MEMO-LINK

This project investigates the influence of semantic and phonological representations on the maintenance of information in working memory (WM). Pioneering studies highlighted the importance of phonological representations for maintaining information in verbal WM (e.g., Baddeley et al., 1986; Baddeley & Hitch, 1974). However, more recent studies have accumulated evidence supporting an essential contribution of semantic representations (Kowialiewski et al., 2021; Meltzer et al., 2016; Nishiyama, 2014, 2018; Pham & Archibald, 2023). Despite this consensus on the involvement of both phonological and semantic representations, their role in maintaining information in WM remains far from fully understood.

The aim of this study is to shed light on this issue by specifically examining two unresolved aspects. First, it investigates the contribution of these representations to maintaining links in WM (Bartsch & Shepherdson, 2023; Kowialiewski et al., 2023; Oberauer, 2019). Second, the project aims to examine the extent to which the engagement of phonological and semantic representations modulates the decline in WM performance typically observed during cognitive aging (Bopp & Verhaeghen, 2005; Naveh-Benjamin & Cowan, 2023). Indeed, strong contradictions have emerged regarding the ability of older adults to spontaneously and effectively use strategies based on their semantic knowledge. On the one hand, some research has highlighted difficulties for older adults in effectively mobilizing such strategies (Bartsch et al., 2019; Dunlosky & Hertzog, 2001; Smith, 1980). Conversely, other studies have revealed that engaging semantic representations can improve memory performance in older adults, even eliminating performance differences between young and older adults (Badham & Maylor, 2015; Jarjat & Plancher, 2020; Loaiza & Srokova, 2020; Mohanty et al., 2016).

From this perspective, this project will involve presenting a computerized WM task (complex span task; Conway et al., 2005) to young and older adults. This task will involve alternating between phases of memorizing word pairs and distractor phases. To manipulate the availability of phonological and semantic representations for maintaining word pairs, the distractor task will consist of semantic or phonological judgments on distractor words. In addition, the stimuli to be memorized will be pairs of concrete or abstract words. We will study the impact of these manipulations on word pair recognition performance during immediate recognition (WM) and delayed recognition (LTM) phases.