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Memory failure predicted by attention lapsing and media multitasking - Nature.com

Memory failure predicted by attention lapsing and media multitasking - Nature.com

Memory failure predicted by attention lapsing and media multitasking - Nature.com
Oct 28, 2020 5 mins, 10 secs

With the explosion of digital media and technologies, scholars, educators and the public have become increasingly vocal about the role that an ‘attention economy’ has in our lives1.

Here we examine whether spontaneous attention lapses—in the moment7,8,9,10,11,12, across individuals13,14,15 and as a function of everyday media multitasking16,17,18,19—negatively correlate with remembering.

Electroencephalography and pupillometry measures of attention20,21 were recorded as eighty young adults (mean age, 21.7 years) performed a goal-directed episodic encoding and retrieval task22.

Trait-level sustained attention was further quantified using task-based23 and questionnaire measures24,25.

Using trial-to-trial retrieval data, we show that tonic lapses in attention in the moment before remembering, assayed by posterior alpha power and pupil diameter, were correlated with reductions in neural signals of goal coding and memory, along with behavioural forgetting.

Independent measures of trait-level attention lapsing mediated the relationship between neural assays of lapsing and memory performance, and between media multitasking and memory.

Attention lapses partially account for why we remember or forget in the moment, and why some individuals remember better than others.

Heavier media multitasking is associated with a propensity to have attention lapses and forget.

The source data underlying all figures are provided as a Source Data file. Source data are provided with this paper.

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Memory failure predicted by attention lapsing and media multitasking (dataset and analytic code).

Memory failure predicted by attention lapsing and media multitasking (dataset).

a, Schematic of the goal-directed memory task with EEG and pupillometry measurements.

a, Evidence of a peak Parietal Old/New signal (indicated by the black arrow) in the 500–600-ms post-probe window as a function of memory outcome in conceptual and perceptual source-retrieval trials.

b, Trial-level interaction between pre-goal attention lapses and the Parietal Old/New signal during remembered (source hit) and forgotten (miss) trials.

c, Evidence of a peak FN400 signal (indicated by the black arrow) in the 400–500-ms post-probe window as a function of memory outcome in novelty-detection trials.

d, Trial-level interaction between pre-goal attention lapses and FN400 signal on correctly endorsed new items (hits) compared with misses.

For visualization, quintiles are shown for the relationship between pre-goal lapsing and ERP signal; statistics included an interaction term for retrieval goal state (for Parietal Old/New) and treated pre-goal lapsing and the ERP signals continuously in trial-level mixed models.

Source data.

a, b, Data are split by conceptual (a) and perceptual (b) source trials.

Source data.

a, b, The same profile of findings is observed as with the 100-ms time-bins (see main text), such that evidence of a peak Parietal Old/New signal (indicated by the black arrow) is exhibited 500–600-ms post-probe onset as a function of memory outcome in conceptual and perceptual source-retrieval trials (a) and evidence of a peak FN400 signal (indicated by the black arrow) is exhibited 400–500-ms post-probe onset as a function of memory outcome in novelty-detection trials (b).

Source data

a, b, Greater pre-goal attention lapsing at encoding is correlated with greater pre-goal attention lapsing at retrieval (a) and lower d′ on the memory task (b)

n = 75 participants for alpha retrieval data and n = 80 participants for all other data from a single independent experiment

These trait differences in attention at encoding do not fully explain the relationship between the trait differences in attention at retrieval and memory ability (Supplementary Information)

Source data

Source data

a–c, Heavy media multitaskers exhibited lower d′ on the memory tasks (a), more attention lapses on the gradCPT (b) and more evidence of attention lapsing (assayed by mean alpha power and pupil variability) on the memory task (c), relative to light media multitaskers

n = 18 light and n = 18 heavy media multitaskers for alpha data; n = 20 light and n = 20 heavy media multitaskers for all other data

d, Histogram of scores (n = 80) on the MMI, illustrated by the bottom 25% of scores (light media multitaskers), the middle 50% of scores (intermediate media multitaskers) and the top 25% of scores (heavy media multitaskers)

LMM, light media multitasker; HMM, heavy media multitasker

Source data

Memory failure predicted by attention lapsing and media multitasking

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