The causes and consequences of forgetting in working memory

Working memory is a system for holding in mind information in the face of potentially distracting activity, and is often assessed using tasks in which participants maintain memory items while carrying out interleaved 'processing' activity. Performance on such tasks correlates well with measures of academic achievement in children and adults, and does so more strongly than performance on tasks that involve the storage of information without interleaved processing. Consequently, the addition of a processing aspect to a working memory task is important in determining its predictability of academic abilities, but what is less clear is why the addition of processing has this effect. The main aim of this project is to answer this question. This will be done by assessing why processing activities cause forgetting in working memory tasks. Specifically we will examine whether processing prevents individuals rehearsing information, whether it makes memory episodes less distinctive and therefore harder to remember, and whether it introduces the need to switch between different aspects of the task. By addressing these issues in samples of children and adults we will also be able to determine which of these features of working memory tasks are crucial to determining their ability to predict academic achievement.

工作记忆（Working Memory）是一种可在潜在干扰性活动存在的前提下，于脑海中留存信息的认知系统，其评估常采用如下范式：要求被试在执行穿插进行的“加工”任务的同时，维持记忆项的存储。此类任务的表现与儿童及成人的学业成就测评结果呈显著相关，且其相关强度高于仅需存储信息而无穿插加工环节的记忆任务表现的相关程度。由此可见，在工作记忆任务中加入加工维度，对该任务预测学业能力的效能至关重要，但学界目前尚未明确该加工维度为何能产生此种效应。本研究的核心目标正是解答这一问题，具体将通过探究加工活动为何会引发工作记忆任务中的遗忘现象来实现。具体而言，我们将考察三类潜在机制：其一，加工活动是否会阻碍个体对信息进行复述；其二，加工活动是否会使记忆片段的独特性降低，进而提升记忆难度；其三，加工活动是否会要求个体在任务的不同维度间进行切换。本研究将分别以儿童与成人作为被试样本开展上述研究，借此明确工作记忆任务的哪些特征对其学业成就预测效能具有决定性影响。