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Preschoolers' repeating patterning knowledge is predictive of their concurrent and later math and numeracy knowledge, but strong experimental evidence is needed to determine if these relations are causal. The purpose of the current study was to examine the causal effects of repeating patterning and numeracy tutoring on repeating patterning, numeracy, and general mathematics knowledge in the year before kindergarten (i.e., pre-K). Children in pre-K (N = 211) were randomly assigned to receive five sessions of researcher-delivered tutoring (a) on repeating patterns and numeracy or (b) on numeracy (and literacy as an active control), or received no tutoring and business as usual classroom instruction (control). Children who received tutoring in repeating patterning and numeracy improved in their repeating patterning knowledge the most. However, children's general math and numeracy knowledge improved similarly across conditions, and a specific aspect of numeracy emphasized during the tutoring did not improve. Children's repeating patterning knowledge is malleable, but this initial attempt to demonstrate causal links between repeating patterning and math knowledge was not successful. Results parallel mixed success in research training other skills, such as working memory or spatial skills, for improving mathematics knowledge. Findings are discussed in terms of the relations between patterning, numeracy, and general math knowledge in preschoolers. Educational Impact and Implications Statement: We know that preschool children with better repeating patterning knowledge (i.e., understanding predictable sequences with a part that repeats, like objects arranged ABABAB) also tend to do better on math and numeracy tasks. How can we improve preschool children's patterning knowledge, and does teaching preschoolers patterning along with numbers improve their math knowledge? Our five tutoring sessions improved children's patterning knowledge, but did not improve their math knowledge. The patterning instruction was designed to improve children's knowledge of and ability to duplicate, extend, and abstract (i.e., duplication with different materials) repeating patterns, and identify the unit of repeat in those patterns. Although it was not designed to be used for classroom instruction, key features of our tutoring protocol can be incorporated into preschool teachers' patterning instruction. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The dominant paradigm for understanding working memory, or the combination of the perceptual, attentional, and mnemonic processes needed for thinking, subdivides short-term memory (STM) according to whether memoranda are encoded in aural-verbal or visual formats. This traditional dissociation has been supported by examples of neuropsychological patients who seem to selectively lack STM for either aural-verbal, visual, or spatial memoranda, and by experimental research using dual-task methods. Though this evidence is the foundation of assumptions of modular STM systems, the case it makes for a specialized visual STM system is surprisingly weak. I identify the key evidence supporting a distinct verbal STM system-patients with apparent selective damage to verbal STM and the resilience of verbal short-term memories to general dual-task interference-and apply these benchmarks to neuropsychological and experimental investigations of visual-spatial STM. Contrary to the evidence on verbal STM, patients with apparent visual or spatial STM deficits tend to experience a wide range of additional deficits, making it difficult to conclude that a distinct short-term store was damaged. Consistently with this, a meta-analysis of dual-task visual-spatial STM research shows that robust dual-task costs are consistently observed regardless of the domain or sensory code of the secondary task. Together, this evidence suggests that positing a specialized visual STM system is not necessary. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The present study investigated whether older adults' visuospatial working memory shows effects of environmental support for rehearsal similar to those observed in young adults (Lilienthal, Hale, & Myerson, 2014). When the duration of interitem intervals was 4 s and participants had sufficient time to rehearse, location memory spans were larger in both age groups when environmental support was present than when support was absent. Critically, however, the age-related difference in memory was actually larger when support was provided, suggesting that young and older adults may differ in their rehearsal of to-be-remembered locations. (PsycINFO Database Record [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Researchers in spatial cognition have debated for decades the specificity of the mechanisms through which spatial information is processed and stored. Interestingly, although rodents are the preferred animal model for studying spatial navigation, the behavioral methods traditionally used to assess spatial memory do not effectively test the predictions of specificity in their representation. To address such issues, the present study tested the ability of mice to use boundary geometry and features to remember a goal location across 2 types of tasks--a working memory task with a changing goal location, and a reference memory task with 1 rewarded goal location. We show for the first time that mice, like other animals, can successfully encode boundary geometry in a working memory spatial mapping task, just as they do in a reference memory task. Their use of a nongeometric featural cue (striped pattern), in contrast, was more limited in the working memory task, although it quickly improved in the reference memory task. We discuss the implications of these findings for future research on the neural and genetic underpinnings of spatial representations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Simon effect refers to the relatively poorer response times and accuracy when responding to targets that appear in a task-irrelevant spatial location that is incongruent with the location of the correct response key, compared with targets that appear in spatially congruent locations. Like Stroop and flanker effects, the Simon effect is thought to result from conflict between an irrelevant response tendency and an intended response. Because attentional control has been linked to conflict resolution, the Simon task has been proffered as a possible tool for measuring the efficacy of executive control mechanisms. These mechanisms are also involved in working memory (WM) processes, and are thought to be responsible for maintaining information in the presence of continued processing or distraction. The present study investigated the interface between WM and attention by examining the time course of the Simon effect over the response time distributions under varying WM load conditions. Participants completed verbal 0-back, spatial 0-back, verbal 2-back, and spatial 2-back tasks. Results show that the Simon effect is diminished in high WM load tasks compared with low-load tasks, and that the Simon effect interacts with the spatial task domain such that the effect persists across the distribution of response times. In contrast, the Simon effect peaks and decays in verbal tasks. The results demonstrate that the Simon effect interacts with WM load and task domain. The results suggest that the effect is more modifiable than expected, and support a complex interface between WM and attentional control. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Pigeons' performance on a working memory task, symbolic delayed matching-to-sample, was used to examine the interaction between working memory and reference memory. Reference memory was established by training pigeons to discriminate between the comparison cues used in delayed matching as S+ and S-- stimuli. Delayed matching retention tests then measured accuracy when working and reference memory were congruent and incongruent. In 4 experiments, it was shown that the interaction between working and reference memory is reciprocal: Strengthening either type of memory leads to a decrease in the influence of the other type of memory. A process dissociation procedure analysis of the data from Experiment 4 showed independence of working and reference memory, and a model of working memory and reference memory interaction was shown to predict the findings reported in the 4 experiments. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Working memory is typically defined as a system devoted to the simultaneous maintenance and processing of information. However, the interplay between these 2 functions is still a matter of debate in the literature, with views ranging from complete independence to complete dependence. The time-based resource-sharing model assumes that a central bottleneck constrains the 2 functions to alternate in such a way that maintenance activities postpone concurrent processing, with each additional piece of information to be maintained resulting in an additional postponement. Using different kinds of memoranda, we examined in a series of 7 experiments the effect of increasing memory load on different processing tasks. The results reveal that, insofar as attention is needed for maintenance, processing times linearly increase at a rate of about 50 ms per verbal or visuospatial memory item, suggesting a very fast refresh rate in working memory. Our results also show an asymmetry between verbal and spatial information, in that spatial information can solely rely on attention for its maintenance while verbal information can also rely on a domain-specific maintenance mechanism independent from attention. The implications for the functioning of working memory are discussed, with a specific focus on how information is maintained in working memory. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Visual tracking abilities are limited to only a few objects at a time. When do errors arise? We hypothesized that some errors arise prior to tracking; specifically, during the first moments of a trial because of an inability to correctly perceive the number of targets in a display. To test this hypothesis, we modified a basic multiple object tracking (MOT) task in two ways: (1) we distilled the first moments of MOT into a static working memory task, requiring participants to remember and then identify targets among nontargets in displays without motion; (2) we unconstrained the number of responses a participant could make, asking them to terminate each trial when they felt that they had made an adequate number of responses. In Experiment I, participants made the wrong number of responses in a considerable number of trials, and they tendered the wrong number of responses more frequently with larger loads. Comparisons across different delay durations demonstrated that these results were not caused by temporal decay. Follow-up experiments produced similar results when participants stated the cardinal number of targets perceived in a static trial (Experiment 2), and when they reported whether or not a test display included the same number of targets as a memory display (Experiment 3). Finally, with a typical tracking duration, participants also produced the wrong number of responses frequently (Experiment 4). Thus, some of the difficulty associated with MOT originates from uncertainty about the number of targets at the start of an episode. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Part-set cuing inhibition refers to the counterintuitive finding that hints--specifically, part of the set of to-be-remembered information--often impair memory performance in free recall tasks. Although inhi-bition is the most commonly reported result, part-set cuing facilitation has been shown with serial order tasks. The present study examined the influence of part-set cuing for spatial locations using novel methods and materials. Participants viewed the construction of Snap Circuit objects and then attempted to reconstruct the objects in either the presence or absence of part-set cues. Two experiments revealed robust part-set cuing facilitation on the spatial memory tasks. Generally, these results are consistent with the predictions of the retrieval strategy disruption hypothesis (e.g. D. R. Basden & Basden, 1995) and the 2- and 3-mechanism accounts of part-set cuing (Bäuml & Asian, 2006: Bäuml & Samenieh. 2012). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Younger and older adults who were either monolingual or bilingual were tested with verbal and spatial working memory (WM) span tasks. Aging was associated with a greater decline in spatial WM than in verbal WM, but the age-related declines were equivalent in both language groups. The bilingual participants outperformed the monolinguals in spatial WM, but achieved lower levels of performance than monolinguals in verbal WM. This interaction between bilingualism and WM domain was also consistent across the adult life span. These results are discussed in terms of the interactions between a domain-general executive processing advantage for bilinguals and the domain-specific content of particular WM tasks. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study describes a novel spatial memory paradigm for monkeys and reports the effects of neonatal damage to the hippocampus on performance in adulthood. Monkeys were trained to forage in eight boxes hung on the walls of a large enclosure. Each box contained a different food item that varied in its intrinsic reward value, as determined from food preference testing. Monkeys were trained on a spatial and a cued version of the task. In the spatial task, the boxes looked identical and remained fixed in location whereas in the cued task, the boxes were individuated with colored plaques and changed location on each trial. Ten adult Rhesus macaques (5 neonatal sham-operated and 5 with neonatal neurotoxic hippocampal lesions) were allowed to forage once daily until they preferentially visited boxes containing preferred foods. The data suggest that all monkeys learned to discriminate preferred from nonpreferred food locations, but that monkeys with neonatal hippocampal damage committed significantly more working memory errors than controls in both tasks. Furthermore, following selective satiation, controls altered their foraging pattern to avoid the satiated food, whereas lesioned animals did not, suggesting that neonatal hippocampal lesions prohibit learning of specific food-place associations. We conclude that whereas an intact hippocampus is necessary to form specific item-in-place associations, in its absence, cortical areas may support more broad distinctions between food types that allow monkeys to discrim-inate places containing highly preferred foods. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The current study tested spatial memory recall in 1 male and 1 female giant panda (Ailuropoda melanoleuca). The task required subjects to make a delayed response to a previously lighted location, with varying lengths of delay between the observation phase and the test phase. The male subject reached criterion at 2-, 3-, 4-, 5-, 6-, and 10-s delays. The female subject reached criterion at 2-, 3-, 4-, 5-, 6-, 10-, and 15-s delays. The results support the hypothesis that giant pandas demonstrate significant working memory for spatial location in the absence of external cues, which may be an important mechanism for survival in the wild. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Pairs of rats were tested in a radial-arm maze to determine whether the spatial choices made by one rat affect the subsequent spatial choices of the other rat. In a free-choice procedure, rats showed an increased tendency to choose the location that had most recently been chosen by a foraging partner but a decreased tendency to visit locations that the foraging partner had visited earlier. Forced-choice procedures were used to better control the social stimulus and the interactions between the rats. Under some conditions, locations were chosen later in the choice sequence of a subject rat if another rat had been observed choosing that location. Odor and other physical traces of the other rat's visits were ruled out as explanations for this effect. The results demonstrate the existence of working memory for locations visited by a familiar conspecific. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study uses an operant, behavioral model to assess the daily changes in the decay rate of short-term memory, motivation, and motor ability in rats exposed to chronic restraint. Restraint decreased reward-related motivation by 50% without altering memory decay rate or motor ability. Moreover, chronic restraint impaired hippocampal-dependent spatial memory on the Y maze (4-hr delay) and produced CA3 dendritic retraction without altering hippocampal-independent maze navigation (1-min delay) or locomotion. Thus, mechanisms underlying motivation for food reward differ from those underlying Y maze exploration, and neurobiological substrates of spatial memory, such as the hippocampus, differ from those that underlie short-term memory. Chronic restraint produces functional, neuromorphological, and physiological alterations that parallel symptoms of depression in humans. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Four experiments required participants to keep track of the locations of (i.e., update) 1, 2, 3, 4, 6, 8, 10, or 15 target objects after rotating. Across all conditions, updating was unaffected by set size. Although some traditional set size effects (i.e., a linear increase of latency with memory load) were observed under some conditions, these effects were independent of the updating process. Patterns of data and participant strategies were inconsistent with the common view of spatial updating as an online process. Instead, the authors concluded that participants formed enduring, long-term memory representations of the layouts at learning that were used to reconstruct spatial information about the layouts as needed (i.e., offline updating). These results support M. Amorim, S. Glasauer, K. Corpinot, and A. Berthoz's (1997) 2-system model of spatial updating that includes both online and offline updating. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Place-specific firing by hippocampal and striatal neurons was recorded simultaneously following injection of a D1 receptor antagonist (SCH23390) and during spatial working memory task performance. SCH23390-induced changes in unit responses were observed during light and dark test conditions. Although hippocampal place field locations were altered by the contextual change, the reliability and specificity of place fields was disrupted only by combining D1 antagonism and a change in context. Striatal place field locations were reorganized after either contextual change or D1 antagonism, without altering place field reliability and specificity. Disrupted velocity encoding by place cells in both regions was induced by darkness, whereas greater stability in acceleration encoding followed removal of D1 receptor activity. Dopamine may differentially regulate hippocampal context learning and striatum-based predictive codes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The effects of perirhinal cortex lesions in rats on spatial memory might depend on the choice of strain. The present study, therefore, compared perirhinal lesions in Sprague--Dawley rats (associated with deficits) with Dark Agouti rats (associated with null effects). Tests of reference memory and working memory in the water maze failed to provide evidence that perirhinal lesions disrupt overall levels of performance (irrespective of strain) or that these lesions have differential effects on the rates of spatial learning in these 2 strains. Strain differences were, however, found, as the Dark Agouti strain was often superior. Furthermore, the perirhinal lesions did have differential effects in the 2 strains, but these did not appear to relate directly to changes in spatial learning. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The present study provides the 1st report on the effects of selective lesions of the dysgranular portion of the retrosplenial cortex in rats. Excitotoxic lesions of the dysgranular area were sufficient to impair behavior in the radial-arm maze by biasing the strategy used to solve the task. In particular, rats with dysgranular retrosplenial lesions were less reliant on distal visual cues to control performance of a working memory task in the radial-arm maze. Instead, they were more reliant on using a motor turning strategy to solve the task. This change in strategy is consistent with anatomical data showing that the dysgranular region is the primary recipient of visual inputs to the rat retrosplenial cortex. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]