
BACKWARD DIGIT SPAN TEST ONLINE SERIAL
This suggests that different oscillatory mechanisms linked to different frequency bands may code for the different encoding strategies and effects in serial item presentation. Event-related theta power, in contrast, rather resembled a neural correlate of a chunking pattern where, during the 5-ds encoding, a clear change in event-related theta occurred around the third/fourth positions, with decreasing power values for later digits.
BACKWARD DIGIT SPAN TEST ONLINE SERIES
Results showed that the development of event-related delta power evoked by digits in each series matched the ‘serial position curve’, with higher delta power being present during the first, and especially last, digits as compared to digits presented in the middle of a set, for both difficulty levels. We analyzed the pattern of event-related delta and theta oscillatory power in the time-frequency domain over fronto-central and parieto-occipital areas during the item (digit) list encoding, focusing on how these oscillatory responses changed with each subsequent digit being encoded in the series. Participants were asked to recall the digits in reverse order after the presentation of each set. We recorded EEG in forty-four healthy young-adult participants during a backward digit span (ds) task with two difficulty levels (i.e., 3-ds and 5-ds). Here, we used event-related EEG oscillation analyses to unravel the neuronal substrates of serial encoding strategies and effects during the behaviorally controlled execution of the digit span task. Although relatively well-established in behavioral research, the neuronal mechanisms underlying such encoding strategies and memory effects remain poorly understood. Additionally, related to the position of an item within a series, there is a tendency to remember the first and last items on the list better than the middle ones, which calls the “serial position effect”. Different encoding strategies are therefore employed to optimize performance in memory processes such as chunking where particular items are ‘grouped’ to reduce the number of items to store artificially. The human brain has limited storage capacity often challenging the encoding and recall of a long series of multiple items.
