" tasks: A latent variable analysis. Cognitive Psychology, 41, 49-100.
68. Moray, N. (1959). Attention in dichotic listening: Affective cues and the influence of instructions. Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology, 11, 56-60.
69. Norman, D. A. (1981). Categorization of action slips. Psychological Review, 88, 1-15.
70. Norman, D. A., & Shallice, T. (1986). Attention to action: Willed and automatic control of behavior. In R. J. Davidson, G. E. Schwartz, & D. Shapiro (Eds.), Consciousness and self-regulation: Advances in research and theory (Vol. 4, pp. 1-18). New York: Plenum Press.
71. Oberauer, K., Süß, H.-M., Wilhelm, O. & Wittmann, W. W. (in press): The multiple faces of working memory: Storage, processing, supervision, and coordination. Intelligence.
72. O'Reilly, R. C., Braver, T. S., & Cohen, J. D. (1999). A biologically-based computational model of working memory. In A. Miyake & P. Shah (Eds.), Models of working memory: Mechanisms of active maintenance and executive control (pp. 375-411). New York: Cambridge University Press.
73. Pardo, J. V., Pardo, P. J., Janer, K. W., & Raichle, M. E. (1990). The anterior cingulate cortex mediates processing selection in the Stroop attentional conflict paradigm. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, USA, 87, 256-259.
74. Park, S., Püschel, J., Sauter, B. H., Rentsch, M., & Hell, D. (1999). Spatial working memory deficits and clinical symptoms in schizophrenia: A 4-month follow-up study. Biological Psychiatry, 46, 392-400.
75. Perlstein, W. M., Carter, C. S., Barch, D. M., & Baird, J. W. (1998). The Stroop task and attention deficits in schizophrenia: A critical evaluation of card and single-trial Stroop methodologies. Neuropsychology, 12, 414-425.
76. Perret, E. (1974). The left frontal lobe of man and the suppression of habitual responses in verbal categorical behavior. Neuropsychologia, 12, 323-330.
77. Posner, M. I., & Peterson, S. E. (1990). The attention system of the human brain. Annual Review of Neuroscience, 13, 25-42.
78. Posner, M. I., & Raichle, M. E. (1994). Images of mind. New York: Freeman.
79. Reason, J. T. (1990). Human error. Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press.
80. Richer, F., Decary, A., Lapierre, M. F., Rouleau, I., Bouvier, G., & Saint-Hilaire, J. M. (1993). Target detection deficits in frontal lobectomy. Brain and Cognition, 21, 203-211.
81. Roberts, R. J., Jr., Hager, L. D., & Heron, C. (1994). Prefrontal cognitive processes: Working memory and inhibition in the antisaccade task, Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 123, 374-393.
82. Roberts, R. J., Jr., & Pennington, B. F. (1996). An interactive framework for examining prefrontal cognitive processes. Developmental Neuropsychology, 12, 105-126.
83. Rosen, V. M., & Engle, R. W. (1998). Working memory capacity and suppression. Journal of Memory and Language, 39, 418-436.
84. Schneider, W. (1988). Micro Experimental Laboratory: An integrated system for IBM-PC compatibles. Behavior Research Methods, Instrumentation, and Computers, 20, 206-217.
85. Seddon, K., & Waller, G. (2000). Emotional processing and bulimic psychopathology: Age as a factor among nonclinical women. International Journal of Eating Disorders, 28, 364-369.
86. Shallice, T. (1988). From neuropsychology to mental structure. Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press.
87. Shallice, T., & Burgess, P. W. (1991). Deficits in strategy application following frontal lobe damage in man. Brain, 114, 727-741.
88. Shute, V. J. (1991). Who is likely to acquire programming skills? Journal of Educational Computing Research, 7, 1-24.
89. Spieler, D. H., Balota, D. A., & Faust, M. E. (1996). Stroop performance in healthy younger and older adults and in individuals with dementia of the Alzheimer's type. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance, 22, 461-479.
90. Spieler, D. H., Balota, D. A., & Faust, M. E. (2000). Levels of selective attention revealed through analyses of response time distributions. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance, 26, 506-526.
91. Spilsbury, G. (1992). Complexity as a reflection of the dimensionality of a task. Intelligence, 16, 31-45.
92. Spivack, G., Levine, M., & Sprigle, H. (1959). Intelligence test performance and the delay function of the ego. Journal of Consulting Psychology, 23, 428-431.
93. Stroop, J. R. (1935). Studies of interference in serial verbal reactions. Journal of Experimental Psychology, 18, 643-662.
94. Süß, H.-M., Oberauer, K., Wittman, W. W., Wilhelm, O., & Schulze, R. (2002). Working-memory capacity explains reasoning ability - and a little bit more. Intelligence, 30, 261-288.
95. Swanson, H. L., & Sachse-Lee, C. (2001). A subgroup analysis of working memory in children with reading disabilities: Domain-general or domain-specific deficiency? Journal of Learning Disabilities, 34, 249-263.
96. Taylor, F. B., & Russo, J. (2001). Comparing guanfacine and dextroamphetamine for the treatment of adult attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder. Journal of Clinical Psychopharmacology, 21, 223-228.
97. Trainham, T. N., Lindsay, D. S., & Jacoby, L. L. (1997). Stroop process dissociations: Reply to Hillstrom and Logan (1997). Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance, 23, 1579-1587.
98. Tuholski, S. W., Engle, R. W., & Baylis, G. C. (2001). Individual differences in working memory capacity and enumeration. Memory & Cognition, 29, 484-492.
99. Turley-Ames, K. J., & Whitfield, M. M. (2002). Strategy training and working memory task performance. Manuscript submitted for publication.
100. Turner, M. L., & Engle, R. W. (1989). Is working memory capacity task dependent? Journal of Memory and Language, 28, 127-154.
101. Watson, W. S., Brown, T. L., & Stott, J. A. (2001, March). Why are Stroop facilitation and interference effects inversely correlated? Paper presented at the annual meeting of the Southeastern Psychological Association, Atlanta, GA.
102. West, R. (2001). The transient nature of executive control processes in younger and older adults. European Journal of Cognitive Psychology, 13, 91-105.
103. West, R., & Alain, C. (1999). Event-related neural activity associated with the Stroop task. Cognitive Brain Research, 8, 157-174.
104. West, R., & Alain, C. (2000a). Effects of task context and fluctuations of attention on neural activity supporting performance of the Stroop task. Brain Research, 873, 102-111.
105. West, R., & Alain, C. (2000b). Evidence for the transient nature of a neural system supporting goal-directed action. Cerebral Cortex, 10, 748-752.
106. Wood, N., & Cowan, N. (1995). The cocktail party phenomenon revisited: How frequent are attention shifts to one's name in an irrelevant auditory channel? Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition, 21, 255-260.
107. Zysset, S., Müller, K., Lohman, G., von Cramon, D. Y. (2001). Color-word matching Stroop task: Separating interference and response conflict. NeuroImage, 13, 29-36.