Working Memory

Question 1

Define working memory.

Answer 1

= short-term storage that allows for manipulation of information

Question 2

What is the best-known model about WM?

Answer 2

Baddeley’s multicomponent model = proposes that WM is made up of 3 components
- Phonological loop = processsing of verbal and auditory info
- Visuospatial sketchpad = visual and spatial
- Episodic buffer = multimodal, bind info from multiple sources

• There’s also Central Executive in control of all that

Question 3

What does it mean for phonological loop and visuospatial sketchpad to be separate?

Answer 3

• It is more likely that certain modality will be affected by the same kind of modality than a different one
• E.g. My verbal reading of this text is gonna be more affected by someone suddenly talking to me than my hand reaching towards a bottle (spatial)

Question 4

What’s the advantage of episodic buffer as opposed to its two “friends”?

Answer 4

• It brings all information together i.e. from all modalities, recent or from LTM
• This way we can have all integrated single memory trace

Question 5

What’s the purpose of central executive?

Answer 5

= have control over the others, allocation of resources
- E.g. If I’m thinking about something difficult I might stop walking because storage of visuospatial sketchpad have to be used elsewhere

Question 6

What are the 2 parts of phonological loop?

Answer 6

1. Phonological store = temporary storage
2. Articulatory loop = place of rehearsing, maintaining this information

Question 7

Explain word length effect. Provide examples.

Answer 7

= person’s word span is shorter for longer words than for shorter words
- Syllabic word length effect = it’s harder to remember words with more syllables
- More items need to be refreshed but we cannot rehearse all - some fade away
- E.g. digit span of Chinese is larger than of English (due to length of the words)
- Articulatory word length effect = harder to remember words that are more difficult to physically articulate (e.g. bishop X Friday)

Question 8

What is articulatory supression effect?

Answer 8

= reduced verbal span if people are trying to remember something while simultaneously speaking
- E.g. If I’m singing a karaoke song I won’t be able to recall what the person next to me just said

Question 9

Irrelevant speech effect =

Answer 9

= the notion that resources of phonological loop could be taken away by irrelevant noise around
- E.g. Me trying to understand a research article while Dutch students are talking around me

Question 10

Phonological similarity effect =

Answer 10

= phonologically similar words will may lead to more errors during retrieval
- E.g. People may say bone instead of phone
- BUT not bowl -> fowl (it’s more connected with sound sou bowl -> roll)

Question 11

Lexicality effect =

Answer 11

= memory tends to be better for words than non-words
- Taking some info from LTM
- E.g. we use the rhymes in order to remember missing word in the lyrics

Question 12

Which hemisphere/brain areas is associated with visuospatial sketchpad

Answer 12

• Right hemisphere = spatial and holistic processing
• Premotor, parietal areas

Question 13

What are the 2 main manipulations done to mental images by visuaospatial sketchpad? Add related studies. (+how is it related to reality?)

Answer 13

1. Mental scanning = going from point to other points within mental images
   
   • The longer the distance people have to pass (e.g. in an imagenary map) the longer MS time
   • Can capture other aspects of reality e.g. if students asked to imagine going from one place on campus to another while carrying balloon or load of bricks -> time increased for bricks
2. Mental rotation
   
   • Study: p. give pairs of objects rotated to some degree -> asked to say whether it is the same object or not
     => the more rotated away - the longer it took to respond
     - Also corresponds to reality e.g. easier to rotate what would be actually easier to rotate

Question 14

Which brain areas are involved in mental rotation - how is it different to other aspects of VS?

Answer 14

• Involves parietal lobes (sometimes with the help of frontal regions)
• BUT since it resembles analytical processing (rather than holistic) more it involves left hemisphere

Question 15

Boundary extension = (e.g., when does it NOT occur)

Answer 15

= phenomena of visuospatial sketchpad in which people remember more details than were actually present

• People have tendency to fill in scenes e.g. If I see just part of our family house on a photo I’d likely recall seeing the whole thing
• BUT occurs only in presence of knowledge and LTM

Question 16

Representational momentum =

Answer 16

= human tendency to misinterpret objects as still moving along their trajectory

• E.g. When seeing a car driving on a street -> gets behind a bush -> people misremember it as being further on its path than it actually is

Question 17

Representational gravity =

Answer 17

= component of VS that make people misremember things as being closer to the Earth than they actually were

• Study: shown a picture of a plant on a pedistal and then without it -> when asked to remember plant’s location => people indicated below the actual point

Question 18

What physiological aspects could improve central executive WM?

Answer 18

• Higher levels of arousal (e.g. release of norepinephrine, enough sleep)
• Enough resources e.g. glucose, glycogen

Question 19

What 2 types of behaviors are displayed in dysexecutive syndrome?

Answer 19

1. Perseveration = inability to switch to a different strategy, mode of thinking
2. Distraction = inability to pay attention to relevant and being drawn to other aspects of the environment

Question 20

What is similar and different in Cowan’s embedded model?

Answer 20

• Different: Postulates that WM is just a portion of LTM that gets temporarily higlighted
• Similar: Also includes central exectutive - here it just allocates attention to a different part of LTM

Question 21

What’s the difference between simple and complex span tasks?

Answer 21

• Simple includes only retention part (i.e. retaining info for certain period), while compex adds a component of active processing

Question 22

Name some ways of measuting WM.

Answer 22

1. Reading span = people asked to read aloud sentences (2-6) and at the end expected to remember the last words of each sentence
   
   • Calculated as the number of correct last words
2. Comprehension span = people read through sentences deciding whether they do or do not make sense -> asked to recall the last words
3. Operation span = p. given math problem and asked to indicate whether its solution is correct -> given a random word afterwards -> repeated => recall the words
4. n-Back test = people shown series of letters, digits pictures -> asked to say “yes” or “no” as to whether the stimulus is the same as the one n items back