Picture span test: Measuring visual working memory capacity involved in remembering and comprehension

Control of bottom-up attention in scene cognition contributes to visual working memory performance

Several studies have investigated the relationship between working memory and attention. However, most of the relevant studies so far investigated top-down attention; only a few have examined possible interactions between bottom-up attention and visual working memory. In the present study, we focused on the visual saliency of different parts of pictures as an index of the degree to which one's bottom-up attention can be drawn towards each of them. We administered the Picture Span Test (PST) to investigate whether salient parts of pictures can influence the performance of visual working memory. The task required participants to judge the semantic congruency of objects in pictures and remember specific parts of pictures. In Experiment 1, we calculated a saliency map for the PST stimuli and found that salient but task-irrelevant parts of pictures could evoke intrusion errors. In Experiment 2, we demonstrated that longer gazing time at target areas results in a higher probability of making correct recognition. In addition, frequent gaze fixation and high normalized scan-path saliency values in task-irrelevant areas were associated with intrusion errors. These results suggest that visual information processed by bottom-up attention may affect working memory.

The negative impact of COVID-19 on working memory revealed using a rapid online quiz

Although coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) affects the respiratory system, it can also have neurological consequences leading to cognitive deficits such as memory problems. The aim of our study was to assess the impact of COVID-19 on working memory function. We developed and implemented an online anonymous survey with a working memory quiz incorporating aspects of gamification to engage participants. 5428 participants successfully completed the survey and memory quiz between 8th December 2020 and 5th July 2021 (68.6% non-COVID-19 and 31.4% COVID-19). Most participants (93.3%) completed the survey and memory quiz relatively rapidly (mean time of 8.84 minutes). Categorical regression was used to assess the contribution of COVID status, age, time post-COVID (number of months elapsed since having had COVID), symptoms, ongoing symptoms and gender, followed by non-parametric statistics. A principal component analysis explored the relationship between subjective ratings and objective memory scores. The objective memory scores were significantly correlated with participants’ own assessment of their cognitive function. The factors significantly affecting memory scores were COVID status, age, time post-COVID and ongoing symptoms. Our main finding was a significant reduction in memory scores in all COVID groups (self-reported, positive-tested and hospitalized) compared to the non-COVID group. Memory scores for all COVID groups combined were significantly reduced compared to the non-COVID group in every age category 25 years and over, but not for the youngest age category (18–24 years old). We found that memory scores gradually increased over a period of 17 months post-COVID-19. However, those with ongoing COVID-19 symptoms continued to show a reduction in memory scores. Our findings demonstrate that COVID-19 negatively impacts working memory function, but only in adults aged 25 years and over. Moreover, our results suggest that working memory deficits with COVID-19 can recover over time, although impairments may persist in those with ongoing symptoms.

Older Adults Who Meditate Regularly Perform Better on Neuropsychological Functioning and Visual Working Memory Tests: A Three-month Waitlist Control Design Study with a Cohort of Seniors in Assisted Living Facilities

Background: Neuropsychological functioning and visual working memory are vulnerable to age-related decline. This investigation examines the impact of meditation on the said outcomes for older adults in assisted living facilities. Older adults (N = 136) from four assisted living facilities in Mumbai and Pretoria were randomized into intervention and waitlist control groups.Method: The Repeatable Battery for Assessment of Neuropsychological Status (RBANS) was used as a screening instrument for recruitment (cutoff total index score = 86 ± 4). RBANS, the Simple Object Span Test (SOST), and the Picture Span Test (PST) were used to assess the outcomes. The intervention group underwent a 90-day meditation training complemented with self-practice.Results: Posttest scores of the intervention group were higher. Older adult men, with college degree, middle class, widowed, in fair health, with no diagnosed psychiatric conditions, who attended at least 70 (out of 90) meditation lessons and who self-practiced at least 70 times, gained more from the meditation intervention. Intervention compliance had the strongest effect on posttest outcomes as well as sex and psychiatric morbidities.Conclusion: Meditation intervention needs some refinements for older adult women, with high school education, upper class, currently married, in poor health, with diagnosed anxiety/depression/drug dependence, who attended fewer meditation lessons and self-practiced infrequently.

Raise two effects with one scene: scene contexts have two separate effects in visual working memory of target faces

Many people have experienced the inability to recognize a familiar face in a changed context, a phenomenon known as the "butcher-on-the-bus" effect. Whether this context effect is a facilitation of memory by old contexts or a disturbance of memory by novel contexts is of great debate. Here, we investigated how two types of contextual information associated with target faces influence the recognition performance of the faces using meaningful (scene) or meaningless (scrambled scene) backgrounds. The results showed two different effects of contexts: (1) disturbance on face recognition by changes of scene backgrounds and (2) weak facilitation of face recognition by the re-presentation of the same backgrounds, be it scene or scrambled. The results indicate that the facilitation and disturbance of context effects are actually caused by two different subcomponents of the background information: semantic information available from scene backgrounds and visual array information commonly included in a scene and its scrambled picture. This view suggests visual working memory system can control such context information, so that it switches the way to deal with the contexts information; inhibiting it as a distracter or activating it as a cue for recognizing the current target.

Early infant cognitive assessment: validity of an instrument

The present study represents a contribution to the assessment of infant cognitive development by presenting a valid instrument for observing the development of logical reasoning and executive function during the second year of life-key processes in the construction of human knowledge. The instrument constructed, called ELEDA (Early Logical and Executive Development Assessment), was a combined or mixed observation instrument composed of field formats and category systems. Its validity was calculated using generalizability theory, which enables different sources of error affecting a behavioral measurement to be analyzed jointly. The need for valid early cognitive assessment instruments such as the one in the present article is evident, since the sooner assessment is performed, the sooner action can be taken, thus optimizing the results.