Working Memory Model

11 Key excerpts on "Working Memory Model"

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  eBook - ePub

  The Development of Working Memory in Children

  • Lucy Henry(Author)
  • 2011(Publication Date)
  • SAGE Publications Ltd

    (Publisher)

  1

  The Working Memory Model

    Introduction to the Working Memory Model Key features of the Working Memory Model – an overview The phonological loop Evidence in support of the phonological loop The visuospatial sketchpad The central executive The episodic buffer Overall summary Further reading  

  Learning outcomes

  At the end of this chapter, you should have an understanding of the original and revised versions of the ‘Working Memory Model’ (Baddeley, 1986, 2000, 2007; Baddeley & Hitch, 1974). This has been a dominant model of memory in recent decades and represents a key approach to understanding the development of memory in children with and without developmental disorders. Once you have read this chapter, you should be able to: (1) describe each of the four components of the revised Working Memory Model; and (2) outline some of the key evidence supporting the structure of each component.

  Introduction to the Working Memory Model

  The Working Memory Model is a very influential theory of memory designed to account for how we temporarily manipulate and store information during thinking and reasoning tasks. The model helps us to understand how memory processes are used during day to day familiar activities, or during more demanding tasks that require greater effort and new thinking (perhaps a problem-solving task that has not been encountered before). One way of understanding working memory is to consider the types of memory we need while we read, plan future activities, do the crossword/Sudoku, or follow the news headlines.

  One of the important concepts to understand about working memory is that it is limited in capacity, which means that we cannot store and manipulate endless amounts of information. Therefore, the types of thinking and remembering tasks we can undertake will be constrained by working memory resources. Working memory also limits, to some degree, the types of things we can handle concurrently. Whilst there are some types of tasks that can be carried out at the same time, other types of tasks compete for the same resources within the working memory system and, therefore, interfere with each other.

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  Concise Learning and Memory

  The Editor's Selection

  • (Author)
  • 2010(Publication Date)
  • Academic Press

    (Publisher)

  8.2 The Working Memory Model One influential theoretical account of working mem-ory has framed much of the research and thinking in this field for several decades. In 1974, Baddeley and Hitch advanced a model of working memory that has been substantially refined and extended over the intervening period. The influence of the Working Memory Model extends far beyond the detailed structure of its cognitive processes, which are con-sidered in the following sections. The radical claim made by Baddeley and Hitch was that working mem-ory is a flexible multicomponent system that satisfies a wide range of everyday cognitive needs for tem-porary mental storage – in other words, it does important work for the user. The distinction between short-term memory and working memory is a key element in the philosophy of this approach. The term working memory refers to the whole set of cognitive processes that comprise the model, which as we will see includes higher-level attentional and executive processes as well as storage systems specialized for particular information domains. Activities that tap a broad range of the functions of working memory, including both storage and higher-level control func-tions, are often described as working memory tasks. The term short-term memory, on the other hand, is largely reserved for memory tasks that principally require the temporary storage of information only. In this respect, short-term memory tasks tap only a subset of working memory processes. Detailed exam-ples of each of these classes of memory task are provided in later sections. A further key element of the Baddeley and Hitch (1974) approach is its use of dual-task methodology to investigate the modular structure of the working memory system. These researchers have developed a set of laboratory techniques for occupying particular components of the working memory system, which can then be used to investigate the extent to which particular activities engage one or another compo-nent.

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  Cognition

  • Margaret W. Matlin, Thomas A. Farmer(Authors)
  • 2016(Publication Date)
  • Wiley

    (Publisher)

  This model is widely supported. However, other psychologists have devised somewhat different theories about working memory (e.g., Conway et al., 2007; Cowan, 2005, 2010; Ketelsen & Welsh, 2010; Logie & van der Meulen, 2009). Still, all of these theories consistently argue that working memory is complex, lexible, and strategic. The current perspective on working memory is certainly different from the view held during the 1950s and 1960s that short-term memory is relatively rigid and had a ixed capacity. As our understanding of how different parts of the brain are connected increases, we will likely come to understand more about how the components of the working memory system interact to produce our ability to simultaneously process and store information. PRACTICE QUIZ QUESTIONS 1) Working memory is: a) brief memory for information that a person is currently processing. b) involved in coordinating a person’s cognitive activities. c) a term that is now used more often instead of a similar term—short-term memory. d) All of the above are correct. 2) The functioning of the phonological loop: a) may give rise to acoustic confusions in working-memory tasks, especially when rehearsal is involved. b) is related to a person’s “inner voice,” or his or her use of subvocalization to per- form a task. c) involves activation or information storage in the left hemisphere of the brain, including frontal, temporal, and parietal lobes. d) All of the above are correct. 3) A driver who is listening to a football game on the radio and forming clear images of the action may experience dificulty driving. This interference may be attribut- able to the limited capacity of a working-memory component called the: a) central executive. b) visuospatial sketchpad. CHAPTER 4 Working Memory 134 c) episodic buffer. d) phonological loop.

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  Memory

  • Alan Baddeley, Michael W. Eysenck, Michael C. Anderson(Authors)
  • 2020(Publication Date)
  • Taylor & Francis

    (Publisher)

  Chapter 1 , that it be productive, and not purely defensive. There are of course and will continue to be many more precise theories using more rigorously targeted methods that may in due course revise much of the detail of our current model. For the present at least, the multicomponent model still seems to be in good shape.

  Summary

  • Working memory is a system that combines temporary storage and executive processing in order to help perform a range of complex cognitive activities.

  • The multicomponent model of Baddeley and Hitch tries to combine storage and processing.

  • It has four components: the phonological loop; the visuo-spatial sketchpad; the central executive; and the episodic buffer.

  • The phonological loop provides temporary storage for verbal/acoustic material.

  • The visuo-spatial sketchpad stores information from visual and spatial coding.

  • The central executive is an attentionally limited system that provides overall control.

  • The episodic buffer involves a passive multidimensional store that is accessible to conscious awareness.

  • An alternative approach is that proposed by Cowan who sees working memory as reflecting a limited attentional capacity focused on activated representations in LTM.

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  Working Memory and Severe Learning Difficulties (PLE: Memory)

  • Charles Hulme, Susie Mackenzie(Authors)
  • 2014(Publication Date)
  • Taylor & Francis

    (Publisher)

  The concept of a limited capacity temporary store has been a very useful one, both in interpreting the results of experiments and also in understanding everyday memory problems. Much research in the past 20 years (on adults, children, and those with learning difficulties) has been based on a general framework that distinguishes short- from long-term memory stores. There are, however, problems connected with this view, such as the nature of the short-term store and the relationship between the long- and short-term systems (for instance whether information has to pass through short-term memory to reach, or be retrieved from, the long-term store). A more detailed description of short-term memory was outlined by Baddeley and Hitch (1974) and recently revised by Baddeley (1986); this is known as the working memory approach.

  WORKING MEMORY

  Some of the evident problems with the modal model of memory influenced Baddeley and Hitch’s attempt to formulate an alternative framework for research on short-term memory. This work brought to prominence the term “working memory”.

  Working memory is a term, like some others in psychology, that suffers because different people use it in subtly different ways. In its broadest sense, working memory refers to the use of temporary storage mechanisms in the performance of more complex tasks. So, for example, in order to read and understand prose, we must be able to hold incoming information in memory. This is necessary in order to compute the semantic and syntactic relationships among successive words, phrases, and sentences and so construct a coherent and meaningful representation of the meaning of the text. This temporary storage of information during reading is said to depend on working memory. In this view the ability to understand prose will depend on, among other things, the capacity of a person’s working memory system. Such temporary storage of information is obviously necessary for the performance of a wide variety of other tasks apart from reading, such as mental arithmetic (Hitch, 1978) and verbal reasoning (Baddeley & Hitch, 1974). This definition of working memory then, is a functional term. Working memory is the system (or more accurately the set of systems) responsible for the temporary storage of information during the performance of cognitive tasks.

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  Cognitive Psychology

  • Margaret W. Matlin(Author)
  • 2014(Publication Date)
  • Wiley

    (Publisher)

  (Think about it: Did you in fact keep those initial words in your memory until you reached the word end?) As you’ll see in this section of Chapter 4, people also use this kind of working memory for a wide range of cognitive tasks, such as language comprehension, mental arithmetic, reasoning, and problem solving (Baddeley & Hitch, 1974; Logie, 2011). According to the working-memory approach proposed by Baddeley, our imme- diate memory is a multipart system that temporarily holds and manipulates information while we perform cognitive tasks. Baddeley’s model of working memory is different from earlier models because he proposed multiple components for our working memory (Schwartz, 2011). Figure 4.4 illustrates the current design of the model, FIGURE 4.4 The Working-Memory Approach: A Simplified Version of Alan Baddeley’s (2000b) Model of Working Memory. Central Executive Long-Term Memory Episodic Buffer Phonological Loop Visuospatial Sketchpad Note: This diagram shows the phonological loop, the visuospatial sketchpad, the central executive, and the episodic buffer—as well as their interactions with long-term memory. Source: Baddeley, A. D. (2000b). The episodic buffer: A new component of working memory? Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 4, 417–423. The Working-Memory Approach 109 featuring the phonological loop, the visuospatial sketchpad, the central executive, and the episodic buffer, which was added more recently (Baddeley, 2000a, 2000b, 2001; Baddeley et al., 2009). Baddeley’s approach emphasizes that working memory is not simply a passive storehouse with a number of shelves to hold partially processed information until it moves on to another location (presumably long-term memory). Instead, Baddeley emphasizes that we manipulate information. As a result, your working memory is more like a workbench where material is constantly being handled, combined, and transformed. Clearly, Baddeley’s model is consistent with Theme 1 of this textbook.

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  Theoretical Aspects of Memory

  Volume 2

  • Michael Gruneberg, Peter E Morris, Michael Gruneberg, Peter E Morris(Authors)
  • 2006(Publication Date)
  • Routledge

    (Publisher)

  et al. 1992). On the basis of these findings, this group have proposed that individuals have at their disposal a pool of limited-capacity resources that can be used to serve both processing operations and the storage of information. One consequence of this is that a tradeoff between processing and storage activities is necessary whenever a langauge processing task exceeds the limited resources available to the comprehender. A further suggestion is that individuals differ in the size of the total pool of resources available to them, and that this variation is the basis for individual differences in demanding tasks such as the comprehension of language.

  In summary, it appears that both research and theory on the central executive component of working memory are very much alive and kicking. Although an adequate integrated model of the component has yet to be produced, there are already welldeveloped theoretical perspectives with associated empirical traditions which look set to greatly advance our understanding of this important cognitive system in the near future.

  CONCLUSION

  The strengths of the working memory approach lie in the breadth of its impact on understanding cognition. The specific Working Memory Model is a well-elaborated theoretical structure which readily caters both for specialized processing activities carried out at a minimum cost to limited capacity resources (via the two slave systems, the phonological loop and the sketchpad) and for more open-ended regulatory and processing types of function (mediated by the central executive). The two types of mechanism in combination give rise to a flexible short-term memory system that contributes to cognitive activities as complex and diverse as vocabulary acquisition, learning to read, mental arithmetic, language comprehension, the learning of spatial routes and of new faces, planning, and the control of action. The implication is clear: working memory is an important and hard-working system that is central to many everyday cognitive activities.

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  Working Memory

  Loss and reconstruction

  • Pierre Barrouillet, Valérie Camos(Authors)
  • 2014(Publication Date)
  • Psychology Press

    (Publisher)

  1 WHAT IS WORKING MEMORY? DOI: 10.4324/9781315755854-1

  According to Baddeley (2003) , the first mention of the term ‘working memory’ can be traced back to Miller, Galanter and Pribam (1960) . Does this mean that this date has to be taken as a corner stone of psychological science, marking the discovery of a central mechanism for cognition that was lying in the hidden recesses of our mind, running unnoticed until then? In introducing their remarkable and still indispensable book Models of Working Memory, Miyake and Shah (1999) recalled that working memory was proclaimed by Goldman-Rakic (1992 , p. 111) as ‘perhaps the most significant achievement of human mental evolution’ and labelled by Haberlandt (1997 , p. 212) as the ‘hub of cognition’. How could the most significant achievement of human mental evolution have been left in such neglect for almost one century by scientific psychological research? The answer lies of course in the advent and success of the cognitive revolution and the ensuing deep transformation of our conception of mind functioning. Instead of an impenetrable learning device storing stimulus-response associations, the emergence of cognitive science in the 1950s disseminated the view of the mind as a system for processing information. The advent of computers proved that it was at least theoretically possible to envision human cognition as a system operating on symbolic representations in compliance with a predetermined programme, and successful computational simulations of a range of cognitive activities gave credence to this view. However, as the first theoretical elaborations made clear, the need for a system able to maintain representations of the information to be processed, to execute the successive instructions of the programme and control for their correct completion while rapidly accessing relevant knowledge from long-term memory was inherent to the information processing approach. If the idea of a mind simply connecting stimuli and responses by one-to-one switches was to be abandoned, Tolman (1948) emphasised the need for a central control room working over and elaborating incoming stimuli into cognitive maps of the environment. Surprisingly, the task of identifying this ‘hub of cognition’ was fraught with difficulties. Within the conceptual apparatus of psychology at the advent of the cognitive revolution, short-term memory was the unique conceivable solution. The impact of Baddeley and Hitch's (1974) chapter in Volume 8 of The Psychology of Learning and Motivation edited by G. H. Bower is probably due to the fact that they provided evidence that short-term memory was not the controlling executive system described by Atkinson and Shiffrin (1971)

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  The Cambridge Handbook of Working Memory and Language

  • John W. Schwieter, Zhisheng (Edward) Wen(Authors)
  • 2022(Publication Date)
  • Cambridge University Press

    (Publisher)

  Language development, acquisition of academic skills, and performance of academic skills all rely heavily on working memory. The strong relations between working memory and lan- guage development (Moser et al., 2007) and working memory and academic achievement (Swanson et al., 2009) are well documented. Correlations between working memory measures and academic achievement generally range from .3 to .6 (Swanson, 2006, 2011; Swanson et al., 2009; Swanson & Berninger, 1995, 1996; Swanson & Jerman, 2007). Students with low working memory capacity are at risk for learning problems. Gathercole and Alloway (2008) found that 80 percent of students who had working memory scores at the 10th percentile or lower experienced significant academic learning difficulties or specific learning disabilities (SLD). For example, the presence of working memory deficits in many students with dyslexia is well documented (Palmer, 2000; Pickering, 2006; Siegal & Ryan, 1989; Swanson et al., 2009; Wang & Gathercole, 2013). The predominant model of working memory was proposed by Baddeley and Hitch in 1974 and later expanded by Baddeley (1986, 2000, 2006). Baddeley’s hierarchical model is composed of four components: the phono- logical loop, the visuospatial sketchpad, the central executive, and the epi- sodic buffer, with the central executive functioning as the manager of the other three components. In contrast, Kane and Engle’s (Engle, 2002) Executive Attention Model and Cowan’s (2005) Embedded-Process Model place less emphasis on a hierarchical arrangement while defining the essence of working memory as executive attention and the focus of attention, respectively. In 2008, Dehn proposed the Integrated Model of working memory, a five- component (or five processes) model (see Figure 11.1) that is useful for assessing working memory in children, especially those referred for academic learning problems.

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  Working Memory and Academic Learning

  Assessment and Intervention

  • Milton J. Dehn(Author)
  • 2011(Publication Date)
  • Wiley

    (Publisher)

  Although the model views working memory as including both storage and processing functions ( Just & Carpenter, 1992), the model reduces the need for modality-specific storage buffers. For Daneman and Carpenter (1980), working memory essentially corresponds to the central executive in Baddeley’s theory. From their perspective, performance on complex span tasks is due primarily to central executive processing efficiency—a claim disputed by Bayliss, Jarrold, Baddeley, and Gunn (2003), who found that differences in storage capacity are an important determinant of complex span performance.

  Kane and Engle’s Executive Attention Model

  Kane, Engle, and colleagues (Engle 1996, 2002; Kane et al., 2001) portray working memory as an executive attention function that is distinguishable from short-term memory. Kane and Engle make the case that working memory capacity is not about short-term span but rather about the ability to control attention in order to maintain information in an active, quickly retrievable state. They define executive attention, also referred to as controlled attention, as “an executive control capability; that is, an ability to effectively maintain stimulus, goal, or context information in an active, easily accessible state in the face of interference, to effectively inhibit goal-irrelevant stimuli or responses, or both” (Kane et al., 2001, p. 180). Executive attention not only allows switching between competing tasks but maintains desired information by suppressing and inhibiting unwanted, irrelevant information. Therefore, the capacity of working memory is a function of how well executive processes can focus attention on the relevant material and goals, not on the length of the interval or how much short-term storage is available.

  Evidence for their model comes from studies in which high memory span participants demonstrate better attentional control than low span subjects. Particularly under normal conditions, high span individuals are more adept at resisting interference than low span subjects (Kane et al., 2001). Their ability to inhibit interference allows them to retain and process more information. Most of the interference is internally generated, often caused by associating current information with earlier information that is no longer relevant. Low working memory span individuals do not normally allocate attention to resisting interference (Kane & Engle, 2000). Thus, individuals with a high working memory span may not necessarily have a greater short-term storage capacity than those with a low span. Rather, working memory span is constrained by the executive capacity to control attention and resist interference (Hester & Garavan, 2005).

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  Working Memory and Education

  • Gary D. Phye(Author)
  • 2006(Publication Date)
  • Academic Press

    (Publisher)

  We argued that as the sequence length increased, the amount of uncommitted STM remaining should diminish, resulting in an increasing degree of interference with our various tasks. We did indeed find this, but the disruption was far less dra-matic than we had anticipated. For example, our reasoning task required participants to verify sentences purporting to describe the order of two letters (e.g., A is not preceded by B: B-A , for which the response should be False ). Participants given an eight-digit number to retain should have been at the limit of their STM capacity and should fail the task. They did take about 50% longer to perform the verification, but they were no less accu-rate. We concluded that the idea of a unitary store was too simple and pro-posed instead the three-component model shown in Figure 1.2. 1. Working Memory: An Overview 5 Visuo-spatial sketchpad Phonological loop Central executive FIGURE 1.2 The three-part model of working memory proposed by Baddeley and Hitch (1974). Temporary visual and verbal stores are controlled by an attentional system. At the center of our model was a limited capacity attentional control system, which we termed the central executive . This was assisted by two subsidiary slave systems: one, the phonological (or articulatory ) loop , was capable of holding and rehearsing sound and speech-based information, whereas the other, the visuo-spatial sketchpad , performed a similar service for visual material. We suggested that digit recall, used as a secondary task in our studies, relied principally on the phonological loop, together with a contribution from the central executive. As the length of the remembered sequences increased, the demands on the executive would increase, thus resulting in a growing degree of general impairment.

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