Working Memory: Chapter 6

• Chapter 6 focuses on working memory (WM)

Framing Learning and Memory

• Acquisition involves gaining information and placing it in memory
• Storage refers to information stored in memory until needed
• Retrieval is locating information in the "vast warehouse" and bringing it to active use
• Creating, storing, and opening a computer file is analogous to acquisition, storage, and retrieval
• New learning is grounded in previously learned knowledge, which is already in storage
• Effective learning depends on how the information will be retrieved in the future
• The Modal Model was introduced by Waugh & Norman in 1965 and Atkinson & Shiffrin in 1968

Modal Model

• Incoming information goes to sensory memory, then short-term memory, and potentially long-term memory
• Information can be lost from short-term memory or maintained via rehearsal.
• Sensory memory involves raw sensory data
• "Iconic memory" is for visual input
• "Echoic memory" is for auditory input
• Short-term memory involves information moved via selection and interpretation
• Working memory is a place to hold information while working on it
• Long-term memory is much larger and more permanent

Working Memory vs Long Term Memory

• Working memory is considered a dynamic form of short-term memory.
• Working memory is currently regarded as a dynamic form of short-term memory, more like a status and not passive/static.
• It contains information actively being worked on.
• Working memory's time is temporary, capacity is limited, and access is relatively easy.
• Long-term memory is long-lasting, with a large capacity, and relatively difficult access

Fragility

• The contents of working memory are fragile
• Switching thoughts to a new topic can push out the old topic
• Long-term memory is much less fragile as content is not greatly impacted by current thoughts.

Working and Long-Term Memory (Baddeley & Hitch, 1977)

• Presented participants with a long series of words (20-30) for free recall procedure
• Participant recall was tracked based on the word's location in the list (serial recall)
• The results showed a U-shaped curve
• Primacy effect shows better memorization of the first few items.
• Memory rehearsal of the first few words allows transfer from working memory to long-term memory.
• Recency effect denotes better memorization of the last few items
• Last few items are not displaced by future items in working memory.
• The information has a 5-7 word capacity and no new info to push them out.
• Thirty seconds is not a significant enough of a delay to wipe out recency and is achieved with completion of another task.
• Slow presentation of words (9 seconds) helps pre-recency items to be transferred to long-term memory.
• Primacy in the brain is associated with the hippocampus via long-term memory.
• Recency in the brain is associated with the perirhinal cortex through use of working memory.

Brain

• Working memory is implicated in areas such as the hippocampus, amygdala, prefrontal cortex (executive control), Broca's Area, Wernicke's Area, arcuate fasciculus, lateral geniculate nucleus, V1, V5, motor cortex, sensory cortex, right parietal lobe, and perirhinal cortex

Digit Span Test

• Participants will hear a list of digits and repeat them back
• The list grows until memory fails
• The digit span is the maximum digits
• The ability to condense information requires effort and reduces load but does not increase WM capacity.
• Working memory holds 7 (5-9) chunks of information.

Operation Span

• Participants determine is an equation is true or false

• Then remember the word associated with the equation

• The operation span relates to how many words are remembered correctly

• Reading span and operation span correlate strongly with performance on standardized tests, reasoning tests and reading comprehension.

• Tests of intelligence/aptitude are partially tests of working memory capacity.

Working Memory Components

• The three working memory components are a central executive and its assistants:
  • Visuospatial buffer deals with visual material and imagery information -Articulatory rehearsal loop (verbal)

Central Executive

• Controls the selection of ideas that are active at any moment in time.
• Those active ideas constitute the contents of working memory and updates the modal model.
• An active complex form of STM is added to the modal model.
• The form is not static and still fragile.

Rehearsal

• The two types of rehearsal are:
  • Maintenance: reciting, repetition, learning by rote
  • Relational or elaborative: linking, thinking about material in terms of meaning, relating to prior knowledge, more effective

Learning Techniques

• Incidental learning is unintentional, attending to something without the intention to learn it.
• Intentional learning is intentional, attending purposefully to learn.
• Shallow processing is superficial, like making a decision about font.
• Deep processing is meaningful, more in line with considering the meaning of a word.

Craik & Tulving (1975) Experiment

• This experiment examined depth of processing (three levels): font task (shallow), phonological/rhyming task (intermediate), semantic task (deep)

• Hyde & Jenkins (1969) studied intention to learn (two levels): incidental learning, intentional learning

• Deeper processing ensures better recall, regardless of intention.

• Depth of processing has a strong effect.

• Intention to learn has no measurable effect.

• Intention to learn can lead to choosing a deeper processing strategy.

• Depth of processing (meanings and connections) promotes recall by facilitating later retrieval

• The library analogy considers learning to establish indexing to a path to information.

• Deeper processing creates "more paths" to the information, elaborate encoding is best

• Elaborate encoding, such as 'The great bird swooped down and carried off the struggling chicken' results in better memory than the simple approach 'She cooked the chicken'.

• Vivid imagery from complex sentences creates more pathways during acquisition (encoding) resulting in more pathways available for retrieval.

Memorization

• Mnemonics improve memory through organization.
• Peg-word systems where items are "hung" on a system of well-known "pegs," like "one is a bum, two is a shoe," then "hang" what to remember on a "peg“
  • Other categories include musical mnemonics and the first-letter mnemonics, such as "ROY G. BIV" and "Every Good Boy Deserves Fudge.”
• It is much easier to memorize with interactive Imagery and Peg-word system than isolated images.
• Wiseman and Neisser state that ambiguous pictures are understood and remembered better if the image is identified.

Retrieval

• Acquisition, storage, and retrieval are not easily separable.
• New learning is grounded in previously learned (stored) knowledge.
• It is important to be reminded of the computer file analogy.
• Effective learning depends on how the information will later be retrieved.