Miller (1956) summarized evidence that people can remember about seven chunks in short-term memory (STM) tasks. How- ever, that number was meant more as a rough estimate and a rhetorical device than as a real capacity limit. Others have since suggested that there is a more precise capacity limit, but that it is only three to five chunks. The present target article brings together a wide vari- ety of data on capacity limits suggesting that the smaller capacity limit is real. Capacity limits will be useful in analyses of information processing only if the boundary conditions for observing them can be carefully described. Four basic conditions in which chunks can be identified and capacity limits can accordingly be observed are: (1) when information overload limits chunks to individual stimulus items, (2) when other steps are taken specifically to block the recoding of stimulus items into larger chunks, (3) in performance discontinuities caused by the capacity limit, and (4) in various indirect effects of the capacity limit. Under these conditions, rehearsal and long-term memory cannot be used to combine stimulus items into chunks of an unknown size; nor can storage mechanisms that are not capacity- limited, such as sensory memory, allow the capacity-limited storage mechanism to be refilled during recall. A single, central capacity limit averaging about four chunks is implicated along with other, noncapacity-limited sources. The pure STM capacity limit expressed in chunks is distinguished from compound STM limits obtained when the number of separately held chunks is unclear. Reasons why pure capacity estimates fall within a narrow range are discussed and a capacity limit for the focus of attention is proposed.

/pdf/the-magical-number-4-in-short-term-memory-a-reconsideration-3704b9phuz.pdf

The magical number 4 in short-term memory: a reconsideration of mental storage capacity.

http://fisio.icb.usp.br:4882/posgraduacao/disciplinas/bmb5718/2004/Ref71.pdf

Synchronous neural oscillations and cognitive processes.

Foreword, Robert Rousseau Introduction: The Persistence of Time, Warren H. Meck FUNCTIONAL MECHANISMS A Concise Introduction to Scalar Timing Theory, Russell M. Church General Learning Models: Timing without a Clock, John W. Hopson Nonlinearities in Sensitivity to Time: Implications for Oscillator-Based Representations of Interval and Circadian Clocks, Jonathon D. Crystal Toward a Unified Theory of Animal Event Timing, Thomas T. Hills Interval Timing and Optimal Foraging, Melissa Bateson Nonverbal Representations of Time and Number in Animals and Human Infants, Elizabeth M. Brannon and Jamie D. Roitman Temporal Experience and Timing in Children, Sylvie Droit-Volet Modality Differences in Interval Timing: Attention, Clock Speed, and Memory, Trevor B. Penney Attentional Time-Sharing in Interval Timing, Claudette Fortin Grandfather's Clock: Attention and Interval Timing in Older Adults, Cindy Lustig NEURAL MECHANISMS Neurogenetics of Interval Timing, Munire Ozlem Cevik Dopaminergic Mechanisms of Interval Timing and Attention, Catalin V. Buhusi Electrophysiological Correlates of Interval Timing, Shogo Sakata and Keiichi Onoda Importance of Frontal Motor Cortex in Divided Attention and Simultaneous Temporal Processing, Kevin C.H. Pang and J. Devin McAuley Integration of Behavior and Timing: Anatomically Separate Systems or Distributed Processing? Matthew S. Matell, Warren H. Meck, and Miguel A.L. Nicolelis Time Flies and May Also Sing: Cortico-Striatal Mechanisms of Interval Timing and Birdsong, Christopher J. MacDonald and Warren H. Meck Neuroimaging Approaches to the Study of Interval Timing, Sean C. Hinton Electrophysiological Evidence for Specific Processing of Temporal Information in Humans, Viviane Pouthas Cerebellar and Basal Ganglia Contributions to Interval Timing, Jorn Diedrichsen, Richard B. Ivry, and Jeff Pressing Interval Timing in the Dopamine-Depleted Basal Ganglia: From Empirical Data to Timing Theory, Chara Malapani and Brian C. Rakitin Overview: An Image of Human Neural Timing, Penelope A. Lewis and R. Chris Miall Afterword: Timing in the New Millennium, Where Are We Now? Francoise Macar Index

Functional and Neural Mechanisms of Interval Timing

When humans talk without conventionalized arrangements, they engage in conversation—that is, a continuous and largely nonsimultaneous exchange in which speakers take turns. Turn-taking is ubiquitous in conversation and is the normal case against which alternatives, such as interruptions, are treated as violations that warrant repair. Furthermore, turn-taking involves highly coordinated timing, including a cyclic rise and fall in the probability of initiating speech during brief silences, and involves the notable rarity, especially in two-party conversations, of two speakers’ breaking a silence at once. These phenomena, reported by conversation analysts, have been neglected by cognitive psychologists, and to date there has been no adequate cognitive explanation. Here, we propose that, during conversation, endogenous oscillators in the brains of the speaker and the listeners become mutually entrained, on the basis of the speaker’s rate of syllable production. This entrained cyclic pattern governs the potential for initiating speech at any given instant for the speaker and also for the listeners (as potential next speakers). Furthermore, the readiness functions of the listeners are counterphased with that of the speaker, minimizing the likelihood of simultaneous starts by a listener and the previous speaker. This mutual entrainment continues for a brief period when the speech stream ceases, accounting for the cyclic property of silences. This model not only captures the timing phenomena observed in the literature on conversation analysis, but also converges with findings from the literatures on phoneme timing, syllable organization, and interpersonal coordination.

/pdf/an-oscillator-model-of-the-timing-of-turn-taking-ouufkzwizb.pdf

An oscillator model of the timing of turn-taking

Manual responses to lateralized stimuli are faster for spatially congruent stimulus-response associations than for incongruent associations, even if the stimulus location is irrelevant. This effect, however, decreases as reaction time increases. Recent data suggest that such a decrease reflects online, within-trial executive control. The present study was aimed at testing this hypothesis by analyzing the electromyographic activity of muscles involved in response execution. We focused on the particular trials in which an activation of the muscle involved to the incorrect response preceded the execution of the correct response. A sequential effect analysis, along with an analysis of the reaction time distributions, revealed that after such dual-activation trials, executive control was reinforced. In addition, a distribution analysis of the reaction times associated with such trials compared to the trials without incorrect activation, revealed online, within-trial changes in executive control. Arguments against a late motor locus of the effect of the irrelevant stimulus location are also provided. These results are discussed in terms of current models of cognitive control.

Executive control in the Simon effect: an electromyographic and distributional analysis.

https://hal.archives-ouvertes.fr/hal-01382665/document

Michel Bonnet

Papers

What’s an internal clock for?: From temporal information processing to temporal processing of information

High-speed memory scanning: a behavioral argument for a serial oscillatory model.