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Selection of objects and tasks in working memory.

Sarah Risse¹, Klaus Oberauer

¹Department of Psychology, Allgemeine Psychologie I, University of Potsdam, Potsdam, Germany. sarah.risse@uni-potsdam.de

Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology (2006)

|September 11, 2009

Summary

Switching between objects or tasks in working memory incurs costs. This study found that learned associations reduce these costs, challenging the idea of a single executive attention resource.

Area of Science:

Cognitive Psychology
Neuroscience
Human Memory

Background:

Selecting items in working memory incurs processing costs, especially when switching between items or tasks.
Understanding the mechanisms of selection and switching is crucial for cognitive theories.

Purpose of the Study:

To investigate the interplay between object selection and task selection within working memory.
To examine how varying cue-task and cue-object mappings influence switching costs.
To test predictions of sequential vs. partially parallel selection models.

Main Methods:

Employed a combined object-switching and task-switching paradigm.
Participants used spatial cues for object selection (digits) and color cues for task selection (addition/subtraction).

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Orthogonally varied the consistency of object-cue and task-cue mappings across trials.

Main Results:

Additive switch costs were observed when both object-cue and task-cue mappings varied, supporting sequential selection or resource sharing.
Underadditive switch costs emerged when at least one mapping was constant, indicating learning and partially parallel selection.
Object-switch costs increased with the number of objects, while task-switch costs did not, decoupling these processes.

Conclusions:

Working memory selection involves both sequential and parallel processes, influenced by learned associations.
The findings challenge the existence of a general executive attention resource, suggesting domain-specific control mechanisms.
Learned associations play a significant role in mitigating cognitive switching costs.