Working Memory Flashcards

Flashcards reviewing key concepts from the Working Memory lecture.

Sensory Store

Information gathered through the senses from the environment

Short Term Memory

Holds less information for a short time in consciousness.

Long Term Memory

Holds a large amount of information for a long time.

What is the question being asked in regards to Working Memory Capacity?

What is the capacity of STM?

What was Miller's (1956) conclusion regarding the capacity of STM?

The capacity of STM is about 7 ± 2 items

What is Chunking?

Organizing information into meaningful subgroups to increase the apparent capacity of WM.

What is the Central Executive in Baddeley's Model of WM?

Control Hub for Rehearsal, Manipulation, and Attention

What is the Phonological Loop in Baddeley's Model of WM?

Verbal processing; ‘Inner voice’

What is the Visuospatial Sketchpad in Baddeley's Model of WM?

Visual/spatial processing

What is the Phonological Similarity Effect?

Short-term recall errors tend to sound like studied items, but don’t tend to look like studied items, even when the study items are presented visually.

What is the Word Length Effect?

As the number of syllables in each word increases, recall decreases

What is the Articulatory Suppression Effect?

Verbal distractions interfere with verbal maintenance.

What was observed in the Visual Rotation Effects experiment by Shepard & Metzler (1971)?

The more visual rotation subjects had to do, the longer their reaction times on the same vs different test

What was the conclusion of Luck & Vogel (1997) regarding Visual Working Memory Capacity?

The capacity of Visual WM is about 3-4 items, less than the capacity of Verbal WM.

What were the results of Heyer & Barrett's (1971) Dual Task Interference experiment?

Verbal distractor disrupted verbal memory only; visual distractor disrupted visual memory only.

What is the general function of the Frontal Lobe in memory?

Executive control, attention, decisions

What is the general function of the Parietal Lobe in memory?

Sensory processing

What is the general function of the Temporal Lobe in memory?

Auditory processing; LTM formation, binding, and retrieval

What is the general function of the Occipital Lobe in memory?

Visual processing

What was concluded from the neuropsychological dissociations performed by Warrington & Shallice (1969) and Ferber & Danckert (2006)?

Right hemisphere structures are necessary for Visual WM. The left Temporal/Parietal Lobe is necessary for Verbal WM.

Which brain regions are activated during verbal WM tasks according to fMRI studies?

Left temporal parietal lobe and left frontal lobe

Which brain regions are activated for central executive functions (both verbal and visual) according to fMRI studies?

Right frontal lobe (prefrontal cortex) and right parietal lobe

What are some limitations of the Baddeley Model?

Two domain-specific buffers cannot explain the full range of WM. It’s unclear how the Baddeley Model relates to LTM. It’s unclear how it accounts for semantic effects in WM.

What is the main idea behind the Activation Theory of WM (Cowan, 1988)?

WM reflects the temporary activation of information stored in LTM. A central executive leads to an increase of attention that increases LTM activation.