lecture 3 - WM

Question 1

WM =

Answer 1

temporary storage and processing that acts upon it - ‘in heightened state of availability for use in ongoing info processing’

Question 2

Leeds battery

Answer 2

forward digit recall - verbal STM
backward digit recall - verbal WM
Corsi block tapping - visuospatial STM
odd one out - visuospatial WM

Question 3

WM across lifespan

Answer 3

starts declining in 20s

Question 4

WM in people with pure amnesia e.g. HM, Jon

Answer 4

WM typically intact

Question 5

Impairments in WM seen in:

Answer 5

ADHD, ASD, Developmental coordination disorder, Down’s syndrome, Dyslexia, Depression, Anxiety, Sz, Dysexecutive syndrome, Aphasia, Mild cog impairment, Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s

Question 6

WM predicted…(educational attainment)

Answer 6

english and maths and reading at age 7

maths and science at age 14

Question 7

WM and Gf/reasoning

Answer 7

strongly correlate
as well as with moral judgements, dealing with life stress, tendency for mind-wandering, abstinence from smoking, suceptibility to misinformation

Question 8

visual input goes into …..

auditory info goes into …..

Answer 8

articulatory system
phonological STM (fast weights)
phonological STM relays info to phonological LTM (slow weights)

Question 9

CNRep test =

Answer 9

Children’s nonword repetition test (shows STM & lang. problems)
ability to repeat longer nonwords predicts lang. and vocab levels

Question 10

LTM & lang affects WM

Answer 10

words > nonwords
‘wordlike nonwords’
meaningful & structured sequences > list

Question 11

WM interacts with cognition…

Answer 11

sits at interface between internal & external attention

interacts with perception, LTM & feeds into action

Question 12

phonological loop

Answer 12

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)

Question 13

phonological similarity effect

Answer 13

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)

Question 14

Word length effect eliminated with:

Answer 14

visually presented words (suggests effect is dependent on rehearsal)

Question 15

phonological loop is useful when learning a language

Answer 15

patient PV (impaired phonological loop) showed no learning when associating russian words with their italian translation (native lang.)

Question 16

articulatory suppression =

Answer 16

reduces use of phonological loop and slowed learning of foreign words BUT not native words
phon loop = implicated in language learning

Question 17

visuo-spatial sketchpad

Answer 17

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.

Question 18

more activity in ________ hemisphere during spatial tasks and more activity in _______ hemisphere during visual task

Answer 18

right
left
evidence for separate visual and spatial systems

Question 19

areas in ______ & ______ lobes were activated during visual processing and areas in _______ cortex were activated during spatial processing

Answer 19

temporal & occipital

parietal

Question 20

General attentionally based interference effects when tasks are _______ but interference effects are specific to the type of interference when tasks are _________

Answer 20

demanding
undemanding
- so apparent separateness of visual and spatial systems depends on extent to which general attention processes are required

Question 21

PV: impaired _______ STM but preserved _____ STM
ELD: preserved ______ STM but impaired _____ STM

Answer 21

verbal; visuo-spatial

verbal; visuo-spatial ‘pictures wouldn’t come’

Question 22

central executive

Answer 22

attentional control, planning, complex reasoning, inhibition (complex cog tasks)
in frontal lobes (PFC)
important for novel situations & non-automatised skills
doesn’t store info

Question 23

Baddeley identified 4 executive processes associated with CE:

Answer 23

1) focusing attention or concentration
2) dividing attention between 2 stimulus streams
3) switching attention
4) interfacing with LTM

Question 24

Miyake et al’s 3 executive functions:

Answer 24

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)

Question 25

Miyake & Friedman: developed the above into unity/diversity framework:

Answer 25

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

Question 26

Stuss & Alexander: identified 3 executive processes:

Stuss added another:

Answer 26

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)

Question 27

Glascher et al found 2 separate brain networks:

Answer 27

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)

Question 28

task impurity problem

Answer 28

more tasks require several different processes making it hard to identify the contribution made by each one

Question 29

episodic buffer

Answer 29

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

Question 30

CE’s job in immediate recall of 15-word sentences

Answer 30

to integrate/chunk sentence info

immediate prose recall was better in amnesics with little CE deficit

Question 31

the focus of attention/activated LTM approach

Answer 31

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

Question 32

the time-based decay and refreshing approach

Answer 32

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

Question 33

phonological loop preserves…

Answer 33

order in which items are presented

Question 34

Evolution of multicomponent model: rehearsal

Answer 34

Atkinson & Shiffrin: merely holding info in STM = transfer into LTM
Craik & Lockhart: nature of processing is important - deeper more elaborative processing = better learning

Question 35

Cowan’s embedded processing theory

Answer 35

WM = cog processes that are maintained in an unusually accessible state = limited capacity attention focus operates across areas of activated LTM