Inconclusive evidence for associations between adverse experiences in adulthood and working memory performance

Area of Science:

• Cognitive Psychology
• Neuroscience
• Social Science

Background:

• Adversity is typically linked to reduced working memory (WM) performance, particularly in information holding.
• Recent studies suggest some adversities might preserve or improve WM updating abilities.
• Distinguishing WM capacity from updating is crucial due to task overlap.

Purpose of the Study:

• To investigate the association between different types of adversity and distinct WM processes (capacity vs. updating).
• To isolate variance in WM capacity and updating performance to better understand their relationship with adversity.
• To address the challenge of task covariance in WM research.

Main Methods:

• Utilized data from the Dutch Longitudinal Internet studies for the Social Sciences (LISS) panel.
• Administered three WM tasks, including complex span and a binding/updating task.
• Estimated exposure to neighbourhood threat, material deprivation, and unpredictability.
• Employed structural equation modeling to analyze associations between adversity and latent WM estimates.

Main Results:

• No consistent associations were found between adversity and WM capacity.
• No consistent associations were found between adversity and WM updating.
• Evidence did not support practically significant associations between adversity and these WM components.

Conclusions:

• The study did not find robust links between adversity and specific working memory functions.
• Researchers should account for the overlap between WM capacity and updating tasks in their analyses.
• Future research may need refined methodologies to disentangle these cognitive processes in relation to adversity.