Campoy Guillermo
Universidad de Murcia, Facultad de Psicología, Campus de Espinardo, 30100, Murcia, Spain.
Psychol Res. 2017 Sep;81(5):982-989. doi: 10.1007/s00426-016-0789-7. Epub 2016 Jul 25.
The three-embedded-component model of working memory (WM) distinguishes three representational states corresponding to three WM regions: activated long-term memory, direct-access region (DAR), and focus of attention. Recent neuroimaging research has revealed that access to the DAR is associated with enhanced hippocampal activity. Because the hippocampus mediates the encoding and retrieval of item-context associations, it has been suggested that this hippocampal activation is a consequence of the fact that item-context associations are particularly strong and accessible in the DAR. This study provides behavioral evidence for this view using an item-recognition task to assess the effect of non-intentional encoding and maintenance of item-location associations across WM regions. Five pictures of human faces were sequentially presented in different screen locations followed by a recognition probe. Visual cues immediately preceding the probe indicated the location thereof. When probe stimuli appeared in the same location that they had been presented within the memory set, the presentation of the cue was expected to elicit the activation of the corresponding WM representation through the just-established item-location association, resulting in faster recognition. Results showed this same-location effect, but only for items that, according to their serial position within the memory set, were held in the DAR.
工作记忆（WM）的三嵌入成分模型区分了与三个WM区域相对应的三种表征状态：激活的长期记忆、直接访问区域（DAR）和注意力焦点。最近的神经影像学研究表明，进入DAR与海马体活动增强有关。由于海马体介导项目-情境关联的编码和检索，有人提出这种海马体激活是项目-情境关联在DAR中特别强烈且易于访问这一事实的结果。本研究使用项目识别任务来评估跨WM区域非故意编码和维持项目-位置关联的效果，为这一观点提供了行为证据。五张人脸图片依次出现在不同的屏幕位置，随后是一个识别探针。紧接在探针之前的视觉线索表明了其位置。当探针刺激出现在它们在记忆组中呈现的相同位置时，线索的呈现预计会通过刚刚建立的项目-位置关联引发相应WM表征的激活，从而加快识别速度。结果显示了这种同位置效应，但仅针对根据其在记忆组中的序列位置而存储在DAR中的项目。
