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Time and cognitive load in working memory.

Pierre Barrouillet1, Sophie Bernardin, Sophie Portrat

  • 1Department of PsychologyUniversite de Geneve, Geneva, Switzerland. Pierre.Barrouillet@pse.unige.ch

Journal of Experimental Psychology. Learning, Memory, and Cognition
|May 2, 2007
PubMed
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Cognitive load increases with task duration, impacting memory and attention. These effects are not modality-specific, suggesting a shared attentional resource in working memory.

Area of Science:

  • Cognitive Psychology
  • Neuroscience

Background:

  • The time-based resource-sharing model posits that cognitive load is proportional to the time a task demands attention.
  • Understanding the interplay between attention, memory, and executive functions is crucial for cognitive models.

Purpose of the Study:

  • To investigate the disruptive effects of concurrent tasks on memory maintenance and retrieval.
  • To determine if these disruptive effects are dependent on the duration and attentional demands of the concurrent tasks.
  • To examine the modality specificity of working memory resource limitations.

Main Methods:

  • Participants engaged in concurrent tasks involving memory retrieval and response selection.
  • The duration of these concurrent activities was systematically varied.

Related Experiment Videos

  • Verbal maintenance and spatial processing tasks were used to assess modality specificity.

    • Main Results:

    • The disruptive impact on memory maintenance and response selection escalated with the duration of concurrent activities.
    • Concurrent activities disrupted recall performance only to the extent that they demanded attention and were time-consuming.
    • Spatial processing interfered with verbal maintenance, indicating non-modality-specific resource limitations.

    Conclusions:

    • Working memory operates sequentially, relying on a single, general-purpose attentional resource for executive processes.
    • Processing and storage functions share this limited attentional pool, supporting the construction, maintenance, and modification of temporary representations.
    • The duration and attentional capture of tasks are key determinants of cognitive load and interference in working memory.