SAGE Journal Articles
Click on the following links. Please note these will open in a new window.
Abstract
A growing body of scientific evidence suggests that visual working memory and statistical learning are intrinsically linked. Although visual working memory is severely resource limited, in many cases, it makes efficient use of its available resources by adapting to statistical regularities in the visual environment. However, experimental evidence also suggests that there are clear limits and biases in statistical learning. This raises the intriguing possibility that performance limitations observed in visual working memory tasks can to some degree be explained in terms of limits and biases in statistical-learning ability, rather than limits in memory capacity.
Discussion questions:
- What do the authors mean by “statistical learning”? In what way do they claim it is linked to working memory?
- Why do the authors argue that visual working memory is “efficient”? Explain what they mean by this.
- What do the authors believe are the limits to adaptation in visual working memory?
Abstract
Previous research has suggested that visual short-term memory has a fixed capacity of about four objects. However, we found that capacity varied substantially across the five stimulus classes we examined, ranging from 1.6 for shaded cubes to 4.4 for colors (estimated using a change detection task). We also estimated the information load per item in each class, using visual search rate. The changes we measured in memory capacity across classes were almost exactly mirrored by changes in the opposite direction in visual search rate (r2 = .992 between search rate and the reciprocal of memory capacity). The greater the information load of each item in a stimulus class (as indicated by a slower search rate), the fewer items from that class one can hold in memory. Extrapolating this linear relationship reveals that there is also an upper bound on capacity of approximately four or five objects. Thus, both the visual information load and number of objects impose capacity limits on visual short-term memory.
Discussion questions:
- What was the primary research question asked by the authors of this article?
- How did the authors examine this question? What tasks did they use in their study?
- What answer to their research question did the authors find from the results of their study?
Abstract
Failures to remember to perform deferred task actions in work settings such as air traffic control can have serious consequences. Most research examining the cognitive mechanisms underlying prospective memory has used simple, static tasks, which may make it difficult to generalize results to work settings. I describe a body of research that has applied theory and methods from the basic prospective-memory and attention-capture literatures to simulations of air traffic control. These theories and methods can be used to anticipate many findings, such as the finding that prospective-memory demands incur performance costs in ongoing air traffic control tasks, and that prospective-memory error and costs to ongoing air traffic control tasks can be reduced by the use of spatial context or prospective-memory aids. Research in laboratory settings that simulates work contexts such as air traffic control can both establish the utility of psychological theory and produce application-relevant information.
Discussion questions:
- Describe the prospective memory tasks examined in this article. Can you think of comparable prospective memory tasks that you perform in your daily life?
- What does the author mean that prospective memory tasks have a “cost”?
- What is meant by “focal targets” in prospective memory tasks? How is this relevant for the air traffic control tasks described in the article?