Papers by Pierre Barrouillet
All in-text references underlined in blue are linked to publications on ResearchGate, letting you... more All in-text references underlined in blue are linked to publications on ResearchGate, letting you access and read them immediately.
Psychonomic Bulletin & Review, 2017
Consolidation is the process through which ephemeral sensory traces are transformed into more sta... more Consolidation is the process through which ephemeral sensory traces are transformed into more stable short-term memory traces. It has been shown that consolidation plays a crucial role in working memory (WM) performance, by strengthening memory traces that then better resist interference and decay. In a recent study, Bayliss, Bogdanovs, and Jarrold (Journal of Memory and Language, 81, 34-50, 2015) argued that this process is separate from the processes known to restore WM traces after degradation, such as attentional refreshing and verbal rehearsal. In the present study, we investigated the relationship between the two types of processes in the context of WM span tasks. Participants were presented with series of letters for serial recall, each letter being followed by four digits for parity judgment. Consolidation opportunity was manipulated by varying the delay between each letter and the first digit to be processed, while opportunities for restoration were manipulated by varying the pace at which the parity task had to be performed (i.e., its cognitive load, or CL). Increasing the time available for either consolidation or restoration resulted in higher WM spans, with some substitutability between the two processes. Accordingly, when consolidation time was added to restoration time in the calculation of CL, the new resulting index, called extended CL, proved a very good predictor of recall performance, a finding also observed when verbal rehearsal was prevented by articulatory suppression. This substitutability between consolidation and restoration suggests that both processes may rely on the same mechanisms.
Thinking & Reasoning, 2013
The way individuals interpret "if p then q" conditionals varies with content and context, often r... more The way individuals interpret "if p then q" conditionals varies with content and context, often resulting in a biconditional reading. Surprisingly, truth table tasks reveal the existence of two different types of biconditional interpretations: equivalence, as for promises and threats, and defective biconditional, as for causal conditionals or indicative conditionals involving binary terms. The aim of this study was to determine how the interpretation of indicative conditionals is affected in children, adolescents, and adults, by restricting their context of enunciation to only one possible alternative for both the antecedent and the consequent. Moreover, we wanted to determine what is the exact nature of the biconditional interpretation induced by these restricted contexts. For this purpose, third, sixth, and ninth graders and adults performed a truth-value task on indicative conditionals presented either in restricted on non-restricted contexts. Restricted contexts had no effect on children who have a conjunctive interpretation of the conditional, but elicited a predominant defective biconditional reading in adolescents and adults. These results corroborate the developmental dual process account of conditional reasoning proposed by Gauffroy and Barrouillet (2009).
Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology, 2007
The aim of this paper is to investigate the controversial issue of the nature of the representati... more The aim of this paper is to investigate the controversial issue of the nature of the representation constructed by individuals to solve arithmetic word problems. More precisely, we consider the relevance of two different theories: the situation or mental model theory (Johnson-Laird, 1983; Reusser, 1989) and the schema theory (Kintsch & Greeno, 1985; Riley, Greeno, & Heller, 1983). Fourth-graders who differed in their mathematical skills were presented with problems that varied in difficulty and with the question either before or after the text. We obtained the classic effect of the position of the question, with better performance when the question was presented prior to the text. In addition, this effect was more marked in the case of children who had poorer mathematical skills and in the case of more difficult problems. We argue that this pattern of results is compatible only with the situation or mental model theory, and not with the schema theory.
Psychonomic Bulletin & Review, 2011
Although forgetting in the short term is a ubiquitous phenomenon, its exact causes remain undecid... more Although forgetting in the short term is a ubiquitous phenomenon, its exact causes remain undecided. The aim of the present study was to test the temporal decay hypothesis according to which memory traces fade away with time when attention is diverted by concurrent activities. In two experiments involving complex span tasks, adults were asked to remember series of items (either letters or spatial locations) while verifying multiplications. The duration of processing was manipulated by presenting multiplications either in word (three × four 0 twelve) or digit (3 × 4 0 12) format, the former taking longer to solve, while the time available to restore memory traces after each operation was kept constant across conditions. In line with the temporal decay hypothesis, the longer solution times elicited by solving word multiplications resulted in poorer recall performance. The fact that longer processing times had a comparable effect on both verbal and visuospatial memory and that the difference between conditions remained stable from the first to the last trials makes it difficult to account for these findings by assuming that forgetting is exclusively due to representationbased interference or buildup of proactive interference.
Psychological Science, 2010
What determines success and failure in dual-task situations? Many theories propose that the exten... more What determines success and failure in dual-task situations? Many theories propose that the extent to which two activities can be performed concurrently depends on the nature of the information involved in the activities. In particular, verbal and visuospatial activities are thought to be fueled by distinct resources, so that interference occurs between two verbal activities or two visuospatial activities, but little or no interference occurs between verbal and visuospatial activities. The current study examined trade-offs in four dual-task situations in which participants maintained verbal or visuospatial information while concurrently processing either verbal or visuospatial information. We manipulated the cognitive load of concurrent processing and assessed recall performance in each condition. Results revealed that both verbal and visuospatial recall performance decreased as a direct function of increasing cognitive load, regardless of the nature of the information concurrently ...
Psychological Review, 2008
The authors argue that the theoretical conflict can be resolved by differentiating 2 kinds of rea... more The authors argue that the theoretical conflict can be resolved by differentiating 2 kinds of reasoning, reasoning about possibilities given the truth of assertions and reasoning about the truth of assertions given possibilities. The standard mental model theory accounts for the former kind of reasoning but does not adequately account for the latter, contrary to the suppositional approach favored by J. St. B. T. Evans et al. (2005). The authors thus propose a modified mental model theory of conditionals that reconciles the 2 theoretical approaches. It is demonstrated that this theory is able to explain the key findings that have been opposed to the standard theory by J. St. B. T. Evans et al. and makes new predictions that are empirically verified.
Memory & Cognition, 2006
Note-This article was accepted by the previous editorial team, when Colin M. MacLeod was Editor.
The Journal of General Psychology, 2014
Working memory (WM) capacity measured through complex span tasks is among the best predictors of ... more Working memory (WM) capacity measured through complex span tasks is among the best predictors of fluid intelligence (Gf). These tasks usually involve maintaining memoranda while performing complex cognitive activities that require a rather high level of education (e.g., reading comprehension, arithmetic), restricting their range of applicability. Because individual differences in such complex activities are nothing more than the concatenation of small differences in their elementary constituents, complex span tasks involving elementary processes should be as good of predictors of Gf as traditional tasks. The present study showed that two latent variables issued from either traditional or new span tasks involving time-constrained elementary activities were similarly correlated with Gf. Moreover, a model with a single unitary WM factor had a similar fit as a model with two distinct WM factors. Thus, time-constrained elementary activities can be integrated in WM tasks, permitting the assessment of WM in a wider range of populations.
Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition, 2009
Examinations of interference between visual and spatial materials in working memory have suggeste... more Examinations of interference between visual and spatial materials in working memory have suggested domain-and process-based fractionations of visuo-spatial working memory. The present study examined the role of central time-based resource sharing in visuo-spatial working memory and assessed its role in obtained interference patterns. Visual and spatial storage were combined with both visual and spatial on-line processing components in computer-paced working memory span tasks (Experiment 1) and in a selective interference paradigm (Experiment 2). The cognitive load of the processing components was manipulated to investigate its impact on concurrent maintenance for both within-domain and betweendomain combinations of processing and storage components. In contrast to both domain-and processbased fractionations of visuo-spatial working memory, the results revealed that recall performance was determined by the cognitive load induced by the processing of items, rather than by the domain to which those items pertained. These findings are interpreted as evidence for a time-based resource-sharing mechanism in visuo-spatial working memory.
Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition, 2007
According to the Time-Based Resource-Sharing model (Barrouillet, Bernardin, & Camos, 2004), the c... more According to the Time-Based Resource-Sharing model (Barrouillet, Bernardin, & Camos, 2004), the cognitive load a given task involves is a function of the time during which it captures attention, thus impeding other attention demanding processes to take place. Accordingly, the present study demonstrates that the disruptive effect on concurrent maintenance of memory retrievals and response selections increases with their duration. Moreover, the effect on recall performance of concurrent activities does not go beyond their duration in so far as the processes are attention demanding. Finally, these effects are not modality specific, spatial processing disrupting verbal maintenance. These results suggest a sequential and time-based functioning of working memory in which processing and storage rely on a single and general purpose attentional resource needed to run executive processes devoted to construct, maintain and modify ephemeral representations.
Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition, 2013
The sources of forgetting in working memory remain the matter of intense debate. According to the... more The sources of forgetting in working memory remain the matter of intense debate. According to the SOB model (serial order in a box; Farrell & Lewandowsky, 2002), forgetting in complex span tasks does not result from temporal decay but from interference produced by the encoding of distractors that are superimposed over memory items onto a composite memory. The main tenet of the model is that the encoding strength of a distractor is a function of its novelty, with novel distractors being encoded with a large encoding weight that interferes with other memories, whereas repeated distractors would result in negligible encoding weight and no further forgetting. In the present study, we tested the 2 main predictions issuing from this model. First, recall performance should be better in complex span tasks in which distractors are repeated than in tasks in which every distractor is novel. Second, increasing the number of novel distractors should lead to more interference and poorer recall. In 5 experiments in which we controlled for attentional demand and temporal factors, none of these predictions were verified, whereas a strong effect of the pace at which distracting tasks were performed testified that they involved forgetting. We conclude that, contrary to the SOB model, the novelty of distractors plays no role per se in forgetting.
Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition, 2011
The sources of forgetting in working memory are a matter of intense debate: is there a time-relat... more The sources of forgetting in working memory are a matter of intense debate: is there a time-related decay of memory traces or is forgetting uniquely due to representation-based interference? In a previous study, we claimed to have provided evidence supporting the temporal decay hypothesis (Portrat, Barrouillet, & Camos, 2008). However, reanalyzing our data, Lewandowsky and Oberauer (2009) demonstrated that they do not provide compelling evidence for temporal decay, and suggested a class of alternative models favoring a representation-based interference account. In this article, we develop from the most recent proposals made by these authors two of the most plausible extensions of these alternative models. We show that none of these extensions can account for recent findings related to between-domain working memory performance, and that both lead to predictions that are contradicted by new empirical evidence. Finally, we show that recent studies that have been claimed to rule out the temporal decay hypothesis do not resist close scrutiny. We conclude that the TBRS model remains the most parsimonious way to account for forgetting and restoration of memory traces in working memory.
Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition, 2014
The episodic buffer has been described as a structure of working memory capable of maintaining mu... more The episodic buffer has been described as a structure of working memory capable of maintaining multimodal information in an integrated format. Although the role of the episodic buffer in binding features into objects has received considerable attention, several of its characteristics have remained rather underexplored. This is the case for its maintenance capacity limits and its separability from domain-specific maintenance buffers. The present study addressed these questions, making use of a complex span paradigm in which participants were asked to maintain cross-domain (i.e., verbal-spatial) associations. The 1st experiment showed that the capacity limit for these cross-domain associations proved to be lower than the capacity limit for single features, and did not exceed 3. Cross-domain associations and single features depended, however, to the same extent on attentional resources for their maintenance. The 2nd experiment showed that domain-specific (verbal or spatial) resources were not involved in the maintenance of cross-domain information, revealing a clear distinction between the episodic buffer and the domain-specific buffers. Overall, in line with the episodic buffer hypothesis, these findings support the existence of a central system of limited capacity for the maintenance of cross-domain information.
Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition, 2014
Working memory is typically defined as a system devoted to the simultaneous maintenance and proce... more 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.
Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, 2010
The aim of this study was to provide evidence for knowledge of the syntax governing the verbal fo... more The aim of this study was to provide evidence for knowledge of the syntax governing the verbal form of large numbers in preschoolers long before they are able to count up to these numbers. We reasoned that if such knowledge exists, it should facilitate the maintenance in short-term memory of lists of lexical primitives that constitute a number (e.g., three hundred forty five) compared with lists containing the same primitives but in a scrambled order (e.g., five three forty hundred). The two types of lists were given to 5-year-olds in an immediate serial recall task. As we predicted, the lists in syntactic order were easier to recall, suggesting that they match some knowledge of the way lexical primitives must be ordered to express large numerosities.
Journal of Cognitive Psychology, 2012
European Journal of Cognitive Psychology, 2010
The aim of this paper was to test the hypothesis of a context dependence of number processing in ... more The aim of this paper was to test the hypothesis of a context dependence of number processing in children. Fifth-graders were given two numbers presented successively on screen through a self-presentation procedure after being asked either to add or subtract or compare them. We considered the self-presentation time of the first number as reflecting the complexity of the encoding for a given planned processing. In line with Dehaene's triple-code model, self-presentation times were longer for additions and subtractions than for comparisons with two-digit numbers. Alternative interpretations of these results in terms of more cognitive effort or more mental preparation in the case of addition and subtraction than comparison are discussed and ruled out.
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Papers by Pierre Barrouillet