Lecture 3 Flashcards
What did Daneman and Carptenter (1980) look into?
Measured individual differences in WM capacity by measuring “reading and listening span”
Explain Daneman and Carpenter (1980) experiment
A task when they read a sentence and remember the final word/s
Findings of Daneman and Carpenter (1980)
recall varies from one person to another and the ability to recall seems to correlate with other abilities of comprehension
What did Daneman and Hannon (2007) Show? and how
Same test but this time with remember number at the end.
Remembering digits without context or random words correlates more poorly with language comprehension
What can be concluded when looking at daneman (1980) vs (2007)
Something about listening and reading span that correlates more with comprehension than just memory alone
one could argue that sentence span is a measure of general WM capacity
What is working memory span and how is it measured?
The limited span of a person’s working memory
Measured by seeing how many words they can remember at the end of a list of sentences
What did Baddeley et al. (1985) think was a problem about the Daneman and Carpenter (1980) results? (2)
Small sample from Univesity population (about 20)
Something about listening span not covering all of WM - too simple a measure for complex WM
- doesn’t include the selection of strategies
Explain Baddeley et al (1985) experiment
Sentences and if they are true or not
Then count dots
Then recall final word of sentence
What the results of Baddeley et al (1985)
Listening sentence span correlated with language comprehension
Counting span correlated more poorly with language comprehension
What did baddeley et al (1985) conclude from their results
They argued that a listening comprehensions and memory test correlates with comprehension tests - not a measure of general WM capacity
Maybe not a general working memory capacity but something relating to language learning - a different version of comprehension
Explain the Turner and Engle (1989) experiment
Operation span
Tried to avoid a language based task - Separated memory task from processing task
Maths equation then a word, how many can they remember
Results of Turner and Engle (1989)
They found it Operation span correlates with language comprehension and sentence span
Argue that WMS is not just for language comprehension
What did Kane and Engle (2002) find?
WM span correlates with general intelligence and other executive functions
Standard digit span correlates poorly with these other mental abilities
Reinforcing the idea that it is part of working memory not just language ability
People who perform well on these tasks they do better on a wide range of tasks
Where in the brain is WM (controlled attention) linked?
Linked with the pre-frontal cortex
Explain Barrouillet et al (2004) time based sharing model
The capacity of working memory is based on how quickly we can switch between working memory processing and storing
The more we spend on processing the more likely it will decay away due to less time refreshing
Explain how Barrouillet (2004) tested the TBRS theory
Presented letters for recall, with numbers to read aloud between letters. Numbers presented at fast or slow rates. Recall letters after presentation of all material
What were the findings of Barrouillet (2004)
With a high cognitive load, less time between each number to rehearse memory number - Resulted in poorer performance
Conclusions of Barrouillet (2004)
Supports TPRS - ability to remember is based on ability to switch between process and rehearsal - all based on time
- Assumes loss of these items from memory is due to decay, switching back will limit decay
Explanation of Barroillet results
He argues that slow pace allows more time for “swapping” attention between reading numbers and rehearsing letters. Fast pace prevents swapping of attention, and so the memory for letters decay
Problem with TBRS results (Oberauer and Lewandowsky 2008)
Note confound with effects of interference between letters and numbers
Confound - more items in the second section, could be that there are more items and they are interfering, disrupting content of memory
What was Conway looking into?
Whether WM capacity is a by product of attention
Explain Conway et al (2001) experiment
Gave them a dichotic listening task, one set of info from one ear and one from the other ear (headphones)
- Told to focus on one channel and ignore the other, in ignored channel name is said
- Then asked question on what you heard
Findings of Conway (2001)
High WM more likely to ignore their name is presented
Explain the Colflesh and Conway (2007) experiment
Listen to message in one ear, ignore info from other ear but occasionally you will hear your name, listen to that
- No shadowing - not told to listen to just one ear
- Shadowing - listen to just one source
The idea is that you are trying to ignore the attention but switching ever so often
Findings of Colflesh and Conway (2007)
- No shadowing - Difference is small
Shadowing - High working memory do better when instructed
What does Colflesh and Conways (2007) results indicate?
Indicates flexibility in high capacity individuals
Explain Conway et al (2010) experiment and why they underwent it
Looking at different groups of WM capacity (different ages 7 and 11
Testing their selective attention ability
In line with Conway (2007) if high WM are better than low WM should be worse
Findings of Conway (2010)
- Having a low WMC doesn’t seem to be related to being bad at focusing attention
- Can control attention even with low WMC
• What are the various hypotheses about working
memory capacity?
1) Working memory “capacity” is a by-product of attentional control
2) Working memory storage capacity itself varies between individuals
3) Working memory capacity reflects different styles of cognitive control
4) Efficiency of retrieval from secondary memory
What is the cocktail party effect?
the phenomenon of the brain’s ability to focus one’s auditory attention (an effect of selective attention in the brain) on a particular stimulus while filtering out a range of other stimuli, as when a partygoer can focus on a single conversation in a noisy room.
Why are high WM less likely to hear their names
The critical factor seems to be the ability to block information from the irrelevant message.
High-span subjects are more capable of this and were therefore less likely to hear their names, and they also were less susceptible to a consequential disruption
of relevant task performance.
What is the anti-saccade task?
Saccaded eye movement controlled by the frontal cortex
Assesses brain ability to inhibit reflexive saccade
Asked to fix on a motionless target, a stimulus is then presented to one side of the target. Participant is asked to look at the other side of the target that the stimulus isn’t on.
Failure to do this implies cognitive dysfunction
What did Morey et al (2012) investigate and how?
WMC and cognitive function ability
Cross modal stroop
- see colour on screen, hear colour word
- Goal: Name colour on screen and ignore sound
What did Morey et al (2012) find?
Correlation between Cross-modal stroop and WMC was very limited
What did Beilock and Decaro (2007) find
Pressure and anxiety had no effect on low WM, but affected high
What is an explanation for why pressure only effects high WM performance
People with high WM work harder and control more, learning more
Low WM can’t be bothered, so pressure doesn’t affect it
How did Duff and Logie (2001) measure WMS?
They measured word span and processing span
Remember last word of sentence and how many correctly answered
What was the difference in Duff and Logie’s study compared with previous experiments on WMS
Previous studies measured memory and didn’t measure how well they did on the processing task
If they are drawing on the same mental ability, they should correlate highly
How did Duff and Logie (2001) measure WMS?
They measured word span and processing span and together
Remember last word of sentence and how many correctly answered
What did Duff and Logie (2001) find? and how might one interpret the results?
Little effect when combining tasks so implies processing and storing are separate systems
What did Waters and Caplan (2003) investigate and how?
What is the most reliable measure of WM
groups between 20-80, measured twice across 6 weeks using 7 different measures of WM.
What did Waters and Caplan (2003) find?
Processing time and memory score combine to give a better measure of WMC than memory score alone
Related?
What did Daneman and Hannon (2007) evidence?
Verification time of whether or not the statement is true and memory score show very poor correlations
Processing and storage unerelated?
What did Logie and Duff (2007) investigate?
working memory for the correlations between
memory and processing in working memory span
tasks
Explain Logie and Duff (2007) experiment
- Series of short sentences.
- Respond true/false to each one, while maintaining accuracy
- Time and accuracy recorded
At end of series – retrieve final words of sentences in correct order – select words from a word array
Span procedure – two trials at each level, from 2 to 6 sentences. Stopped if two in a row incorrect.
3 predictions with Logie and Duff (2007)
1) Barrouillet and Camos: If Memory and Processing draw on a common resource with swapping between processing and
storage, then we would expect higher memory span
is correlated with longer response time (high +ve
correlation)
2) If general mental ability then high memory span is
associated with faster speed (-ve correlation)
3) If memory span and processing speed are unrelated, then expect a low correlation
What were the results from the Logie and Duff
(2007) study, and how might those results be
interpreted by different working memory theories?
WMS and processing speed had little correlation!
Implies unrelated! Not strong evidence that they are relying on the same part of the cognitive system
Points to multiple resources fro processing and memory maintenance capacities
What measures of working memory were included
in the BBC internet study?
Range of memory tests with several experiments
included across a life span
Focus here on working memory span
What were the results of the BBC internet study?
Between 8-20 abilities are improving
Digit span improving more slowly than visual tasks
Beyond 20, digit span is strong for ages, visual pattern spans get real bad pretty fast
Visual STM is most sensitive and Verbal STM is least
sensitive. WM is intermediate
Issue with the BBC study
cross sectional
How might different theories interpret BBC results?
Multi: If it is all general attention why do they change at different rates across age
General: all to do with control of attention, focus of attention
- Storing a sequence of numbers requires less attention so ability decreases less with age
Eval: WM sentence span less effected by age which is supposed to push you to the limits so should drop the most…
