Psychonomic Bulletin & Review: Long-Term Semantic Representations Moderate the Effect of Attentional Refreshing on Episodic

        According to Loaiza and colleagues, working memory and long-term memory are “distinguishable but related constructs” (p.3).  In distinguishing the two memory systems, the authors note that working memory is the memory system “responsible for maintaining and processing information” (p.3) on an ongoing basis. About long-term memory, they describe it as the grasping of information no longer required in the working memory. Additionally, they split long-term memory into semantic memory and episodic memory sub-systems. Testing working memory applies complex span tasks.

Moreover, Camos et al. (2009, as cited by Loaiza, 2014) saw that studies mainly investigated working memory “mechanisms, articulatory rehearsals and attentional refreshing” (p. 4). Loaiza et al. (2014) assert that refreshing is also vital for episodic memory. Additionally, they cite studies that show the McCabe Effect because of refreshing. The researchers point that recollection has not always been done within the context of the McCabe effect. As such, Loaiza and colleagues study investigated the general hypothesis that “refreshing during working memory facilitates recollection” (p.6). Loaiza and the team tested their theory by investigating whether manipulating “the opportunity to refresh memoranda during WM predicts recollection-based EM” (6). Secondly, the researchers “examined whether any potential influence of refreshing opportunities on recollection would be attenuated when memoranda were unknown. That way, they write that they could address the “unresolved issues concerning the relative importance of WM refreshing in EM” (p.6). They found that the empirical results supported their hypothesis, that “mechanisms supporting working memory may facilitate recollection that occurs during later EM retrieval” (Loaiza et al. n.d., p.12).

References

Loaiza, V., Duperreault, K., Rhodes, M., & McCabe, D. (2014). Long-term semantic representations moderate the effect of attentional refreshing on episodic memory. Psychonomic Bulletin & Review, 22(1), 274-280. DOI: 10.3758/s13423-014-0673-7