Glimpses of a one-speed mind: Focus-switching and search for verbal and visual, and easy and difficult items in working memory

Acta Psychologica

Volumn 131, Issue 3, 2009, Pages 235-244

  Zhang, Yanmin ^a   Verhaeghen, Paul ^b  

^a PURDUE UNIVERSITY   (United States)

^b GEORGIA INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY   (United States)

Author keywords

Short term memory; Theory of mind; Working memory

Indexed keywords

ARTICLE; ASIAN AMERICAN; ATTENTION; COLOR VISION; DECISION MAKING; HUMAN; LEARNING; ORIENTATION; PATTERN RECOGNITION; PSYCHOLOGICAL ASPECT; PSYCHOLOGICAL THEORY; REACTION TIME; READING; RECOGNITION; SEMANTICS; SHORT TERM MEMORY;

ASIAN AMERICANS; ATTENTION; COLOR PERCEPTION; HUMANS; JUDGMENT; MEMORY, SHORT-TERM; ORIENTATION; PATTERN RECOGNITION, VISUAL; PSYCHOLOGICAL THEORY; REACTION TIME; READING; RECOGNITION (PSYCHOLOGY); SEMANTICS; SERIAL LEARNING; SET (PSYCHOLOGY);

EID: 67649381473     PISSN: 00016918     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1016/j.actpsy.2009.05.009     Document Type: Article

References (28)

1. Awh E., Barton B., and Vogel E.K. Visual working memory represents a fixed number of items, regardless of complexity. Psychological Science 18 (2007) 622-628
2. Alvarez G.A., and Cavanagh P. The capacity of visual short-term memory is set both by visual information load and by number of objects. Psychological Science 15 (2004) 106-111
3. Alvarez G.A., and Cavanagh P. Independent resources for attentional tracking in the left and right visual fields. Psychological Science 16 (2005) 637-643
4. Averbach E., and Coriell A.S. Short-term memory in vision. Bell Systems Technical Journal 40 (1961) 309-328
5. Baddeley A.D. Short-term memory for word sequences as a function of acoustic, semantic and formal similarity. Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology 18 (1966) 362-365
6. Basak, C., & Verhaeghen, P. (submitted for publication). Three layers of working memory: Focus-switch cost and retrieval dynamics as revealed by the N-Count task.
7. Chu-Chang M., and Lority D.L. Phonological encoding of Chinese ideographs in short-term memory. Language Learning 27 (1977) 341-348
8. Conrad R. Order error in immediate recall of sequences. Journal of Verbal Learning and Verbal Behavior 4 (1965) 161-169
9. Cowan N. Attention and memory: An integrated framework (1995), Oxford University Press, New York, NY
10. Cowan N. The magical number 4 in short-term memory: A reconsideration of mental storage capacity. Behavioral and Brain Sciences 24 (2001) 87-185
11. Da, J. (2004). Modern Chinese character frequency list. Retrieved from Middle Tennessee University Web site: .
12. Eng H.Y., Chen D., and Jiang Y. Visual working memory for complex and simple visual stimuli. Psychonomic Bulletin and Review 12 (2005) 1127-1133
13. Garavan H. Serial attention within working memory. Memory and Cognition 26 (1998) 263-276
14. Gregg V.H., Freedman C.M., and Smith D.K. Word frequency, articulatory suppression and memory span. British Journal of Psychology 80 (1989) 363-374
15. Hulme C., Roodenrys S., Schweikert R., Brown G.D.A., Martin S., and Stuart G. Word-frequency effects on short-term memory tasks: Evidence for a redintegration process in immediate serial recall. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning Memory and Cognition 23 (1997) 1217-1232
16. Leonards U., Ibanez V., and Giannakopoulos P. The role of stimulus type in age-related changes of visual working memory. Experimental Brain Research 146 (2002) 172-183
17. Lewandowsky S., and Murdock B. Memory for serial order. Psychological Review 96 (1989) 25-57
18. McElree B. Working memory and focal attention. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition 27 (2001) 817-835
19. Oberauer K. Access to information in working memory: Exploring the focus of attention. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition 28 (2002) 411-421
20. Peterson R.R., and Savoy P. Lexical selection and phonological encoding during language production: Evidence for cascaded processing. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition 24 (1998) 539-557
21. Shiffrin R., and Cook J. Short-term forgetting of item and order information. Journal of Verbal Learning and Verbal Behavior 17 (1978) 189-218
22. Swensson R.G., and Judy P.F. Detection of noisy visual targets: Models for the effects of spatial uncertainty and signal-to-noise ratio. Perception and Psychophysics 29 (1981) 521-534
23. Vaughan L., Basak C., Hartman M., and Verhaeghen P. Aging and working memory inside and outside the focus of attention: Dissociations of availability and accessibility. Aging, Neuropsychology, and Cognition 15 (2008) 703-724
24. Verhaeghen P., and Basak C. Aging and switching of the focus of attention in working memory: Results from a modified N-Back task. Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology (A) 58 (2005) 134-154
25. Verhaeghen P., Cerella J., and Basak C. A working memory workout: How to change to size of the focus of attention from one to four in ten hours or less. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition 30 (2004) 1322-1337
26. Vogel E.K., and Machizawa M.G. Neural activity predicts individual differences in visual working memory capacity. Nature 428 (2004) 748-751
27. Voigt S., and Hagendorf H. The role of task context for component processes in focus switching. Psychologische Beiträge 44 (2002) 248-274
28. Yu B., Jing Q., and Simon H.A. STM span for Chinese words and phrases. Acta Psychologica Sinica 17 (1985) 361-368 [in Chinese]