The differential relationship between visual and spatial working memory in children's mathematics performance

Reorganization of Frontal Systems Used by Alcoholics for Spatial Working Memory: An fMRI Study

Impaired spatial working memory in children with well-controlled epilepsy: An event-related potentials study

Hemispheric specialization of the lateral prefrontal cortex for strategic processing during spatial and shape working memory

It is unclear to what extent sensory processing areas are involved in the maintenance of sensory information in working memory (WM). Previous studies have thus far relied on finding neural activity in the corresponding sensory cortices, neglecting potential activity-silent mechanisms, such as connectivity-dependent encoding. It has recently been found that visual stimulation during visual WM maintenance reveals WM-dependent changes through a bottom-up neural response. Here, we test whether this impulse response is uniquely visual and sensory-specific. Human participants (both sexes) completed visual and auditory WM tasks while electroencephalography was recorded. During the maintenance period, the WM network was perturbed serially with fixed and task-neutral auditory and visual stimuli. We show that a neutral auditory impulse-stimulus presented during the maintenance of a pure tone resulted in a WM-dependent neural response, providing evidence for the auditory counterpart to the visual WM findings reported previously. Interestingly, visual stimulation also resulted in an auditory WM-dependent impulse response, implicating the visual cortex in the maintenance of auditory information, either directly or indirectly, as a pathway to the neural auditory WM representations elsewhere. In contrast, during visual WM maintenance, only the impulse response to visual stimulation was content-specific, suggesting that visual information is maintained in a sensory-specific neural network, separated from auditory processing areas.SIGNIFICANCE STATEMENT Working memory is a crucial component of intelligent, adaptive behavior. Our understanding of the neural mechanisms that support it has recently shifted: rather than being dependent on an unbroken chain of neural activity, working memory may rely on transient changes in neuronal connectivity, which can be maintained efficiently in activity-silent brain states. Previous work using a visual impulse stimulus to perturb the memory network has implicated such silent states in the retention of line orientations in visual working memory. Here, we show that auditory working memory similarly retains auditory information. We also observed a sensory-specific impulse response in visual working memory, while auditory memory responded bimodally to both visual and auditory impulses, possibly reflecting visual dominance of working memory.

Cochlear implantation is a well-established method for restoring hearing sensation in individuals with severe to profound hearing loss. It significantly improves verbal communication for many users, despite substantial variability in patients' reports and performance on speech perception tests and quality-of-life outcome measures. Such variability in outcome measures remains several years after implantation and could reflect difficulties in attentional regulation. The current study assessed the ability to use a cue to guide attention internally toward visual or auditory working memory (i.e., reflective attention) in cochlear implant (CI) users. Participants completed a cognitive task called the delayed match-to-sample task in which a visual gradient was presented on a computer screen and a piano tone was presented through speakers simultaneously. A visual cue (i.e., letter A or V) instructed participants to focus attention on the item held in auditory or visual working memory. After a delay following the cue presentation, participants were presented with a probe item and indicated by pressing a button whether it matched the cued item in working memory. CI users and age-matched normal hearing adults showed comparable benefit from having an informative cue relative to an uninformative cue (i.e., letter X). Although CI users have had a history of severe deafness and experience coarse sound information, they were able to retrospectively orient their attention to an item in auditory or visual working memory. These findings suggest that CI users with at least one year of CI experience can successfully regulate attention to a level that is comparable to that of normal hearing individuals.

Event Abstract Back to Event Right-sided representational neglect after left brain damage in a case without visuo-spatial working memory deficits Jean-Philippe Van Dijck1, 2*, Wim Gevers3, Christophe Lafosse4 and Wim Fias1, 2 1 Ghent University, Experimental Psychology, Belgium 2 Ghent University/ University Hospital, Institute for Neuroscience, Belgium 3 Université Libre de Bruxelles, Unité de Recherches en Neurosciences Cognitives, Belgium 4 RevArte, Scientific Unit, Belgium Patients with left-sided neglect following a right hemisphere lesion, fail to report, orient to, or verbally describe stimuli in the contralesional left hemispace. Similar observations are made in the representational domain. When asked to describe a familiar scene from a mental image, many of those patients also omit details of what would have been on their left. Although right-sided neglect after left brain damage has been observed in patients previously, right-sided representational neglect (henceforth RN) on traditional RN tasks has not yet been described in the literature. Here we describe a patient who suffers from right-sided RN in scene description and in tasks requiring the mental representation of objects. Further neuropsychological investigations showed a preserved visuo-spatial working memory capacity for maintaining locations on either side of space. The results are discussed in the light of recent insights into the neglect syndrome. Acknowledgements This work was supported by the Ghent University Multidisciplinary Research Partnership “The integrative neuroscience of behavioral control”. Keywords: representational neglect, Attention, spatial working memory, visual working memory, brain damage Conference: Belgian Brain Council, Liège, Belgium, 27 Oct - 27 Oct, 2012. Presentation Type: Poster Presentation Topic: Higher Brain Functions in health and disease: cognition and memory Citation: Van Dijck J, Gevers W, Lafosse C and Fias W (2012). Right-sided representational neglect after left brain damage in a case without visuo-spatial working memory deficits. Conference Abstract: Belgian Brain Council. doi: 10.3389/conf.fnhum.2012.210.00130 Copyright: The abstracts in this collection have not been subject to any Frontiers peer review or checks, and are not endorsed by Frontiers. They are made available through the Frontiers publishing platform as a service to conference organizers and presenters. The copyright in the individual abstracts is owned by the author of each abstract or his/her employer unless otherwise stated. Each abstract, as well as the collection of abstracts, are published under a Creative Commons CC-BY 4.0 (attribution) licence (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) and may thus be reproduced, translated, adapted and be the subject of derivative works provided the authors and Frontiers are attributed. For Frontiers’ terms and conditions please see https://www.frontiersin.org/legal/terms-and-conditions. Received: 25 Jul 2012; Published Online: 12 Sep 2012. * Correspondence: Dr. Jean-Philippe Van Dijck, Ghent University, Experimental Psychology, Ghent, 9000, Belgium, jeanphilippe.vandijck@ugent.be Login Required This action requires you to be registered with Frontiers and logged in. To register or login click here. Abstract Info Abstract The Authors in Frontiers Jean-Philippe Van Dijck Wim Gevers Christophe Lafosse Wim Fias Google Jean-Philippe Van Dijck Wim Gevers Christophe Lafosse Wim Fias Google Scholar Jean-Philippe Van Dijck Wim Gevers Christophe Lafosse Wim Fias PubMed Jean-Philippe Van Dijck Wim Gevers Christophe Lafosse Wim Fias Related Article in Frontiers Google Scholar PubMed Abstract Close Back to top Javascript is disabled. Please enable Javascript in your browser settings in order to see all the content on this page.

In mental rotation, a mental representation of an object must be rotated while the actual object remains visible. Where is this representation stored while it is being rotated? To answer this question, observers were asked to perform a mental rotation task during the delay interval of a visual working memory task. When the working memory task required the storage of object features, substantial bidirectional interference was observed between the memory and rotation tasks, and the interference increased with the degree of rotation. However, rotation-dependent interference was not observed when a spatial working memory task was used instead of an object working memory task. Thus, the object working memory subsystem—not the spatial working memory subsystem—provides the buffer in which object representations are stored while they undergo mental rotation. More broadly, the nature of the information being stored—not the nature of the operations performed on this information—may determine which subsystem stores the information.

Previous research showed a significant association between mathematics and working memory (WM). However, evidence regarding the different effects of verbal and visuospatial WM on mathematical abilities was very limited. The current research aims to explore the relationship between verbal and visuospatial WM with mathematical abilities, and how this relationship is moderated by age and math domains. We also wonder whether the results would change when we use several tests for each component and use a latent variable approach for more reliable measurement. 131 first graders and 144 fifth graders from a primary school in Hangzhou, Zhejiang province, China, participated our research. All participants completed three verbal and three visuospatial WM tasks, mathematics tests, and fluid intelligence test. Hierarchical multiple regression analysis was used to examine the pattern of relations among these constructs. The results of hierarchical multiple regression analysis showed that verbal WM significantly predicted mathematics achievement for fifth graders, while failed for first graders. However, visuospatial WM played a substantive role in both graders' mathematical performance. The different role of the two WM components also depend on various fields of mathematics. Our results indicated the distinct influence of verbal and visuospatial WM on primary school students' mathematical abilities and highlighted the developmental and domain-specific effects of WM on mathematics.

The present study investigated verbal and spatial working memory (WM) functioning in individuals with the neuro-developmental disorder Williams syndrome (WS) using WM component tasks. While there is strong evidence of WM impairments in WS, previous research has focused on short-term memory and has neglected assessment of executive components of WM. There is a particular lack of consensus concerning the profile of verbal WM functioning in WS. Here, WS participants were compared to typically developing participants matched for (1) verbal ability and (2) spatial ability ( N = 14 in each of the 3 groups). Individuals with WS were impaired on verbal WM tasks, both those involving short-term maintenance of information and executive manipulation, in comparison to verbal-matched controls. Surprisingly, individuals with WS were not impaired on a spatial task assessing short-term maintenance of information in memory (remembering spatial locations) compared to spatial-matched controls. They were, however, impaired on a spatial executive WM task requiring the manipulation of spatial information in memory. The present study suggests that individuals with WS show WM impairments that extend to both verbal and spatial domains, although spatial deficits are selective to executive aspects of WM function.

BACKGROUND: Ischemic hypoxia induced by suprathreshold G-force loading can adversely affect vision, cognition, and lead to loss of consciousness (LOC). The purpose of this study was to determine whether reductions in cerebral oxygenation, caused by subthreshold G-forces (up to 4 Gz and of limited durations that do not lead to LOC), would affect visual perception and working memory performance.METHODS: Sixteen subjects performed visual perception and working memory tasks both before and during Gz exposures (1, 2.2, 3, 4 with leg pressurization, 4 with leg and abdomen pressurization) within a human-use centrifuge.RESULTS: As measured using near-infrared spectroscopy, blood oxygenation over medial prefrontal cortex was similar in the 1 and 2.2 Gz conditions, but was reduced to a similar extent in the 3 and 4 Gz conditions. In parallel, visual perception accuracy was reduced in the 3 and 4 Gz conditions, with no difference between the 3 and 4 Gz conditions. No change in reaction time was seen. Conversely, neither accuracy nor reaction time changes were observed for the visual working memory task.DISCUSSION: These results indicate that although visual working memory is not affected, the ability to visually discriminate between stimuli is reduced at G-forces as low as 3 and 4 Gz. This may have important ramifications for pilots who are routinely subjected to such forces.Croft RJ, Klegrd R, Tribukait A, Taylor NAS, Eiken O. Effects of acceleration-induced reductions in retinal and cerebral oxygenation on human performance. Aerosp Med Hum Perform. 2021; 92(2):7582.

In the late 1970s/early 1980s, Baddeley and colleagues conducted a series of experiments investigating the role of eye movements in visual working memory. Although only described briefly in a book, these studies have influenced a remarkable number of empirical and theoretical developments in fields ranging from experimental psychology to human neuropsychology to nonhuman primate electrophysiology. This paper presents, in full detail, three critical studies from this series, together with a recently performed study that includes a level of eye movement measurement and control that was not available for the older studies. Together, the results demonstrate several facts about the sensitivity of visuospatial working memory to eye movements. First, it is eye movement control, not movement per se, that produces the disruptive effects. Second, these effects are limited to working memory for locations and do not generalize to visual working memory for shapes. Third, they can be isolated to the storage/maintenance components of working memory (e.g., to the delay period of the delayed-recognition task). These facts have important implications for models of visual working memory.

Verbal working memory and executive deficits have been observed in ecstasy users. The present study sought to establish whether these also extended to visuo-spatial working memory. Thirty-six current ecstasy users, 12 former users (abstinent for at least 6 months) and 31 individuals that had never used ecstasy were tested on a maintenance plus type visuo-spatial working memory task. The task required participants to recall a sequence of specially marked cells in a four-by-four matrix display while at the same time performing a concurrent visual judgement task. Both the current and former user groups registered impairments relative to nonusers. These remained significant following statistical controls for a range of potentially confounding variables including the use of various other drugs during the 3 months prior to testing. Users were unimpaired on a simple spatial span measure suggesting that the deficits observed reflected the executive aspects of the spatial working memory task. Also consistent with executive involvement, statistical controls for measures of verbal working memory performance (computation span) removed half of the ecstasy-related variance in spatial working memory. The possibility that the pattern of results obtained might reflect some general impairment in information processing efficiency is discussed.

Developmental research provides considerable evidence of a strong relationship between verbal and visuospatial working memory (WM) and mathematics ability across age groups. However, little is known about how components of WM (i.e., short-term storage, processing speed, the central executive) might relate to mathematics sub-categories and how these change as children develop. This study aimed to identify developmental changes in relationships between components of verbal and visuospatial WM and specific mathematics abilities. Children (n = 117) were recruited from four UK schools across three age groups (7-8 years; 9-10 years; and 14-15 years). Children's verbal and visuospatial short-term storage, processing speed, and central executive abilities were assessed. Age-based changes in the contributions from these abilities to performance on mathematics sub-categories were examined. When WM was examined both as an amalgamation of its component parts, and individually, relationships with mathematics were more evident in younger children compared to the middle and older age groups. However, when unique variance was examined for each WM predictor (controlling for the other components), many of those relationships disappeared. Relationships with processing speed and the central executive were found to be more evident in the older age groups. The WM-mathematics relationship changes dependent on age and mathematical sub-component. Overlap in individual WM abilities in younger children, compared to reliance on the central executive and processing speed in older children, suggests a set of fluid resources important in mathematics learning in younger children but separating out as children grow older.

The sensory recruitment hypothesis posits that Visual Working Memory (VWM) maintenance uses the same cortical machinery as online perception, implying similarity between the two. Characterizing similarities and differences in these representations is critical for understanding how perceptions are reformatted into durable working memories. It is unknown whether the perceptual appearance effect brought by attention is maintained in VWM. We investigated how VWM depends on attentional state by examining how transient modulations from reflexive (exogenous) attentional orienting affect the appearance of VWM representations; particularly whether VWM takes a “snapshot” at the time of encoding, or transient attentional dynamics continue into VWM. Specifically, we assessed whether the transient modulation to perceived contrast caused by exogenous attention is preserved when attended stimuli are encoded and maintained in VWM. Observers performed a delayed contrast comparison task in which one stimulus had to be held in VWM across a delay and compared to a second stimulus. Exogenous attention was manipulated through transient pre-cues appearing above the location of the first, second, or both stimuli before their onset. Model comparisons revealed that the transient attentional boost to perceived contrast persisted in VWM across the delay. This result indicates that VWM maintains a “snapshot” of the attentional-modulated perceptual representation at the time of encoding and suggests that attentional effects on vision enable us to select and protect in VWM visual information relevant to cognition and action.

The effects of perceptual encoding on the magnitude of object working memory impairment in schizophrenia