Loaiza, V.M. orcid.org/0000-0002-5000-7089 and Souza, A.S. orcid.org/0000-0002-1057-8426 (2018) Is refreshing in working memory impaired in older age? Evidence from the retro‐cue paradigm. Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences, 1424 (1). pp. 175-189. ISSN 0077-8923
Abstract
Impairments in refreshing have been suggested as one source of working memory (WM) deficits in older age. Retro-cues provide an important method of investigating this question: a retro-cue guides attention to one WM item, thereby arguably refreshing it and increasing its accessibility compared with a no-cue baseline. In contrast to the refreshing deficit hypothesis, intact retro-cue benefits have been found in older adults. Refreshing, however, is assumed to boost not one but several WM representations when sequentially applied to them. Hence, intact refreshing requires the flexible switching of attention among WM items. So far, it remains an open question whether older adults show this flexibility. Here, we investigated whether older adults can use multiple cues to sequentially refresh WM representations. Younger and older adults completed a continuous-color delayed-estimation task, in which the number of retro-cues (0, 1, or 2) presented during the retention interval was manipulated. The results showed a similar retro-cue benefit for younger and older adults, even in the two-cue condition in which participants had to switch attention between items to refresh representations in WM. These findings suggest that the capacity to use cues to refresh information in visual WM may be preserved with age.
Metadata
Item Type: | Article |
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Authors/Creators: |
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Copyright, Publisher and Additional Information: | © 2018 New York Academy of Sciences. This is an author-produced version of a paper subsequently published in Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences. Uploaded in accordance with the publisher's self-archiving policy. |
Keywords: | aging; attention; refreshing; retro-cues; working memory; Adolescent; Adult; Aged; Aging; Attention; Female; Humans; Male; Memory, Short-Term; Mental Recall; Middle Aged |
Dates: |
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Institution: | The University of Sheffield |
Academic Units: | The University of Sheffield > Faculty of Science (Sheffield) > Department of Psychology (Sheffield) |
Depositing User: | Symplectic Sheffield |
Date Deposited: | 24 Nov 2023 12:28 |
Last Modified: | 24 Nov 2023 12:28 |
Status: | Published |
Publisher: | Wiley |
Refereed: | Yes |
Identification Number: | 10.1111/nyas.13623 |
Related URLs: | |
Open Archives Initiative ID (OAI ID): | oai:eprints.whiterose.ac.uk:205657 |