Academic literature on the topic 'Attentional refreshing'

Abstract. To prevent forgetting in working memory, the attentional refreshing is supposed to increase the level of activation of memory traces by focusing attention. However, the involvement of memory traces reactivation in refreshing relies in the majority on indirect evidence. The aim of this study was to show that refreshing relies on the reactivation of memory traces by investigating how the reactivation of an irrelevant trace prevents the attentional refreshing to take place, and (2) the memory traces reactivated are sensorial in nature. We used a reactivated visual mask presented during the encoding (Experiment 1) and the refreshing (Experiment 2) of pictures in a complex span task. Results showed impaired serial recall performance in both experiments when the mask was reactivated compared to a control stimulus. Experiment 3 confirmed the refreshing account of these results. We proposed that refreshing relies on the reactivation of sensory memory traces.

<p>Previous research in adults has indicated two maintenance mechanisms of verbal information in working memory, i.e., articulatory rehearsal and attentional refreshing. However, only three studies have examined their joint contribution to children’s verbal working memory. The present study aimed at extending this line of research by investigating the developmental changes occurring from 6 to 9 years old. In two experiments using complex span tasks, children of three different age groups maintained letters or words while performing a concurrent task. The opportunity for attentional refreshing was manipulated by varying the attentional demand of the concurrent task. Moreover, this task was performed either silently by pressing keys or aloud, the latter inducing a concurrent articulation. As expected, recall performance increased strongly with age. More interestingly, concurrent articulation had a detrimental effect on recall even in 6-year-old children. Similarly, introducing a concurrent attention-demanding task impaired recall performance at all ages. Finally, the effect of the availability of rehearsal and of attentional refreshing never interacted at any age. This suggested an independence of the two mechanisms in the maintenance of verbal information in children’s working memory. Implications for the development of rehearsal use and for the role of attention in working memory are discussed.</p>

Although it has been proposed that maintenance of verbal information in adults’ working memory relies on two strategies, articulatory rehearsal and attentional refreshing, little is known about the interplay of these strategies in children. To examine strategy changes around the age of seven, children were asked to maintain digits during a retention interval introduced between encoding and recall. In Experiment 1, this interval was either unfilled in a delayed span task or filled with an attention-demanding task in a Brown-Peterson task. This concurrent task was either silent or aloud to vary the availability of rehearsal. Experiment 2 introduced variation in the attentional demand of the concurrent task, and an independent concurrent articulation. As predicted, recall performance was better in older children, but was reduced under concurrent articulation or when attention was less available, bringing further evidence in favor of two maintenance strategies. Moreover, the measure of the availability of attention for refreshing was correlated with recall performance in eight- and seven-year-olds, though only when rehearsal was impeded for seven-year-olds, but it did not correlate with six-year-olds’ recall. This could suggest that rehearsal is the default strategy in young children who can adaptively switch to refreshing when articulatory processes are unavailable.

Recent research has demonstrated top–down attentional modulation of activity in extrastriate category-selective visual areas while stimuli are in view (perceptual attention) and after they are removed from view (reflective attention). Perceptual attention is capable of both enhancing and suppressing activity in category-selective areas relative to a passive viewing baseline. In this study, we demonstrate that a brief, simple act of reflective attention (“refreshing”) is also capable of both enhancing and suppressing activity in some scene-selective areas (the parahippocampal place area [PPA]) but not others (refreshing resulted in enhancement but not in suppression in the middle occipital gyrus [MOG]). This suggests that different category-selective extrastriate areas preferring the same class of stimuli may contribute differentially to reflective processing of one's internal representations of such stimuli.

La mémoire de travail, système permettant de maintenir des informations dans un état d'accessibilité élevé, en vue de réaliser une tâche cognitive donnée, fait partie des fonctions cognitives dont les performances déclinent avec l’avancée en âge. Deux mécanismes distincts de maintien des informations verbales en mémoire de travail ont été identifiés : la répétition subvocale et le rafraîchissement attentionnel. Ce dernier mécanisme repose sur des processus attentionnels, particulièrement sensibles aux effets du vieillissement. L’étude des effets du vieillissement sur le rafraîchissement attentionnel demeure toutefois parcellaire et ses résultats contradictoires. Ce travail de thèse a pour objectif d’évaluer l’hypothèse selon laquelle le fonctionnement du rafraîchissement attentionnel pour le maintien d’informations verbales est altéré avec l’âge. Pour ce faire, nous avons évalué les effets de l’utilisation de ce mécanisme sur les performances de mémorisation d’informations verbales à court et à long terme chez des participants jeunes et âgés. Globalement, les résultats des sept études menées semblent suggérer que le rafraîchissement attentionnel est altéré dans le vieillissement. Cependant, des facteurs tels que la consolidation des informations, qui modulent le bénéfice de ce mécanisme sur le maintien des informations, semblent pouvoir masquer l’observation de l’effet de l’âge. Les futures recherches s'intéressant au fonctionnement du rafraîchissement attentionnel dans le vieillissement devront approfondir les questions (1) de l’implication des facteurs modulant l’effet du rafraîchissement sur l’observation des effets de l’âge sur ce mécanisme et (2) de l’origine précise du déficit de rafraîchissement attentionnel lié à l’âge
Working memory, the system that holds a limited amount of information temporarily in a heightened state of availability for use in ongoing information processing, is amongst cognitive functions that decline with advancing age. Two distinct mechanisms for maintaining verbal information in working memory have been identified: articulatory rehearsal and attentional refreshing. This latter mechanism is based on attentional processes, which are particularly sensitive to the effects of aging. However, the study of the effects of aging on attentional refreshing remains fragmented and its results contradictory. This thesis aims to evaluate the hypothesis that the functioning of attentional refreshing, for the maintenance of verbal information, is impaired with age. To do so, we assessed the effects of the use of this mechanism, for younger and older participants, on memory performance over short and long term. Taken together, the results of the seven studies conducted suggest that attentional refreshing is impaired in aging. However, factors such as consolidation of information, which modulate the benefit of attentional refreshing on the maintenance of information, seem to affect the observation of the effect of age. Future research examining the functioning of attentional refreshing in aging should further understanding of (1) the involvement of factors modulating the effect of refreshing on the observation of the effect of age on this mechanism and (2) the precise locus of the age-related deficit in attentional refreshing

Au cœur de la plupart de nos activités quotidiennes, la mémoire de travail est une fonction cognitive permettant de maintenir des informations à court terme tout en traitant d’autres informations (Atkinson & Shiffrin, 1968 ; Baddeley & Hitch, 1974). Différents modèles s’accordent sur le rôle central de l’attention dans la mémoire de travail, notamment via un mécanisme de maintienspécifique : le rafraîchissement attentionnel (Johnson, 1992). La présente thèse s’est intéressée à ce mécanisme encore assez mal connu chez des populations jeunes et âgées.La mémoire de travail de travail semble altérée dans le vieillissement et de récents travaux suggèrent que cette altération pourrait résulter d’un déficit du rafraîchissement attentionnel chez les adultes âgés (Hoareau, Lemaire, Portrat, & Plancher, 2016 ; Jarjat et al., 2018 ; Plancher, Boyer, Lemaire, & Portrat, 2017). Une mesure comportementale du rafraîchissement a été utilisée pour tester l’hypothèse du ralentissement du rafraîchissement attentionnel dans le vieillissement. Cependant, nos résultats suggèrent plutôt que les adultes âgés auraient des difficultés à initier un mécanisme de rafraîchissement, confortant l’hypothèse d’une altération (mais pas nécessairement un ralentissement) du rafraîchissement attentionnel dans le vieillissement.Afin de développer un moyen d’améliorer le rafraîchissement attentionnel des adultes jeunes et âgés, nous nous sommes ensuite tournées vers la théorie de l’attention dynamique (Jones, 1976 ; Jones & Boltz, 1989 ; Large & Jones, 1999). Issue des travaux sur la cognition musicale, la théorie de l’attention dynamique propose que la distribution des ressources attentionnelles puisse être guidée par une structure temporelle externe et régulière, résultant en une meilleure allocation des ressources attentionnelles et une amélioration des traitements perceptifs et cognitifs. Puisque le rafraîchissement est un mécanisme attentionnel, nous avons fait l’hypothèse que la présence de régularités temporelles durant le maintien en mémoire de travail pourrait le rendre plus efficace. Nos études révèlent que la présence d’un rythme auditif régulier durant la rétention d’informationsaméliore, en effet, le rafraîchissement attentionnel chez les adultes jeunes et certains les adultes âgés qui ont de bonnes capacités d’inhibition.Puisque le rafraîchissement attentionnel a été étudié jusqu’à maintenant par le biais de mesures comportementales indirectes, nous avons cherché à identifier une mesure plus directe de ce mécanisme via une mesure électrophysiologique du rafraîchissement. Les mesures électroencéphalographiques effectuées durant le maintien en mémoire de travail suggèrent que les oscillations neurales, particulièrement dans les bandes de fréquence bêta, sont impliquées dans lerafraîchissement attentionnel.Nos résultats confortent l’intérêt d’utiliser des techniques interventionnelles musicales et/ou rythmiques pour pallier les altérations de la mémoire de travail. Les travaux de cette thèse offrent de nouvelles perspectives pour (1) l’étude de l’altération du maintien en mémoire de travail dans le vieillissement et (2) l’effet bénéfique de la présence d’une structure temporelle régulière sur les oscillations neurales durant le maintien en mémoire de travail. À plus long-terme, l’utilisation del’électroencéphalographie devrait permettre de mieux comprendre l’impact de ces interventions sur le fonctionnement de la mémoire de travail
Working memory is at the core of most of our daily-life activities. This cognitive function allows maintaining information at short-term while processing other information (Atkinson & Shiffrin, 1968 ; Baddeley & Hitch, 1974). Several models have agreed on the central role of attention in working memory, in particular via a specific maintenance mechanism: attentional refreshing (Johnson, 1992). The present PhD thesis investigated this mechanism, which is still not well known, in young and old adults.Working memory seem to be impaired in aging, and recent studies have suggested that this impairment could be due to a deficit of attentional refreshing in old adults (Hoareau et al., 2016 ; Jarjat et al., 2018 ; Plancher et al., 2017). A behavioral measure of refreshing was used to test the hypothesis of a slowing down of refreshing in aging. However, our results rather suggest an agerelated deficit in the initiation of attentional refreshing and are thus in line with the hypothesis of an impairment (but not necessarily a slowing) of attentional refreshing in aging.To develop a way to improve attentional refreshing in young and old adults, we focused on the dynamic attending theory (Jones, 1976 ; Jones & Boltz, 1989 ; Large & Jones, 1999). Based on music cognition research, the dynamic attending theory proposes that the distribution of attentional resources can be guided in the presence of an external and temporally regular structure, resulting in a better allocation of attentional resources and enhanced perceptual and cognitive processing. As refreshing is an attentional mechanism, we hypothesized that this mechanism might benefit from the presence of temporal regularities during maintenance in working memory. Our studies revealed that the presence of an auditory, temporally regular rhythm during retention benefits indeed attentional refreshing in young adults and some in old adults who have with greater inhibition capacities.As attentional refreshing has been investigated up to now only with indirect behavioral measures, we aimed for a more direct assessment of this mechanism by investigating electrophysiological measures of refreshing. Electroencephalographical recordings during maintenance in working memory suggested that neural oscillations, especially in the beta-bandfrequency range, are involved in attentional refreshing.Our findings strengthen the interest of musical and/or rhythmical intervention techniques aiming to overcome deficits in working memory. The research of this thesis offers new perspectives for studying (1) age-related impairments of maintenance in working memory in aging and (2) the beneficial effect of the presence of a temporally regular structure on neural oscillations duringmaintenance in working memory. In a long-term perspective, electrophysiology could be helpful provide a better understanding of the impact of these techniques on working memory functioning

La mémoire de travail est un système cognitif essentiel à notre vie quotidienne. Elle nous permet de conserver momentanément des informations dans le but de réaliser une tâche cognitive. Une des caractéristiques principales de ce type de mémoire est d’être limitée en capacité. Les raisons de cette limitation sont largement débattues dans la littérature. Certains modèles considèrent qu'une cause principale de l'oubli en mémoire de travail est l'existence d'un déclin temporel passif de l'activation des représentations mnésiques alors que d'autres modèles supposent que les interférences entre les informations suffisent à expliquer la capacité limitée de cette mémoire. Deux modèles computationnels ont été proposés récemment (TBRS* et SOB-CS) et illustrent parfaitement ce débat. En effet, ils décrivent de manière très différente ce qui se passe au cours d’une tâche de mémoire de travail impliquant à la fois la mémorisation et le traitement d’informations. En plus de s'opposer sur les causes de l’oubli, ils proposent des processus de maintien en mémoire de travail distincts : le rafraîchissement des informations pertinentes selon TBRS* versus la suppression des informations non pertinentes selon SOB-CS. Les travaux de cette thèse se sont organisés autour de deux objectifs principaux. Premièrement, cette thèse a porté sur l’étude de ces deux modèles et leur mécanisme de maintien. Pour cela, nous avons réalisé des expériences comportementales utilisant la tâche d’empan complexe afin de tester des hypothèses précises de ces modèles. Deuxièmement, nous avons étudié, à l'aide des modèles computationnels, les causes des déficits de mémoire de travail observés chez les personnes âgées, dans le but, à long terme, de créer ou d'améliorer les outils de remédiation. Concernant le premier objectif, les différents résultats d’études ont montré une discordance entre le comportement humain et les simulations. En effet, TBRS* et SOB-CS ne permettent pas de reproduire un effet positif du nombre de distracteurs contrairement à ce qui a été observé expérimentalement. Nous proposons que cet effet positif, non prédit par les modèles, est relié à la mémorisation à long terme non prise en compte dans ces deux modèles. Concernant le deuxième objectif, les résultats comportementaux suggèrent que les personnes âgées auraient principalement des difficultés à rafraîchir les traces mnésiques et à stabiliser les informations à long terme au cours d’une tâche d’empan complexe. Dans l’ensemble, les résultats de cette thèse suggèrent d'approfondir les recherches concernant les liens entre les mécanismes de maintien en mémoire de travail et la mémorisation à long terme, par exemple en proposant un nouveau modèle computationnel permettant de rendre compte de nos résultats. Au-delà des avancées concernant la compréhension du fonctionnement de la mémoire de travail, cette thèse montre également que l’utilisation de modèles computationnels revêt un caractère particulièrement pertinent pour l'étude d'une théorie ainsi que pour la comparaison de différentes populations
Working memory is a cognitive system essential to our daily life. It allows us to temporarily store information in order to perform a cognitive task. One of the main features of this type of memory is to be limited in capacity. The reasons for this limitation are widely debated in the literature. Some models consider that a main cause of forgetting in working memory is the existence of a passive temporal decay in the activation of memory representations whereas other models assume that interference between information are sufficient to explain the limited capacity of this memory. Two computational models have recently been proposed (TBRS* and SOB-CS) and they perfectly illustrate this debate. Indeed, they both describe differently what happens during a working memory task involving both storage and information processing. In addition to opposing the causes of forgetting, they propose separate maintenance processes: refreshing relevant information according to TBRS* versus removing irrelevant information according to SOB-CS. This thesis was organized around two main objectives. First, we focused on the study of these two models and their maintenance mechanisms. To do so, we performed behavioral experiments using the complex span task to test specific hypotheses of these models. Second, using computational models, we investigated the causes of working memory deficits observed in the elderly, with the aim, in the long term, of creating or improving remediation tools. Regarding the first objective, results showed a discrepancy between human behavior and simulations. Indeed, TBRS* and SOB-CS did not reproduce a positive effect of the number of distractors contrary to what has been observed experimentally. We propose that this positive effect, not predicted by the models, is related to the long-term storage not taken into account in these two models. Regarding the second objective, the behavioral results suggest that older people would have difficulty mainly in refreshing memory traces and in stabilizing information in the long term during a complex task. Overall, the results of this thesis suggest to deepen the research on the links between the maintenance mechanisms and the long-term storage, for example by proposing a new computational model accounting for our results. Beyond advances in understanding the functioning of working memory, this thesis also shows that the use of computational models is of particular relevance for the study of a theory as well as for the comparison of different populations

Although the role of motivation has been emphasized in the field of unemployment and job search, the motivational dynamics underlying unemployed individuals’ behavior have not yet received the attention they deserve. In this chapter, we present a motivational perspective grounded in self-determination theory (SDT), a macrotheory focusing on human motivation in the social context. We discuss basic principles of SDT and formulate seven propositions that have direct relevance for the fields of unemployment and job search. In discussing these propositions, we elucidate similarities and differences between SDT and various frameworks in the unemployment and job search literature and cover the available empirical evidence in the realm of SDT in these fields. Given that the literatures on job search and unemployment have been developed fairly independently, we conclude that SDT represents a promising theory to bridge these two fields and may equally provide useful guidelines for practitioners in the field.

The time-based resource-sharing model considers working memory as the workspace in which mental representations are built, maintained, and transformed for completing goal-oriented tasks. Its main component is made of an episodic buffer and a procedural system that form an executive loop in which processing and storage share domain-general attentional resources on a temporal basis. Because working memory representations decay with time when attention is diverted, the cognitive load of a given activity is the proportion of time during which it occupies attention and prevents it from counteracting this decay through attentional refreshing. Consequently, recall in working memory tasks is an inverse function of the cognitive load of concurrent processing. Besides this system, an independent domain-specific maintenance system exists for verbal, but not visuospatial, information. Within this framework, working memory development mainly results from increasing processing speed that affects both the duration of the distraction of attention by concurrent tasks and refreshing efficiency.

The multicomponent model aims to provide a broad theoretical framework enabling both more detailed fractionation and analysis of its components, and a capacity for it be used fruitfully beyond the laboratory. In its current form it comprises four interacting components. Two of these are modality-specific memory storage systems, one verbal-acoustic, the phonological loop, and one visuospatial, the sketchpad. Information in both these stores can be temporarily maintained via focused attention termed ‘refreshing’, while the phonological loop can also maintain familiar verbalizable material by subvocal or overt rehearsal. Both subsystems are controlled by a third component, the central executive, a supervisory system with limited resources. The central executive is principally concerned with internally directed attentional control processes but also has a role in the attentional selection of perceptual information. Information from these three components is coordinated with information from perception and long-term memory through the fourth component, a multidimensional, multimodal episodic buffer. This component is capable of holding up to around four episodic chunks, and is a valuable but essentially passive storage system, controlled by the central executive and accessible to conscious awareness. The multicomponent model has been systematically developed using a number of experimental tools. These include, principally, similarity effects to identify the type of coding involved, concurrent task methods to assess the contributions of the various subsystems to complex tasks, and neuropsychological evidence, in particular from the study of single cases with very specific deficits. The model continues to evolve and has proved successful both in accounting for a broad range of data on memory and related cognitive areas and in its application to the understanding of a wide range of cognitive activities and populations.

This chapter explores the close attention that Lawrence paid to clothing and jewellery. Lawrence had a keen eye for dress and adornment: for its utility, aesthetic qualities and assertions of identity. He saw the ‘interior decoration’ of art hung in homes, of which he wrote in his late essay ‘Pictures on the Walls’, as of a piece with the exterior decoration on/of the human body; indeed, he likened the need for changing pictures to that of refreshing one’s clothes. While at once admiring of the expressiveness and innovativeness of clothing and jewellery design, he was also critical of fashion’s perversion by consumerism and materialism: fashion for the sake of fashionability rather than beauty and renewal.

Identifying integrated records that represent the same real-world object in numerous ways is just one form of data disparity (dirt) to be resolved in a data warehouse. Data cleaning is a complex process, which uses multidisciplinary techniques to resolve conflicts in data drawn from different data sources. There is a need for initial cleaning at the time a data warehouse is built, and incremental cleaning whenever new records are brought into the data warehouse during refreshing. Existing work on data cleaning have used pre-specified record match thresholds and multiple scanning of records to determine matching records in integrated data. Little attention has been paid to incremental matching of records. Determining optimal record match score threshold in a domain is hard. Also, direct long record string comparison is highly inefficient and intolerant to typing errors. Thus, this article proposes two algorithms, the first of which uses smart tokens defined from integrated records to match and identify duplicate records during initial warehouse cleaning. The second algorithm uses these tokens for fast, incremental cleaning during warehouse refreshing. Every attribute value forms either a special token like birth date or an ordinary token, which can be alphabetic, numeric, or alphanumeric. Rules are applied for forming tokens belonging to each of these four classes. These tokens are sorted and used for record match. The tokens also form very good warehouse identifiers for future faster incremental warehouse cleaning. This approach eliminates the need for match threshold and multiple passes at data. Experiments show that using tokens for record comparison produces a far better result than using the entire or greater part of a record.

The rise of China as a leading power in today’s world has attracted increasing scholarly attention to the country’s encounter with the West (primarily referring to Europe and North America in this volume) in the modern era, i.e., from the late sixteenth to the early twentieth centuries. While more recent research began to shift away from the model of a tradition–modernity polarity in explaining late imperial Chinese history, new approaches have been proposed to explore a broader range of subjects tied with the richly documented exchanges between China and the West since the sixteenth century. However, there is still a lack of collaborative effort to examine how Western culture, long shaped by the dominant Christian religion, was conceptualized and imagined by late imperial Chinese people, and vice versa, how Confucian-based Chinese culture was understood and interpreted in modern Europe and North America. Indeed, the multilayered two-way flows of words, beliefs, and experiences in such a significant cross-cultural encounter open up intriguing possibilities for further investigation. This volume, which consists of seven studies, presents cutting-edge research on the formation and transformation of different types of knowledge, perceptions, and representations exchanged between China and the West through the modern period. It aims to shed new light and provide refreshing perspectives for future exploration of related subjects in this field....