How checking breeds doubt: reduced performance in a simple working memory task.

Area of Science:

• Cognitive Neuroscience
• Experimental Psychology

Background:

• Repeated checking paradoxically decreases memory certainty and vividness.
• Existing research often attributes this to long-term memory changes.
• The role of working memory in this phenomenon remains less explored.

Purpose of the Study:

• To investigate the impact of detrimental checking on working memory representations.
• To test if working memory, specifically the episodic buffer, is affected by unnecessary checking.
• To examine individual differences in checking behavior and their effect on working memory performance.

Main Methods:

• Utilized a delayed-match-to-sample working memory task involving remembering letter locations.
• Introduced a misleading distractor question to induce frustrating and unnecessary checking.
• Measured reaction times and confidence ratings, and compared accuracy between high and low checkers.

Main Results:

• Frustrating checking significantly impacted performance on the working memory task.
• High checkers were less accurate than low checkers when unnecessary checking was induced.
• The experimental context emphasizing the irrelevance of the distractor question exacerbated this effect.

Conclusions:

• Detrimental checking can weaken fragile bindings within the episodic short-term buffer of working memory.
• Lack of distractor inhibition may contribute to memory deficits associated with checking behaviors.
• Findings have clinical relevance for understanding memory disturbances in conditions involving compulsive checking.