A searchable index of real negative results, null findings, and replication failures from the published literature — so you can learn what didn't work before repeating it.
WASTE indexes published research — it does not host or republish full papers. Each entry is a metadata record (title, authors, DOI) compiled from open scholarly databases, with the abstract shown in full only where the paper is openly licensed (e.g. Creative Commons); otherwise a short excerpt is shown for reference under fair use. WASTE classifies each work by failure type; classifications are automated and approximate.
57 results in Negative / Null Result Report for "working memory" · page 1 of 2
Ronald van den Berg, Edward Awh, Wei Ji · 2014 · Psychological Review
Three questions have been prominent in the study of visual working memory limitations: (a) What is the nature of mnemonic precision (e.g., quantized or continuous)? (b) How many items are remembered? (c) To what extent do spatial binding…
Weiwei Zhang, Steven J. Luck · 2011 · Psychological Science
Flexible-resource theories characterize working memory as a flexible resource that can store either a large number of low-quality representations or a small number of high-quality representations. In contrast, limited-item theories propose…
Stavroula Stavrakaki, Kalliopi Megari, Mary H. Kosmidis et al. · 2012 · Journal of Clinical and Experimental Neuropsychology
We investigated working memory and verbal fluency in simultaneous interpreters, expecting to find enhanced working memory and semantic processing in interpreters relative to others fluent in a second language. The interpreters (n = 15)…
Jonna Nilsson, Alexander V. Lebedev, Martin Lövdén · 2015 · Frontiers in Aging Neuroscience
Transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) has been put forward as a non-pharmacological alternative for alleviating cognitive decline in old age. Although results have shown some promise, little is known about the optimal stimulation parameters for modulation in the cognitive domain. In this study, the effects of tDCS over the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (dlPFC) on working memory performance were investigated in thirty older adults. An N-back task assessed working memory before, during and after anodal tDCS at a current strength of 1 mA and 2 mA, in addition to sham stimulation. The st
Brigitte Leeners, Tillmann H. C. Krüger, Kirsten Geraedts et al. · 2017 · Frontiers in Behavioral Neuroscience
Background: Interpretation of observational studies on associations between prefrontal cognitive functioning and hormone levels across the female menstrual cycle is complicated due to small sample sizes and poor replicability. Methods: This observational multisite study comprised data of n=88 menstruating women from Hannover, Germany, and Zurich, Switzerland, assessed during a first cycle and n=68 re-assessed during a second cycle to rule out practice effects and false-positive chance findings. We assessed visuospatial working memory, attention, cognitive bias and hormone levels at four consec
Agatha Lenartowicz, Holly Truong, Giulia C. Salgari et al. · 2019 · Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry
BACKGROUND: Attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) is associated with working memory (WM) deficits. However, WM is a multiprocess construct that can be impaired through several pathways, leaving the source of WM impairments in…
Colin Quirk, Kirsten Adam, Edward K. Vogel · 2020 · eNeuro
Visual working memory is the ability to hold visual information temporarily in mind. A key feature of working memory is its starkly limited capacity, such that only a few simple items can be remembered at once. Prior work has shown that this capacity limit cannot be circumvented by providing additional encoding time, whether providing just 200 ms or up to 1300 ms, capacity is still limited to only three to four items. In contrast, Brady et al. (2016) hypothesized that real-world objects, but not simple items used in prior research, benefit from additional encoding time and are not subject to t
Alessandra S. Souza, Theresa Thaler, Heinrich R. Liesefeld et al. · 2020 · Journal of Experimental Psychology Human Perception & Performance
Emotion is assumed to change how people process information by modulating attentional focus. Two recent studies (Spachtholz et al., 2014; Xie & Zhang, 2016) reported that self-reported negative emotion boosted the precision with which…
Paul Montgomery, Thees F. Spreckelsen, Alice Burton et al. · 2018 · PLoS ONE
BACKGROUND: Omega-3 fatty acids are central to brain-development of children. Evidence from clinical trials and systematic reviews demonstrates the potential of long-chain Omega-3 supplementation for learning and behavior. However, findings are inconclusive and in need of robust replication studies since such work is lacking. OBJECTIVES: Replication of the 2012 DOLAB 1 study findings that a dietary supplementation with the long-chain omega-3 docosahexaenoic acid (DHA) had beneficial effects on the reading, working memory, and behavior of healthy schoolchildren. DESIGN: Parallel group, fixed-do
Klaus Oberauer · 2022 · Psychological Science
Some theorists argue that working memory is limited to a discrete number of items and that additional items are not encoded at all. Adam et al. (2017) presented evidence supporting this hypothesis: Participants reproduced visual features of up to six items in a self-chosen order. After the third or fourth response, error distributions were indistinguishable from guessing. I present four experiments with young adults (each N = 24) reexamining this finding. Experiment 1 presented items slowly and sequentially. Experiment 2 presented them simultaneously but longer than in the experiments of Adam
Zhi Shan Chan, Mohamad Azhari Abu Bakar · 2021 · Journal of Cognitive Sciences and Human Development
The present study investigates gender differences in working memory performance, both verbal and visuospatial working memory performance. Quasi-experimental research was conducted individually on 32 undergraduates at a public university in…
Spandita HL, Jain C · 2026 · Language, speech, and hearing services in schools
Purpose The study aimed to assess the effect of verbal working memory (WM) training on auditory processing abilities, WM, and listening effort (LE) in children with central auditory processing disorders ((C)APD). Method The study involved…
Knight KF, Milton F, Zeman A · 2026 · Neuropsychologia
Visual mental imagery and visual working memory are often thought to be closely related. After all, both have been argued to involve the temporary maintenance of visual representations in conscious awareness. We might expect, therefore,…
Bates KE, Smith ML, Farran EK et al. · 2024 · Journal of cognitive neuroscience
Mental imagery (MI) is the ability to generate visual phenomena in the absence of sensory input. MI is often likened to visual working memory (VWM): the ability to maintain and manipulate visual representations. How MI is recruited during…
Gonthier C, Gavornikova-Baligand Z · 2023 · Attention, perception & psychophysics
Working memory performance depends on reactivating memory traces, by rapidly switching between refreshing item representations and performing concurrent cognitive processing (time-based resource sharing (TBRS) account). Prior research has…
Remouchamps R, Majerus S, Kowialiewski B · 2025 · Preprint
In verbal working memory (WM), the second occurrence of an item in a memory list generally leads to impaired recall performance, a phenomenon called the “Ranschburg effect”. One explanation for this effect is response suppression, by which…
Jiang S, Jones M, von Bastian C · 2023 · Preprint
Abstract In recent years, non-invasive brain stimulation has been highlighted as a possible intervention to induce cognitive benefits, including on visual working memory (VWM). However, findings are inconsistent, possibly due to…
Ruuskanen V, Hagen T, Espeseth T et al. · 2024 · Journal of cognition
Over the past few years, several studies have explored the relationship between resting-state baseline pupil size and cognitive abilities, including fluid intelligence, working memory capacity, and attentional control. However, the results…
Lorente P, Ruuskanen V, Mathôt S et al. · 2025 · Psychonomic bulletin & review
Recent studies have investigated resting-state, or baseline, pupil size as a general measure of cognitive abilities, based on the earlier finding that larger pupils might be predictive of higher general intelligence or working memory…
Ruuskanen V, Hagen T, Espeseth T et al. · 2023 · Preprint
Over the past few years, several studies have explored the relationship between resting-state baseline pupil size and cognitive abilities, including fluid intelligence, working memory capacity, and attentional control. However, the results…
Oberauer K · 2021 · Preprint
Some theorists argue that working memory is limited to a discrete number of items, and additional items are not encoded at all. Others assume that all items are represented with variable quality. Adam, Vogel, and Awh (2017) presented…
Tortajada M, Rodríguez-Larios J, Martínez-Pérez V et al. · 2026 · Journal of cognitive neuroscience
Recent findings have shown the influential role of theta-gamma cross-frequency coupling in the maintenance of items in working memory (WM). Specifically, it has been proposed that individual items are represented within gamma oscillations…
Tortajada M, Rodriguez-Larios J, Martínez-Pérez V et al. · 2026 · Preprint
Recent findings have shown the influential role of theta-gamma cross-frequency coupling in the maintenance of items in Working Memory (WM). Specifically, it has been proposed that individual items are represented within gamma oscillations…
Ishiguro S, Guitard D, Saint-Aubin J · 2025 · Quarterly journal of experimental psychology (2006)
Semantic relatedness of items improves working memory performance. We targeted one type of semantic relatedness, semantic association. The beneficial effect of association is often explained by the spreading-activation process:…
Ferreira-Correia A, Mnisi N, Harwood K et al. · 2025 · Applied neuropsychology. Adult
The Working Memory Questionnaire (WMQ) was developed to assess everyday difficulties associated with working memory (WM) impairments. This study evaluated the psychometric properties of the WMQ within a South African context. A…
Francis AM, Anderson TJ, McKearney KJ et al. · 2025 · Psychiatry research. Neuroimaging
Cognitive impairment, particularly in attention and working memory, is a notable feature of schizophrenia (SZ). Individuals with SZ frequently consume high levels of caffeine, often exceeding 550 mg daily, yet the cognitive effects of this…
Su Z, Wyble B, Fu Y · 2024 · Preprint
This study explores the relationship between working memory and attention during visual search tasks, focusing on how time constraints affect the encoding of visual information into working memory. The research is based on the premise that…
McLaughlin DJ, Teuscher G, Baese-Berk M et al. · 2025 · Preprint
Under multi-talker listening conditions, listeners appear to rapidly accommodate variability in speaker productions. However, evidence indicates that this trial-to-trial accommodation incurs a processing cost and is amplified by accent…
Hintz F, James AN, Nieber L et al. · 2025 · Preprint
The present study investigated predictors of individual differences in linguistic knowledge and spontaneous language use in adults. Specifically, we examined the role of domain-general cognitive abilities—working memory, nonverbal…
· 2026 · Emotion (Washington, D.C.)
Reports an error in "Affective control in adolescence: The influence of age and depressive symptomatology on working memory" by Kirsty Griffiths, Darren L. Dunning, Jenna Parker, Marc Bennett, Susanne Schweizer, Lucy Foulkes, Saz Ahmed,…