week 4 - working memory

What is working memory?

The retention and manipulation of a small amount of information over a brief period

WM is critical for cognitively complex tasks like reasoning and learning

Typical WM Study Paradigm

Study/encoding phase → retention → test phase

What must be done in the study/encoding phase

Retention component/ active processing component

Turner and Engel (1989)

pioneered the classic WM test paradigm used by many psychologists to study WM in various contexts

T or F math problems with words inbetween ( 5/5 + 1 = 3? GYM, 10x3 - 2 = 28? CAR), must recall words

the operation span

The largest set of words that can be accurately recalled represents

Multi-Component Model of WM

Phonological loop & VSS process auditory and visual information respectively

The central executive coordinates the activity within these systems and provides attentional control

The Visuospatial Sketchpad mediates Visuospatial WM

The visuospatial sketchpad (VSS) is involved in the construction, maintenance, and manipulation of mental images

The VSS, like the Phonological loop, has a limited size

The VSS is Rooted in Reality

The amount of time participants take to decide if two edges of an unfolded cube would meet was directly proportional to the number of real-world folds it would take to prove the answer

The central executive is an attentional controller that mediates the other components of WM

The central executive controls, focuses, and directs attentional resources

Monitors ongoing behaviour and actively recruits the proper subordinate system(s)

Central executive function is reliant on frontal lobes

Frontal lobe damage results in a loss of attentional control

Preservation

repeating the same mistakes despite feedback

Utilization

uninhibited attention to task-irrelevant stimuli

Episodic Buffer is a new addition to the multicomponent model and bridges WM to LTM

Can hold and integrated ~ 4 chucks of information from any sensory modality Information is retrieved by the buffer by conscious awareness

Explains phenomena like chunking based on prior experience

Cowan's Embedded-Process Model

Cowan suggests that WM is simply an activated subset of LTM

Activation is mediated entirely by attention which creates a heightened state of activation within LTM subsets (Like toy story, things stay frozen until a spotlight (attention) brings things in LTM)

Magic number of 4

Multicomponent VS embedded process models

Both emphasize capacity, the importance of attention, and that WM is where cognitive work is performed

Differ is their involvement of subsystems and their relationship with LTM

Inhibitory Control Model of WM Model hypothesizes that differences in WM between individuals is attributed to

differences in the ability to effectively inhibit irrelevant information

The Cocktail party effect

the ability of participants to recognize their name amongst irrelevant auditory stimuli is inversely associated with WM span

Differences between models exist to

explain the mechanism by which WM operates, not its overall function

Deaf individuals and phonological loop

exists in deaf individuals but manifest in a visuomotor rather than phonetic dimension

○ Phonological similarity ⎜sign feature similarity

○ Articulatoy suppression ⎜motor suppression

Generally, apes have worse WM compared to humans with operation spans of

~2 + or - items

There is high overlap between areas of the brain involved in

sensory processing, WM, and LTM

what aspects of WM demonstrate a clear dorsal-ventral separation throughout the cortices

spatial and object aspects of visuospatial WM

Can You Improve Your WM?

The general capacity cannot be increased, but rather more efficiently used with practice