lecture 3 - WM Flashcards
WM =
temporary storage and processing that acts upon it - ‘in heightened state of availability for use in ongoing info processing’
Leeds battery
forward digit recall - verbal STM
backward digit recall - verbal WM
Corsi block tapping - visuospatial STM
odd one out - visuospatial WM
WM across lifespan
starts declining in 20s
WM in people with pure amnesia e.g. HM, Jon
WM typically intact
Impairments in WM seen in:
ADHD, ASD, Developmental coordination disorder, Down’s syndrome, Dyslexia, Depression, Anxiety, Sz, Dysexecutive syndrome, Aphasia, Mild cog impairment, Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s
WM predicted…(educational attainment)
english and maths and reading at age 7
maths and science at age 14
WM and Gf/reasoning
strongly correlate
as well as with moral judgements, dealing with life stress, tendency for mind-wandering, abstinence from smoking, suceptibility to misinformation
visual input goes into …..
auditory info goes into …..
articulatory system
phonological STM (fast weights)
phonological STM relays info to phonological LTM (slow weights)
CNRep test =
Children’s nonword repetition test (shows STM & lang. problems)
ability to repeat longer nonwords predicts lang. and vocab levels
LTM & lang affects WM
words > nonwords
‘wordlike nonwords’
meaningful & structured sequences > list
WM interacts with cognition…
sits at interface between internal & external attention
interacts with perception, LTM & feeds into action
phonological loop
capacity of few seconds
auditory info is automatically stored while visual input must be verbally recoded
LTM flows to phon loop (existing lang influences immediate recall)
1) passive ‘phonological store’ (speech perception)
2) articulatory process (speech production i.e. rehearsal)
phonological similarity effect
Schweppe et al: depended more on acoustic than articulatory similarity
BUT still significant effect of articulatory similarity when recall spoken but NOT written (similar articulatory movements in speech)
Word length effect eliminated with:
visually presented words (suggests effect is dependent on rehearsal)
phonological loop is useful when learning a language
patient PV (impaired phonological loop) showed no learning when associating russian words with their italian translation (native lang.)
articulatory suppression =
reduces use of phonological loop and slowed learning of foreign words BUT not native words
phon loop = implicated in language learning
visuo-spatial sketchpad
temporary storage of visual, spatial and movement info
supports imagery, mental rotation
1) visual cache = visual colour & form
2) inner scribe = spatial & movement info - involved in rehearsal of info in visual cache and transfers info from visual case to central exec.
more activity in ________ hemisphere during spatial tasks and more activity in _______ hemisphere during visual task
right
left
evidence for separate visual and spatial systems
areas in ______ & ______ lobes were activated during visual processing and areas in _______ cortex were activated during spatial processing
temporal & occipital
parietal
General attentionally based interference effects when tasks are _______ but interference effects are specific to the type of interference when tasks are _________
demanding
undemanding
- so apparent separateness of visual and spatial systems depends on extent to which general attention processes are required
PV: impaired _______ STM but preserved _____ STM
ELD: preserved ______ STM but impaired _____ STM
verbal; visuo-spatial
verbal; visuo-spatial ‘pictures wouldn’t come’
central executive
attentional control, planning, complex reasoning, inhibition (complex cog tasks)
in frontal lobes (PFC)
important for novel situations & non-automatised skills
doesn’t store info
Baddeley identified 4 executive processes associated with CE:
1) focusing attention or concentration
2) dividing attention between 2 stimulus streams
3) switching attention
4) interfacing with LTM
Miyake et al’s 3 executive functions:
1) inhibition functions to deliberately override dominant responses & resist distraction (stroop)
2) shifting function
3) updating function (rapid addition or deletion of WM contents e.g. keeping track of most recent object)
Miyake & Friedman: developed the above into unity/diversity framework:
each executive function consists of what is common to all 3 functions plus what is unique about that function
What’s common to all = ability to actively maintain task goals & goal-related info & use this to lower bias processing
Stuss & Alexander: identified 3 executive processes:
Stuss added another:
1) task setting (planning)
2) monitoring (checking adequacy of task performance)
3) energisation (sustained attention/concentration)
4) metacognition/integration (recognising differences between what one knows and believes)
Glascher et al found 2 separate brain networks:
1) cog control network = dorsolateral PFC & anterior cingulate cortex (response inhibition, conflict monitoring, switching)
2) value-based decision-making network = orbitofrontal, ventromedial & frontopolar cortex (emotion & value judgements)
task impurity problem
more tasks require several different processes making it hard to identify the contribution made by each one
episodic buffer
holds objects and episodes
links WM to perception and LTM
consciousness
creation of concepts based on recombination of existing knowledge
not reliant on CE
cross-modal binding (predicted word reading ability & associations between foreign words & novel object)
passive structure
CE’s job in immediate recall of 15-word sentences
to integrate/chunk sentence info
immediate prose recall was better in amnesics with little CE deficit
the focus of attention/activated LTM approach
WM reflects activated LTM & is limited by what can be held in the focus of attention
higher level of procedural control through the ‘bridge’ = CE
the time-based decay and refreshing approach
1) processing and maintenance of WM tasks require attention and memory traces decay as soon as attention (because of time) is switched away
2) when attention is available, memory traces can be reactivated (refreshed)
both components keep representations active: refreshing and rehearsal
phonological loop preserves…
order in which items are presented
Evolution of multicomponent model: rehearsal
Atkinson & Shiffrin: merely holding info in STM = transfer into LTM
Craik & Lockhart: nature of processing is important - deeper more elaborative processing = better learning
Cowan’s embedded processing theory
WM = cog processes that are maintained in an unusually accessible state = limited capacity attention focus operates across areas of activated LTM
