ERP evidence for the rhythmic priming effect in Mandarin grammatical processing and the role of individual differences.

The Role of Individual Differences in Second Language Writing Corrective Feedback

The effects of structured input and working memory on the acquisition of English causative forms

This study investigated the role of working memory capacity on the making of reinstatement and causal elaborative inferences during the reading of natural texts. In order to determine participants' working memory capacity, they were asked to take the reading span task before they took part in the study. Those participants that were identified as high or low working memory capacity readers were asked to perform a lexical decision task in two conditions: pre-inference and inference. In the pre-inference condition, target words representing reinstatement or causal elaborative inferences were presented immediately before the sentences that were predicted to prompt them. In the inference condition, the target words were presented immediately after the sentences that were predicted to prompt the inferences. Results indicated that, for the high working memory capacity readers, lexical decision times were faster at the inference compared to the pre-inference locations for both types of inferences. In the case of low working capacity readers, lexical decision times were faster at the inference compared to the pre-inference locations only for reinstatement inferences. These findings suggest that working memory capacity plays a role in the making of causal inferences during the comprehension of natural texts.

The nature of parietal contributions to working memory (WM) remain poorly understood but of considerable interest. We previously reported that posterior parietal damage selectively impaired WM probed by recognition (Berryhill and Olson, 2008a). Recent studies provided support using a neuromodulatory technique, transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) applied to the right parietal cortex (P4). These studies confirmed parietal involvement in WM because parietal tDCS altered WM performance: anodal current tDCS improved performance in a change detection task, and cathodal current tDCS impaired performance on a sequential presentation task. Here, we tested whether these complementary results were due to different degrees of parietal involvement as a function of WM task demands, WM task difficulty, and/or participants’ WM capacity. In Experiment 1, we applied cathodal and anodal tDCS to the right parietal cortex and tested participants on both previously used WM tasks. We observed an interaction between tDCS (anodal, cathodal), WM task difficulty, and participants’ WM capacity. When the WM task was difficult, parietal stimulation (anodal or cathodal) improved WM performance selectively in participants with high WM capacity. In the low WM capacity group, parietal stimulation (anodal or cathodal) impaired WM performance. These nearly equal and opposite effects were only observed when the WM task was challenging, as in the change detection task. Experiment 2 probed the interplay of WM task difficulty and WM capacity in a parametric manner by varying set size in the WM change detection task. Here, the effect of parietal stimulation (anodal or cathodal) on the high WM capacity group followed a linear function as WM task difficulty increased with set size. The low WM capacity participants were largely unaffected by tDCS. These findings provide evidence that parietal involvement in WM performance depends on both WM capacity and WM task demands. We discuss these findings in terms of alternative WM strategies employed by low and high WM capacity individuals. We speculate that low WM capacity individuals do not recruit the posterior parietal lobe for WM tasks as efficiently as high WM capacity individuals. Consequently, tDCS provides greater benefit to individuals with high WM capacity.

Exposure to musical rhythms has been shown to influence the perception of subsequently presented speech. Until now, this effect has only been studied in native language (L1) processing. The present study investigated whether rhythmic priming could also benefit second language (L2) processing. A musical rhythmic priming experiment was designed based on previous studies in L1 children. Over two experiments, L2 adult speakers of French were asked to detect grammatical errors in naturally spoken French sentences. Sentences were either preceded by a regular or an irregular musical rhythmic prime. We also assessed participants' French language level, rhythmic perception abilities, and musical training. In Experiment 1, 34 participants from various L1 backgrounds were recruited. In Experiment 2, 33 participants with a Romance-family L1 were recruited. For both experiments, grammaticality judgments did not significantly differ after regular versus irregular rhythmic primes. However, in collapsing both experiments, grammaticality judgments correlated significantly with rhythmic abilities, suggesting that participants with better rhythm perception were better at grammaticality judgment tasks. Moreover, with the same French level, musicians were better at detecting grammatical errors than those who had not received music training. We also found that the rhythmic priming effect (better grammatical judgments after regular than after irregular rhythms) increased with the number of years of musical training, suggesting that regular rhythmic primes may improve L2 perception in particular for musically trained participants. These results suggest some interesting connections between music training, second language learning, and rhythmic priming, that can be explored in future research.

<p class="a"><span lang="EN-US">In this research, authors examine how individual differences in working memory capacity and Working Memory updating influence differences in impulsivity in risky decision making and behaviors. This study makes attempt to address extension of related works on the relationship between working memory, impulsivity and risky decision making and behaviors in adolescents. A large sample (420) of boy secondary grade students involved in this research; this study indicated that working memory capacity and updating Working Memory moderate some of impulsivity and high risk behaviors and decision making. Individuals with low working memory capacity and high impulsivity compared to individuals with high working memory capacity and high impulsivity are more likely subjected to risky decision making. Further, high risk behaviors are more salient in individuals with low updating Working Memory and high impulsivity. </span></p>

Sight-singing is prevalent in aural skill classes, where learners differ in experience and cognitive abilities. In this research, we investigated whether musical experience, level of study, and working memory capacity (WMC) can predict sight-singing performance and if there is a correlation between WMC and performance among some subgroups of participants. We hypothesized that more experienced students and those with a higher WMC might sight-sing better than those with less experience and lesser WMC. We also hypothesized that the relationship between WMC and sight-singing performance would be more salient for less experienced and less proficient sight-singers. We surveyed 56 subjects about their experience with music, assessed their WMC, and evaluated their performance on a short sight-singing task. The results showed that the age when students began learning music could predict sight-singing performance independently from the number of years of experience and the educational level, suggesting a possible developmental component to sight-singing skill. We also found a negative relationship between WMC and pitch score in the low-performing group and between rhythm and pitch score, suggesting that pitch and rhythm are processed differently. Teachers should be aware of how students’ backgrounds might be related to performance and encourage them to develop strong automated skills, such as reading music or singing basic tonal patterns.

Intelligence is one of the most studied constructs in psychological research and fascinates scientists and the general public alike. Accordingly, researchers have spent decades trying to identify the processes underlying individual differences in intelligence, eventually proposing two widely accepted candidates: the information processing speed (IPS; also referred to as mental speed) and the working memory capacity (WMC). Research consistently shows that higher intelligence is associated with greater speed of information processing on the one hand, and higher WMC on the other. While this nomological network is well established, recent findings on the measurement of WMC and IPS suggest that further research could refine our understanding of this relationship. Thus, the central aim of this dissertation is to gain insights into the processes underlying individual differences in intelligence by integrating recent findings from different streams of cognitive psychology, neuroscience, and intelligence research. I propose that, in order to gain new insights, we must first improve our understanding of the measures used, in particular WMC and IPS, and secondly examine the boundary conditions under which the respective correlations occur. In line with this agenda, three central research approaches are outlined as part of this dissertation: 1) First, to enhance our understanding of the processes involved in WM, I examined the neurophysiological representation of WM tasks commonly used to measure WMC. 2) Second, to improve the measurement of IPS, I investigated the conditions under which researchers may obtain reliable and valid neurophysiological indicators of IPS. 3) Third, I tested the boundary conditions of the relationship between IPS, WMC, and intelligence. Together, this dissertation provides guidance for intelligence research and allows conclusions to be drawn about the nature of the mechanisms underlying intelligence. In particular, the findings suggest that a) general short-term maintenance may account for the relationship between WMC and intelligence, b) analytical decisions affect the validity and reliability of neurocognitive IPS measurements, supporting the use of latent modeling, and c) the speed of decision-related processes is most likely the driver of the relationship between IPS and intelligence.

Working memory capacity consistently correlates with fluid intelligence. It has been suggested that this relationship is partly attributable to strategy use: Participants with high working memory capacity would use more effective strategies, in turn leading to higher performance on fluid intelligence tasks. However, this idea has never been directly investigated. In 2 experiments, we tested this hypothesis by directly manipulating strategy use in a combined experimental-correlational approach (Experiment 1; N = 250) and by measuring strategy use with a self-report questionnaire (Experiment 2; N = 93). Inducing all participants to use an effective strategy in Raven's matrices decreased the correlation between working memory capacity and performance; the strategy use measure fully mediated the relationship between working memory capacity and performance on the matrices task. These findings indicate that individual differences in strategic behavior drive the predictive utility of working memory. We interpret the results within a theoretical framework integrating the multiple mediators of the relationship between working memory capacity and high-level cognition.

Different attentional breadths facilitate performance on different types of perceptual tasks. For instance, a narrow attentional breadth improves spatial resolution; whereas a broad attentional breath enhances face perception. This means that to optimise attention for the dynamic demands of real-world vision, it is necessary to efficiently resize attentional breadth. Previous research has shown that individuals differ considerably in how efficiently they can resize their attentional breadth. Since working memory capacity can be conceptualised as the ability to effectively regulate one's attentional resources, the present study examined whether individual differences in attentional resizing efficiency were related to working memory capacity. Tasks that gauge the efficiency of attentional contraction (resizing from broad to narrow focus) and attentional expansion (resizing from narrow to broad) were used, in addition to standard working memory measures. It was found that individuals high in working memory capacity experienced a greater cost in attentional contraction, that is, they were less efficient in resizing from a broad to a narrow attentional focus. This is likely because the attentional resizing tasks encourage the setting of a particular attentional breadth for the majority of trials in a block, and then gauge efficiency in changing from this breadth on the minority of trials. This means that high-capacity individuals may have more readily adopted the dominant attentional breadth, particularly in the majority-global condition, thereby incurring a greater cost on the infrequent trials requiring resizing to the local level. This shows that at least in some circumstances, greater cognitive control can be a relative disadvantage.

Algorithms for approximate Bayesian inference, such as those based on sampling (i.e., Monte Carlo methods), provide a natural source of models of how people may deal with uncertainty with limited cognitive resources. Here, we consider the idea that individual differences in working memory capacity (WMC) may be usefully modeled in terms of the number of samples, or "particles," available to perform inference. To test this idea, we focus on two recent experiments that report positive associations between WMC and two distinct aspects of categorization performance: the ability to learn novel categories, and the ability to switch between different categorization strategies ("knowledge restructuring"). In favor of the idea of modeling WMC as a number of particles, we show that a single model can reproduce both experimental results by varying the number of particles-increasing the number of particles leads to both faster category learning and improved strategy-switching. Furthermore, when we fit the model to individual participants, we found a positive association between WMC and best-fit number of particles for strategy switching. However, no association between WMC and best-fit number of particles was found for category learning. These results are discussed in the context of the general challenge of disentangling the contributions of different potential sources of behavioral variability.

In the present experiments, we explored the relationship between individual differences in working memory (WM) capacity and susceptibility to false recognitions and their accompanying subjective experiences. Deese/Roediger-McDermott (DRM) associative lists were used to elicit false memories, and remember/know judgments were used to measure the recollective experiences accompanying recognition decisions. We found that WM capacity was related to false recognitions of nonpresented critical lures and to the proportion of remember responses given to critical lures, such that higher WM capacity was associated with lower false-recognition rates and with lower proportions of remember responses. Importantly, these WM differences were only found when participants were forewarned about the nature of the DRM task prior to encoding (Exp. 1). When the forewarning was absent, WM capacity was not related to false recognitions or to the proportion of remember responses given to critical lures (Exp. 2). These results support the controlled-attention view of WM and suggest that subjective experiences of falsely recognized lures fluctuate as a function of WM capacity.

According to attentional control theory, high trait anxious individuals experience reduced attentional control as compared to low trait anxious individuals due to the imbalance between goal-directed and stimulus-driven attentional systems. One consequence is that high trait anxious individuals have difficulty resisting distraction, as compared to low trait anxious individuals. A separate line of research on individual differences in working memory capacity (WMC) has shown that individuals with higher WMC have better attentional control and thus are better able to resist distraction. The present study investigated the hypothesis that high WMC compensates for high trait anxiety in a task that evaluates the ability to resist distraction, the antisaccade task. Participants completed the State-Trait Anxiety Inventory to measure trait anxiety and the Operation Span and Reading Span tasks to measure WMC. As hypothesised, individuals who were high trait anxious exhibited increased attentional control on the antisaccade task when they had high WMC. Theoretical implications and directions for future research are discussed.

Individual differences in working memory capacity (WMC) increase the ability, and tendency, to devote greater attentional control to a task—improving performance on a wide range of skills. In addition, recent research on enclothed cognition demonstrates that the situational influence of wearing a white lab coat increases controlled attention, due to the symbolic meaning and physical experience of wearing the coat. We examined whether these positive influences on attentional control lead to negative performance outcomes on insight problem-solving, a task thought to rely on associative processes that operate largely outside of explicit attentional control. Participants completed matchstick arithmetic problems while either wearing a white lab coat or in a no-coat control condition. Higher WMC was associated with lower insight problem-solving accuracy in the no-coat condition. In the coat condition, the insight problem-solving accuracy of lower WMC individuals dropped to the level of those higher in WMC. These results indicate that wearing a white lab coat led individuals to increase attentional control towards problem solving, hindering even lower WMC individuals from engaging in more diffuse, associative problem-solving processes, at which they otherwise excel. Trait and state factors known to increase controlled attention and improve performance on more attention-demanding tasks interact to hinder insight problem-solving.

Objectives: The purpose of the study was to identify the impact of age-related working memory capacity and cognitive load to word recognition using an eye tracker.Methods: A total of 48 participants (24 young, 24 elderly adults) who were divided according to working memory capacity (high, low) participated in the study. This study consisted of a digit load and word recognition task.Results: First, the elderly group had lower accuracy and slower response times than the young group. There was a significant difference between working memory capacity and cognitive load in response time. In the group with low working memory capacity, the response time increased under lower cognitive load, which was different from the group with a high working memory capacity. Next, the elderly group had a lower proportion of fixation than the young group by time interval. In addition, there was a significant interaction between group and cognitive load by time interval. In particular, the proportion of fixation decreased over time under a high cognitive load while the proportion of fixation increased under a low cognitive load in the elders, because the inhibition and switching abilities were weakened which made the elders unable to process information efficiently.Conclusion: The study results showed significant effects between working memory capacity and cognitive load in response time and proportion of fixation. This implies that complex factors influence language processing, which makes measuring accuracy insufficient. Thus, this research confirms the correlation among aging, working memory, and cognitive load through both online and offline measurement.