Aiuto!!Modello di memoria Cornoldi

Ho degli abstracts di parecchi articoli di Cornoldi, tutti sulla memoria visuospaziale. Il primo articolo è una review, quindi c'è un po' tutta la teoria ben riassunta. Poi eventualmente ti dovresti procurare gli articoli che ti possono interessare. Auguri!

Neurosci Biobehav Rev. 2008 Oct;32(8):1346-60. Epub 2008 May 6.
Imagery and spatial processes in blindness and visual impairment.
Cattaneo Z, Vecchi T, Cornoldi C, Mammarella I, Bonino D, Ricciardi E, Pietrini P.
Department of Psychology, University of Pavia, Italy.
The objective of this review is to examine and evaluate recent findings on cognitive functioning (in particular imagery processes) in individuals with congenital visual impairments, including total blindness, low-vision and monocular vision. As one might expect, the performance of blind individuals in many behaviours and tasks requiring imagery can be inferior to that of sighted subjects; however, surprisingly often this is not the case. Interestingly, there is evidence that the blind often employ different cognitive mechanisms than sighted subjects, suggesting that compensatory mechanisms can overcome the limitations of sight loss. Taken together, these studies suggest that the nature of perceptual input on which we commonly rely strongly affects the organization of our mental processes. We also review recent neuroimaging studies on the neural correlates of sensory perception and mental imagery in visually impaired individuals that have cast light on the plastic functional reorganization mechanisms associated with visual deprivation.

Acta Psychol (Amst). 2009 Jan;130(1):11-6.
Memory for an imagined pathway and strategy effects in sighted and in totally congenitally blind individuals.
Cornoldi C, Tinti C, Mammarella IC, Re AM, Varotto D.
Dipartimento di Psicologia Generale, Università degli Studi di Padova, Via Venezia, 8, 35131 Padova, Italy. [email protected]
The literature reports mixed results on the imagery abilities of the blind, at times showing a difference between sighted and blind individuals and at other times similarities. However, the possibility that the results are due to different strategies spontaneously used in performing the imagery tasks has never
been systematically studied. A large group of 30 totally congenitally blind (TCB) individuals and a group of 30 sighted individuals matched for gender age and schooling were presented with a mental pathway task on a complex two-dimensional (5 x 5) matrix. After administering the task, participants were interviewed in order to establish the strategy they used. Results showed that both sighted and
TCB may use a spatial mental imagery, a verbal or a mixed strategy in carrying out the task. Differences between the groups emerged only when last location and then entire pathway had to be remembered rather than just the last position, and were clearly affected by the type of strategy. Specifically, TCB performed more poorly than the sighted individuals when they used a spatial mental imagery strategy, whereas the two groups had a similar performance with a verbal strategy.

Child Neuropsychol. 2008 Sep;14(5):387-400. Epub 2008 Apr 30.
Working memory failures in children with arithmetical difficulties.
Passolunghi MC, Cornoldi C.
Faculty of Psychology, University of Trieste, Trieste, Italy. [email protected]
A large body of literature has examined the relationship between working memory and arithmetic achievement, but results are still ambiguous. To examine this relationship, we compared the performance of third and fifth graders with arithmetic difficulties (AD) and controls of the same age, grade, and verbal intelligence on a battery of working memory tasks, differentiating between different aspects of working memory. Children with AD scored significantly lower on active working memory tasks requiring manipulation of the to-be-recalled information (Listening Completion task, Corsi Span Backwards, Digit Backwards), but not in passive working memory tasks, requiring the recall of information in the same format in which it had been presented (Digit, Word, and Corsi Forwards Span tasks), nor in tasks involving word processing (word articulation rate, forwards and backwards word spans). A regression analysis showed that the best predictors of differences between AD children and the control group were the Corsi Span Backwards, the Listening Completion task, and the rate of articulation of pseudowords. The analysis of strategies used by children in mental calculation revealed the greater tendency of children with AD to rely on more primitive strategies: finger use never appeared as the most frequent strategy in skilled children, whereas it was the most used strategy in children with AD. Verbal and visual strategies appeared associated with successful performance in third graders, but in fifth grade, the most successful strategy was verbalization.

Child Neuropsychol. 2008 Jun 12:1-15. Working Memory In Individuals With Fragile X Syndrome.
Lanfranchi S, Cornoldi C, Drigo S, Vianello R.
Department of Developmental Psychology, University of Padova, Padova, Italy.
The present research tests the hypothesis that fragile X syndrome (FXS) is associated with a deficit in working memory (WM) and the deficit is more pronounced the higher the control requirements of the task. To this purpose, 15 boys with FXS and 15 typically developing children, matched for mental age,
assessed with Logical Operation Test, were tested with batteries of 4 verbal and 4 visuospatial WM tasks requiring different levels of control. Children with FXS showed a performance equal to controls, in WM tasks requiring low and medium-low control but significant impairment in correspondence with greater control requirements. Results show that boys with FXS present a WM deficit only when high
control is required by the task, supporting the hypothesis that control can be a critical variable distinguishing WM functions and explaining intellectual differences. On the contrary the hypothesis that the FXS is associated with a visuospatial deficit was not supported.

J Exp Child Psychol. 2008 Mar;99(3):157-81. Epub 2008 Jan 11.
The development of metamemory monitoring during retrieval: the case of memory strength and memory absence.
Ghetti S, Lyons KE, Lazzarin F, Cornoldi C.
Department of Psychology, University of California, Davis, One Shields Avenue, Davis, CA 95616, USA. [email protected]
This research examined the development of the ability to monitor memory strength and memory absence at retrieval. In two experiments, 7-year-olds, 10-year-olds, and adults enacted and imagined enacting a series of bizarre and common actions. Two weeks later, they completed a memory test in which they were asked to determine whether each action had been enacted, had been imagined, or was novel and to provide a confidence judgment for each response. Results showed that participants across age groups successfully monitored differences in strength between memories for enacted actions and memories for imagined actions. However, compared with 10-year-olds and adults, 7-year-olds exhibited deficits in monitoring of differences in memory strength among imagined actions as well as deficits in monitoring memory absence. Results underscore metamemory developments that have important implications for memory accuracy.

Aging Clin Exp Res. 2007 Jun;19(3):200-6.
Working memory, control of interference and everyday experience of thought interference: when age makes the difference.
Borella E, Carretti B, Cornoldi C, De Beni R.
Department of General Psychology, University of Padova, 35131 Padova, Italy. [email protected]
BACKGROUND AND AIMS: A number of studies suggest that age differences in working memory may be attributed to age-related differences in inhibitory efficacy. Nevertheless, little is known about the impact of intrusive thoughts, which occurs in everyday situations on working memory performance. This study investigates the role of cognitive and everyday inhibition mechanisms in working memory performance. METHODS: Young, young-old and old-old adults performed a working memory task and the White Bear Suppression Inventory (WBSI). RESULTS: Results showed a decrease in working memory, and in inhibitory efficacy with age. In addition, old-old adults obtained higher scores in the three factors of the WBSI. Working memory performance was related to working memory control of
interfering information in all age groups, and also to the tendency to suppress thoughts in old-old adults. The latter result was in the opposite direction with respect to observations collected with younger adults. CONCLUSIONS: Taken together, our results suggest the crucial role of intrusive thoughts in the functional capacity of working memory in late adulthood.

Neuropsychol Dev Cogn B Aging Neuropsychol Cogn. 2007 Jan;14(1):1-21.
Aging and the intrusion superiority effect in visuo-spatial working memory.
Cornoldi C, Bassani C, Berto R, Mammarella N.
Department of Psicologia Generale, University of Padova, Italy.
This study investigated the active component of visuo-spatial working memory (VSWM) in younger and older adults testing the hypotheses that elderly individuals have a poorer performance than younger ones and that errors in active VSWM tasks depend, at least partially, on difficulties in avoiding intrusions (i.e., avoiding already activated information). In two experiments, participants were presented with sequences of matrices on which three positions were pointed out sequentially: their task was to process all the positions but indicate only the final position of each sequence. Results showed a poorer performance in the elderly compared to the younger group and a higher number of intrusion (errors due to activated but irrelevant positions) rather than invention (errors consisting of pointing out a position never indicated by the experiementer) errors. The number of errors increased when a concurrent task was introduced (Experiment 1) and it was affected by different patterns of matrices (Experiment 2). In general, results show that elderly people have an impaired VSWM and
produce a large number of errors due to inhibition failures. However, both the younger and the older adults' visuo-spatial working memory was affected by the presence of activated irrelevant information, the reduction of the available resources, and task constraints.

Memory. 2006 Jul;14(5):595-613.
What people believe about memory.
Magnussen S, Andersson J, Cornoldi C, De Beni R, Endestad T, Goodman GS, Helstrup
T, Koriat A, Larsson M, Melinder A, Nilsson LG, Rönnberg J, Zimmer H.
Centre for Advanced Study at the Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters, Oslo, Norway. [email protected]
Two representative samples of adult Norwegians (n=2000) were asked a set of general and specific questions regarding their beliefs and opinions about human memory. The results indicate that on many questions, such as time of the earliest memories, inhibiting effects of collaboration, and memory for dramatic versus ordinary events, the views of the general public concurred with current research
findings, and people in general had realistic views about their own memory performance. On other questions, such as the reliability of olfactory as compared with visual and auditory memory, the memory of small children in comparison with that of adults, the likelihood of repression of adult traumatic memories, and on more general questions such as the possibility of training memory and the
capacity limitations of long-term memory, a large proportion of the participants expressed views that are less supported by scientific evidence. Implications of these findings are briefly discussed.

Memory. 2006 Feb;14(2):176-88.
Intrusion errors in visuospatial working memory performance.
Cornoldi C, Mammarella N.
Departimento di Psicologia Generale, University of Padova, Italy. [email protected]
This study tested the hypothesis that failure in active visuospatial working memory tasks involves a difficulty in avoiding intrusions due to information that is already activated. Two experiments are described, in which participants were required to process several series of locations on a 4 x 4 matrix and then to produce only the final location of each series. Results revealed a higher number of errors due to already activated locations (intrusions) compared with errors due to new locations (inventions). Moreover, when participants were required to pay extra attention to some irrelevant (non-final) locations by tapping on the table, intrusion errors increased. Results are discussed in terms of current
models of working memory functioning.

J Exp Child Psychol. 2005 May;91(1):45-66.
Updating in working memory: a comparison of good and poor comprehenders.
Carretti B, Cornoldi C, De Beni R, Romanò M.
Dipartimento di Psicologia Generale, Via Venezia 8, 35131 Padova, Italy. [email protected]
In this research, we examined the relation between reading comprehension and success in a working memory updating task. We tested the hypotheses that poor comprehenders' deficiencies are associated with a specific difficulty in the working memory updating process, particularly in controlling for information that is no longer relevant. In the first experiment, groups of poor and good comprehenders, ages 8-11 years, were administered a working memory updating task.
In the second experiment a year later, a subgroup of participants involved in the first experiment was tested with a different updating task. In both experiments, poor comprehenders had less accurate recall performance and made more intrusion errors than did good comprehenders. Moreover, distinguishing intrusion errors on the basis of their permanence in memory, we found that poor comprehenders were more likely to intrude items that were maintained longer in memory than were good comprehenders. This type of error predicted reading comprehension abilities better than did working memory recall. This suggests that the relation between reading comprehension and working memory is mediated by the ability to control for irrelevant information.

Acta Psychol (Amst). 2005 Mar;118(3):211-28.
Difficulties in the control of irrelevant visuospatial information in children with visuospatial learning disabilities.
Mammarella IC, Cornoldi C.
Department of General Psychology, University of Padua, Via Venezia 8, 35131 Padova, Italy.
This research tested the hypothesis that children's difficulties in visuospatial working memory (VSWM) may mirror difficulties found with verbal working memory tasks in other categories of children. Two experiments compared the number of correct responses and errors in groups of visuospatial learning disabled children (VSLD) and Controls who were engaged in an active task testing visuospatial working memory. Children were presented with sequences of positions on a 4x4
matrix and were subsequently asked to remember only the last position of each series. In the first Experiment, VSLD children showed greater difficulty in both recalling the last positions and avoiding the irrelevant non-final positions compared with Controls. In the second experiment children of different age groups (second-graders and fifth-graders) were also required to stress, by tapping on
the table, the irrelevant positions whenever the experimenter pointed to a coloured cell. Results showed that the number of errors was greater in the VSLD children, and the pattern of errors differed with their grade. In particular, the increased activation of stressed locations produced an increase of correct responses, and a decrease of intrusion errors, except in the case of VSLD second-graders, who made a higher number of intrusions for stressed than for unstressed locations. Results confirm that children with VSLD show a specific deficit in active VSWM, and in particular, in the ability to avoid intrusion errors. In general, the control of irrelevant information appears critical for a successful use of VSWM.

Neuroreport. 2004 Dec 22;15(18):2787-90.
Spatial memory and integration processes in congenital blindness.
Vecchi T, Tinti C, Cornoldi C.
Dipartimento di Psicologia, Università di Pavia, P.za Botta 6, 27100 Pavia, Italy. [email protected]
The paper tests the hypothesis that difficulties met by the blind in spatial processing are due to the simultaneous treatment of independent spatial representations. Results showed that lack of vision does not impede the ability to process and transform mental images; however, blind people are significantly poorer in the recall of more than a single spatial pattern at a time than in the
recall of the corresponding material integrated into a single pattern. It is concluded that the simultaneous maintenance of different spatial information is affected by congenital blindness, while cognitive processes that may involve sequential manipulation are not.

Q J Exp Psychol A. 2004 Aug;57(6):1059-84.
What happens to information to be suppressed in working-memory tasks? Short and long term effects.
Carretti B, Cornoldi C, De Beni R, Palladino P.
University of Padova, Padova, Italy. [email protected]
The study explored, from an individual differences point of view, what happens to information to be suppressed in a working-memory task at short and long term. In particular, it was examined whether control mechanisms of irrelevant information in working memory imply their complete elimination from working memory or just the modulation of their activation. To this end, we compared the fate of
irrelevant information in groups of subjects with high and low reading comprehension (Experiments 1 and 2) and subjects with high and low working memory (Experiments 1, 2, 3, and 4). All the experiments presented a working-memory task devised by De Beni, Palladino, Pazzaglia, and Cornoldi (1998), which required participants to process lists of words, to tap when a word from a particular category was presented, and then to recall only the last items in each list.
Results confirmed that participants with high reading comprehension also have higher working memory and make less intrusion errors due to irrelevant items that have to be processed but then discarded. Furthermore, it was found that participants with low working memory have slightly better implicit (Experiment 1) and explicit memory (Experiments 3 and 4) of highly activated irrelevant
information. Nevertheless, in a long-term recognition test, participants with high and low reading comprehension/working memory presented a similar pattern of memory for different types of irrelevant information (Experiment 2), whereas in a short-term memory recognition test, low-span participants presented a facilitation effect in the time required for the recognition of highly activated irrelevant information (Experiment 4). It was concluded that efficient working-memory performance is related to the temporary reduction of activation of irrelevant information but does not imply its elimination from memory.

Am J Psychol. 2002 Fall;115(3):331-50.
Aging and effect of predictability on reality monitoring.
Mammarella N, Cornoldi C.
Department of Psychology, University of Essex, Wivenhoe Park, Colchester CO4 3SQ, United Kingdom. [email protected]
This study compared the direction of source confusions and the effect of predictability on reality monitoring for internally generated information and externally derived information in younger (mean age 19-25) and older (mean age 70-85) adults. Participants were invited to listen to the conclusions of simple stories or to generate and imagine them. Conclusions could be either highly predictable (Experiment 1) or unpredictable (Experiment 2). The change in predictability produced changes in the direction of source confusions only in older adults. When a story ended in a predictable way, older adults attributed to imagination conclusions that were actually perceived, whereas the pattern of
confusions tended to reverse with unpredictable stories.

Child Neuropsychol. 2001 Dec;7(4):230-40.
Working memory interference control deficit in children referred by teachers for ADHD symptoms.
Cornoldi C, Marzocchi GM, Belotti M, Caroli MG, Meo T, Braga C.
Department of General Psychology, University of Padua, Via Venezia 8, 35100 Padua, Italy. [email protected]
It has been hypothesised that children with Attention Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) present memory problems, including working memory deficits. This research is aimed at finding clearer evidence of a working memory deficit in these children. In the first study 22 children that had been referred by teachers as having ADHD symptoms were compared with a control group. Their performance on a listening span test, drawn up by De Beni, Palladino, Pazzaglia, and Cornoldi
(1998), was investigated. In this task the subjects were asked to select the names of animals in word strings and to remember the last word in each string. In a second study, 34 children with ADHD symptoms and 50 control children were presented with a visuospatial working memory task mirroring the verbal task used in Study 1. In both studies, the children with ADHD symptoms had difficulty in
remembering the last item in the string and had a higher number of intrusions when memorising items that were not in the final position. The results were interpreted that children with ADHD symptoms have working memory problems because they are not capable of suppressing information that initially has to be processed, and subsequently excluded from memory. This particular difficulty can be interpreted as an inhibitory processing deficit. The implications of the results in understanding learning difficulties in children with ADHD are discussed.

Brain Cogn. 2000 Jun-Aug;43(1-3):117-20.
Passive and active processes in visuo-spatial memory: double dissociation in developmental learning disabilities.
Cornoldi C, Rigoni F, Venneri A, Vecchi T.
Dipartimento di Psicologia Generale, Università di Padova, Italy.
The distinction between passive and active visuo-spatial memory has been useful to interpret various pattern of deficits reported in individual differences studies. However, this interpretation raises the issue of task difficulty, since active tasks could be failed simply because more complex and the corresponding deficit could reflect a reduced capacity of the system. We describe two children
with Nonverbal Learning Disability whose performance provides evidence of a dissociation between passive and active memory processes. One of the children showed a selective impairment in passive tasks and performed flawlessly in active tasks, whereas the second child displayed the opposite pattern. These data suggest that a qualitative difference between passive and active processes does
exist and that differences in performance do not reflect a lower/higher level of task difficulty. Further, these data underlie the importance of formulating theoretical models of visuo-spatial memory including both material-related (i.e., visual vs spatial) and process-related (i.e., passive vs active) distinctions.

Neuropsychologia. 1995 Nov;33(11):1549-64.
Visuo-spatial working memory: structures and variables affecting a capacity measure.
Vecchi T, Monticellai ML, Cornoldi C.
Institute of Psychology, Faculty of Medicine, University of Milano, Italy.
The present paper examines the issue of the capacity of visuo-spatial working memory. A series of experiments test the hypothesis that two different components are critical in visuo-spatial working memory (passive store and active imagery operations), and, thereafter, attempt to specify the variables that affect the capacity of the passive store component. In the experiments, congenitally blind and sighted participants were asked to remember the spatial positions of target objects in two-dimensional matrices, with or without simultaneously performing a sequence of spatially-based imagery operations. We considered both the positions recall performance (the passive storage component) and the sequential imagery processing performance (the active processing component). We suggest that the two components of visuo-spatial working memory are independent. We also propose that both the number of relevant matrices and the number of target objects within each
matrix affect the capacity of visuo-spatial working memory, with the latter factor possibly playing a greater role than the former one.

Memory. 1994 Mar;2(1):75-96.
Why are there sometimes concreteness effects in memory for prose?
Marschark M, Cornoldi C, Huffman CJ, Pé G, Garzari F.
National Technical Institute for the Deaf, Rochester Institute of Technology, USA.
Four experiments explored on-line encoding strategies and memory for high imagery and low imagery texts. Results consistently indicated that concreteness effects in memory for text depend on how materials are presented in several different respects. Most importantly, the experiments clarified apparently contradictory results of previous studies by indicating that concreteness effects generally do not occur in memory for prose when imageability is manipulated between-subjects, and that their occurrence when imageability is manipulated within-subjects depends on the order occurrence when imageability is manipulated within-subjects depends on the order of presentation. In addition, moving window analyses of text processing strategies indicated that differential strategies observed in previous studies when subjects listened to high vs low imagery text do not generalize to reading of the same materials. Potential explanations for the pattern of results are evaluated, and implications for theories of mental imagery and memory are considered.