Chapter 4 WM

Question 1

WM

Problems

Answer 1

Atkinson and Shiffrin
‘Modal model’
Short-term store feeds long-term store but also WM
Holding items in ST not enough to guarantee learning (Craik and Lockhart proposed levels of learning)
STM deficit should lead to impaired LT learning if STM transfers info to LTM
STM deficit should have disruption of cognitive activities as reasoning, comprehension
Blocking STM should interfere with LT learning and cog acts

Question 2

Digit span

Answer 2

Longer the sequence the greater the digit load and greater interference should be
Students verify statement about order of 2 letters
Cold even when holding simultaneously and repeating sequences of up to 8 digits
Conc: ST store serves as WM

Question 3

WM

Answer 3

Phono loop
Visuo-spatial sketchpad
Central executive

Question 4

Phono loop

PV

Answer 4

Evolved to assist language comprehension?
Evolved to help us learn language? (Yes)
Control participants learned 8 Russian words - PV none
On semantic coding tasks PV unimpaired
With articulatory suppression disrupts foreign language learning but little effect on learning pairs of native language words
If responses foreign words, similarity and length impaired performance moreso

Question 5

Phono loop

Answer 5

8 yo kids repeated pseudo words at level of 4 yo kids
Correlation between capacity to hear and echo back a word and level of vocab development
As children age they are more able to use existing vocab to learn new words
New words containing letter sequences that resemble fragments of existing vocab are easier to repeat back than words with unfamiliar letter structure

Question 6

Phono loop

Answer 6

Correlated w speech perception, attentional capacity, phonological awareness, the ability to reflect on spoken stimuli, rhyme, manipulate incoming items
Capacity correlates with development of reading skills (wagner)

Question 7

Phono loop

In task switching

Answer 7

Alternating digits slows down performance 5-6 8-7 3-4
Particularly when participants have to suppress articulation while performing the switching
Suggesting they rely on subvocal set of instructions

Question 8

VS sketchpad

Answer 8

Poorer performance on visual memory tasks by participants reporting strong visual imagery
Because people w vivid imagery do not have better memories, but use vividness as a sign of the accuracy of their recall and are more likely to misjudge a vivid but erroneous memory to be correct

Question 9

VS sketchpad

Answer 9

Number of folds correlates w time it takes participants to find solution
Pearson - spatial tapping disrupts capacity to create novel objects - suggesting it depends on sketchpad, but had no effect capacity to remember what shapes were involved. Latter disrupted by articulatory suppression, suggesting names of shapes to be manipulated were held in phono loop
Example of how VS and phono work together

Question 10

VS

Answer 10

Keeping contact w moving spot of light disrupted STM based on spatial imagery
Performance was disrupted by task of tracking location of auditory sound source while blindfolded, but not by making visual but nonspatial brightness judgment

Question 11

WM directed by CenEx
Is attentional controller not memory system
Norman and Shallice:
Automatic conflict resolution (car driving)
Attentionally limited exec (SAS)

Answer 11

When novel situation arises, supervisory attentional system called into action
SAS critical to CenEx
Norman’s slips of attention produce consequences - route to work
Shallice - frontal lobe damage produces attentional control problems
Failure of focus attn leads to utilization behaviour - drinking wrong tea. Absence of SAS = reversion to habit, responding to cues
Frontal lobes also monitor behaviour

Question 12

CenEx

Chess

Answer 12

Holding: counting backwards disrupts capacity to remember chess posn
Articulatory suppression to disrupt loop: no effect
Spatial tapping to disrupt VS: impaired performance
Random generation of numbers: impaired
So phono loop not involved; VS and CenEx yes
Driving and chatting: CE

Question 13

Driving

Divided attn

Answer 13

Concurrent verbal reasoning task disrupted judgment. Attempted gaps narrower than car

Question 14

Three-component problems

Answer 14

WM and LTM interact how?
Episodic buffer
Holds 4 chunks
Binds (Baars) via CenEx

Question 15

Binding

Answer 15

Process of binding words into chunks is automatic and resistant to attnl load
Binding shape to colour probably based on visual-attnl systems, while biding in sentence processing seems to depend on LT language processing

Question 16

Current WM model

Answer 16

Link from LTM to phono and VS
Inclusion of episodic buffer, directly linked from VS and phono subsystems and from LTM
Smell, taste may have access to episodic buffer
Emotion may influence WM

Question 17

Individual diffs in WM

Answer 17

Daneman: WM span task predicts prose comprehension capacity
WM span also predicts prose composition, obeying complex insturctions, taking notes
Predicts performance on logic gate course and programming language

Question 18

WM Cowan top-down approach

Alternative theory

Answer 18

Only addresses to locations in LTM are held in episodic buffer - info not downloaded

Question 19

WM alternative - Engle

Top-down

Answer 19

Prediction of span not limited to measures based on sentence processing - operation span follows to be remembered words by math. Apple, 7+2 =
Performance on span task made difficult by need to protect memory of presented items from proactive interference
Earlier items compete at retrieval with items to be recalled
Effect greater in low WM span subjects
Subjects required to repeat stream of digits in one ear - ignore other - person’s name in ignored stream - low span participants more likely to have detected name because unable to shut out, as predicted by Conway

Question 20

WM
Primary/secondary memory
Unsworth
Top-down

Answer 20

Primary: dynamic attnl capacity for temporary maintenance of items, is reflect in recency effect in free recall of words
Secondary: involves capacity for cue-dependent search in LTM

Question 21

WM
Resource-sharing model alt
Top-down

Answer 21

Complex span reflects capacity to prevent decay of memory trace through rehearsal.
Capacity to retain 3 consonants disrupted by demanding backward counting task, but not when simply articulatory suppression is required
Barrouillet: subjects remember words while processing letters - correlates even more w measures of reading and arithmetic than span measures - because eliminates ability to rehearsal

Question 22

Education

Answer 22

Kids with special needs perform badly on WM battery
Delayed reading and math low on phono STM and complex span tasks in 7-8
Complex span predicts math and science scores at 14
‘Dreamy’, ADHD
WM can be trained

Question 23

WM neuro

Answer 23

Activity in PFC and basal ganglia
Frontal and parietal cortex
Dopamine up
No long-term improvement of verbal VM, some evidence for continuing advantage in visual WM but little evidence for generalization

Question 24

Monkeys

Answer 24

Frontal lobes control WM
Storage depends on parietal lobes
Analogous to CenEx and sketchpad components

Question 25

Neuro

Answer 25

Phono loop: between parietal and temporal lobes on L
And Broca’s for subvocal rehearsal
WM: visual memory activated R hemisphere
Spatial WM activates dorsal regions
Object memory activates lower/ventral areas
Dorsal: where
Ventral: what
Posner: attentional control is Alerting, Orienting Attn, ExecCon. WM is principally ExecCon
Chun: attn control is both perceptual and internal - controlling cog operations
Attn capacity is limited - when we are lost in though we miss other things
Effortful attn and Exec Con associate with anterior cingulate
No agreement on locations of executive capacities in particular frontal areas

Question 26

Frontal lobes

Answer 26

Duncan and Owen found all processes focus on anterior cingulate area
Supports spearman’s g