Sensory Memory and Working Memory

Describe Sperling’s partial report and whole report methods.

What can we conclude from the results of those approaches?

Partial Report Method

• involves presenting subjects with a grid of letters, followed by a tone that indicates which row to recall.

Whole Report Method

• asks subjects to recall all letters from the grid.

Results

• sensory memory has a high capacity but a brief duration

• participants can recall more letters using the partial report method than the whole report method.

Describe key parts of Baddeley and Hitch’s model of working memory.

Discuss a couple of empirical effects that seem to support components of the model.

Model of Working Memory Components

1. central executive

2. phonological loop

3. visuospatial sketchpad

4. episodic buffer

Empirical Effects

1. word length effect

   • demonstrates that shorter words are recalled better due to the phonological loop’s limited capacity

2. dual-task paradigm

   • shows that performing tasks that use different components leads to less interference and better performance than tasks using the same components

Describe proactive interference and provide a real-world example.

Proactive Interference

• occurs when older memories interfere with the retrieval of newer information

Real-World Example

• when someone struggles to remember a new phone number because they keep recalling their previous number

From the evidence so far, does it look like training is effective in improving working memory?

Give an example that’s consistent with the evidence.

Is Training Effective?

• current evidence suggests that training can lead to improvements in working memory, but these gains may be limited in scope or transfer.

Example

• training on specific tasks such as n-back tasks shows improvement in those tasks, but little transfer to untrained tasks.

Why is the term “working memory” now preferred over “short-term memory”?

Describe an example of a “modern” working memory task.

Working Memory Over Short-Term Memory

• emphasizes the active manipulation and processing of information, rather than just temporary storage as in short-term memory

Modern Working Memory Task Example

• the n-back task

  • participants must monitor a sequence of stimuli and determine whether the current stimulus matches one from n steps earlier