Working Memory Storage Is Intrinsically Domain Specific
Working Memory Storage Is Intrinsically Domain Specific
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DOI：
10.1037/a0038211
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发表时间：
2015-02-01
影响因子：
4.1
通讯作者：
Marois, Rene
中科院分区：
文献类型：
--
作者：
Fougnie, Daryl;Zughni, Samir;Marois, Rene
工作记忆(WM)中的一个长期争论是，信息是否保存在一个中央的、容量有限的存储系统中，或者是否存在针对不同形态的特定领域的存储。该问题通常通过确定2个不同存储器阵列的并发存储是否产生干扰来解决。使用该方法的先前研究已经表明，维护在感知形态上不同的2个存储器阵列至少需要一些成本。然而，目前尚不清楚这些工作记忆成本是来自于对中央容量有限存储的竞争，还是来自其他潜在的双重任务干扰来源，例如任务准备和协调、表征内容的重叠(例如，基于对象和空间)，或者认知策略(例如，言语，以更高顺序结构的刺激材料的组块)。在本研究中，我们评估了在视觉空间WM任务和听觉对象WM任务同时执行期间的双任务成本，当这些干扰源被最小化时。结果表明，即使在高WM负载下，这两个WM任务的性能也是相互独立的。只有当我们将一种共同的表征格式(空间信息)引入两个WM任务时，双重任务的绩效才开始受到影响。这些结果与独立于域的存储系统的概念不一致，相反表明WM受到多个特定于域的存储和中央执行进程的限制。显然，人类大脑的功能结构并没有什么内在的东西来阻止它在工作记忆中存储两个不同的表征，只要这些表征在任何功能域中都不重叠。
A longstanding debate in working memory (WM) is whether information is maintained in a central, capacity-limited storage system or whether there are domain-specific stores for different modalities. This question is typically addressed by determining whether concurrent storage of 2 different memory arrays produces interference. Prior studies using this approach have shown at least some cost to maintaining 2 memory arrays that differed in perceptual modalities. However, it is not clear whether these WM costs resulted from competition for a central, capacity-limited store or from other potential sources of dual-task interference, such as task preparation and coordination, overlap in representational content (e. g., object vs. space based), or cognitive strategies (e.g., verbalization, chunking of the stimulus material in a higher order structure). In the present study we assess dual-task costs during the concurrent performance of a visuospatial WM task and an auditory object WM task when such sources of interference are minimized. The results show that performance of these 2 WM tasks are independent from each another, even at high WM load. Only when we introduced a common representational format (spatial information) to both WM tasks did dual-task performance begin to suffer. These results are inconsistent with the notion of a domain-independent storage system, and suggest instead that WM is constrained by multiple domain-specific stores and central executive processes. Evidently, there is nothing intrinsic about the functional architecture of the human mind that prevents it from storing 2 distinct representations in WM, as long as these representations do not overlap in any functional domain.