The working memory

Question 1

What are the 4 components of the working memory?

Answer 1

the phonological loop, visuospatial sketchpad, episodic buffer and central executive

Question 2

What is the function of the phonological loop?

Answer 2

holds speech-based information

Question 3

What were the two components of the phonological loop believed to be?

Answer 3

1. Articulatory control system - time limited verbal rehearsal system ‘inner voice’
2. Phonological store - speech based storage system with a rapid decay ‘inner ear’

Question 4

What is the phonological similarity effect?

Answer 4

Recall for a set of similar words is 25% worse than that of a set of dissimilar words

Question 5

What is the word-length effect?

Answer 5

Articulatory duration of a word has a larger impact on recall than the phonological complexity (indicates rehearsal)

Question 6

What did Baddeley (1975) find?

Answer 6

Using dual interference task found that taks using the same components of the phonological loop had more interference

Question 7

What is the current view of the components of the phonological loop?

Answer 7

Passive phonological store - direct access activated by speech perception
Articulatory process - indirect access through subvocal articulation

Question 8

What is the visuospatial sketchpad?

Answer 8

Temporary spatial and visual information storage system used for the manipulation of visual patterns and movement

Question 9

What are the 2 components of the visuospatial sketchpad?

Answer 9

1. Visual cache - stores info about form and colour
2. Inner scribe - stores spatial and movement information, performs rehearsal of the visual cache and transfers information from the visual cache to the central executive

Question 10

What did Klauer & Zhao find?

Answer 10

• Spatial tasks show more interference with movement discrimination
• Visual tasks showed more interference with colour discrimination

Question 11

What brain areas are associated with the visual cache and and the inner scribe?

Answer 11

visual cache - ventral prefrontal cortex

inner scribe - dorsal prefrontal cortex

Question 12

What 2 pieces of evidence suggest that the visuospatial sketchpad and the phonological loop are independent?

Answer 12

• Dual task experiments by Logie et al 1990

- Stroke victim PV had impaired verbal short term memory however visual short term memory was intact

Question 13

What is the central executive?

Answer 13

Term for the processes that organise and coordinate the functioning of the cognitive system to fulfil current goals, employed during complex activities and problem solving

Question 14

What area of the brain is associated with the central executive?

Answer 14

prefrontal cortex

disruption in the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex affects performance

Question 15

What is Miyake’s model for the central executive?

Answer 15

3 processes: 
- Inhibition 
- Shifting 
- Updating 
(based on healthy individuals)

Question 16

Define inhibition

Answer 16

ability to halt automatic, dominant or prepotent responses when required

Question 17

Define shifting

Answer 17

ability to move flexibly between multiple tasks, operations or mental sets

Question 18

Define the updating function

Answer 18

Keeping track of working memory operations and revising the information that you need to remember

Question 19

What are the brain areas associated with Miyake’s function?

Answer 19

Supression - right intraparietal sulcus
Switching - left superior parietal sulcus
Updating - lateral prefrontal cortex
All have areas unique but also in common

Question 20

What does Miyake’s framework fail to account for?

Answer 20

• Dual task performance

- Why the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex is activated when performing two tasks simultaneously

Question 21

What is the Stuss and Alexander (2007) model for the central executive?

Answer 21

3 processes: task setting, monitoring and energisation

Question 22

Define monitoring and what brain area is it associated with?

Answer 22

• Reexamining the task to ensure that it is being carried out correctly
• right lateral frontal cortex

Question 23

Define energisation and what brain area is it associated with?

Answer 23

• sustaining attention/concentration

- medial frontal cortex

Question 24

What is the problem with the Stuss & Alexander framework?

Answer 24

Evidence for it is not present in healthy individuals

Question 25

What is the episodic buffer?

Answer 25

A temporary store to integrate information from the phonological loop, visuospatial sketchpad and long-term memory

Question 26

State 2 pieces of evidence for the episodic buffer

Answer 26

1. People can remember up to 16 words in a sentence but only 5 unrelated words
2. Patients with poor central executive functioning had poor immediate prose recall

Question 27

What brain area is associated with the episodic buffer?

Answer 27

Hippocampus activation shown when combining different types of information