Reconciling Two Computational Models of Working Memory in Aging

Violette Hoareau; Benoît Lemaire; Sophie Portrat; Gaën Plancher

doi:10.1111/tops.12184

Reconciling Two Computational Models of Working Memory in Aging

Top Cogn Sci. 2016 Jan;8(1):264-78. doi: 10.1111/tops.12184. Epub 2016 Jan 8.

Authors

Violette Hoareau^{1

2}, Benoît Lemaire^{1

2}, Sophie Portrat^{1

2}, Gaën Plancher³

Affiliations

¹ Laboratory of Psychology and Neurocognition, University Grenoble Alpes, France.
² Joint Research Center 5105, Laboratory of Psychology and Neurcognition, and CNRS, France.
³ Laboratory for the Study of Cognitive Mechanisms, University of Lyon 2, France.

PMID: 26748955
DOI: 10.1111/tops.12184

Abstract

It is well known that working memory performance changes with age. Two recent computational models of working memory, TBRS* and SOB-CS, developed from young adults WM performances are opposed regarding the postulated causes of forgetting, namely time-based decay and interference for TBRS* and SOB-CS, respectively. In the present study, these models are applied on a set of complex span data produced by young and older adults. As expected, these models are unable to account for the older adult data. An investigation on the effect of the main parameters of these models showed that the poorer performance of older adults does not come from a weaker encoding of item but rather from difficulties during the free time that immediately follows each distractor, as well as from a higher level of confusion between items. These results are discussed with respect to the current theories of working memory and aging.

Keywords: Aging; Computational modeling; Decay; Interference; SOB-CS; TBRS; Working memory.

Publication types

Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

MeSH terms

Adult
Aging / physiology*
Attention
Female
Humans
Male
Memory, Short-Term / physiology*
Models, Psychological*
Patient-Specific Modeling
Young Adult