L&M Working Memory and Cognitive Control PDF

Working Memory and Cognitive Control ​ Working memory ○​ A set of cognitive processes involved in storing and manipulating information held in STM ​ Involved in controlling attention, planning, problem solving, directing encoding to or retrieval...

Working Memory and Cognitive Control ​ Working memory ○​ A set of cognitive processes involved in storing and manipulating information held in STM ​ Involved in controlling attention, planning, problem solving, directing encoding to or retrieval from LTM ​ Baddeley & Hitch model of working memory ​ Baddeley & Hitch model of working memory ○​ They developed an influential theory of working memory with three components: ​ Phonological loop: processing of verbal information with an auditory (phonological) representation (including mental rehearsal with an inner voice) ​ Visuospatial sketchpad: processing of visual and spatial mental images ​ Central executive: monitors and controls the other components, transfers information to and from LTM ○​ Distinguishes between maintenance (phonological loop, visuospatial sketchpad) and manipulation (central executive) ​ Verbal working memory ○​ Digit span: the largest sequence of items that you can accurately recall in order ○​ Phonological similarity effect: when recalling verbal information (sequences of letters), people make errors based on acoustic similarity rather than visual similarity ​ Evidence that verbal information (including visual input from reading) is coded in auditory form ​ Spatial working memory ○​ While digit span measures verbal working memory, a spatial span task tests your ability to remember a sequence of spatial locations ​ Verbal and spatial working memory ○​ Activities differ in their reliance on verbal and spatial working memory ○​ Verbal and spatial working memory are independent stores of information ​ Selective interference: interfering with one type may not impact the other (holding a mental image in mind while rehearsing a list of words ​ Conditions that selectively impair one type but not the other (lesions in left hemisphere associated with impaired verbal, but not spatial WM)  ​ Natural variation in verbal vs spatial working memory abilities (some individuals may have strong spatial WM but poor verbal WM) ○​ The myth of learning styles ​ Visual: learn by seeing ​ Auditory: learn by hearing ​ Read/write: learn by reading/writing ​ Kinesthetic: learn by doing ​ Learning style theories argue that there are consistent preferences for the format of learning material which affect learning performance ​ From reviews of scientific literature, there’s no evidence that this is true ​ Styles are unstable and unreliable, people have limited ability to assess their own learning ​ Although there are some natural differences in ability (verbal vs visual WM capacity), there’s no evidence that teaching to a preferred style is more effective ○​ Verbal and spatial working memory ​ Dual coding effect: memory is enhanced when to be learned material is coded in both verbal and spatial formats ​ Better memory for verbal materials when easier to create a mental image (concreteness effect) ​ Modality effect: enhanced learning from materials involving mixture of visual and auditory formats, compared to the same information presented in a single mode (visual or auditory alone) ​ Written text divides spatial WM between images and text ​ Listening to narrated text makes more efficient use of both spatial and verbal WM ○​ Cognitive control ​ The manipulation of working memory through the updating of stored information to facilitate goals, planning, task switching, stimulus selection, and response inhibition ​ Also executive control/functioning ​ Automatic processes: the ability to perform some task with fewer attentional resources, typically as the result of extensive practice ​ Less conscious awareness or control of what you are doing while carrying out an automatic behavior ​ Controlled processes ​ Require attention, slower to execute  ​ Rely on a central, limited capacity resource (WM) ​ Subject to interference by competing automatic processes ​ Cognitive control used to adapt behavior from moment to moment based on goals, feedback, or changes in context ​ Attentional selection of task-relevant information ​ Inhibition of task-irrelevant influences ​ Maintenance of the current goal ​ Planning sequences of actions ​ Monitoring of performance ​ Flexibility under shifting circumstances ○​ Stroop task ​ Participants either read the word or report the color work is printed in ​ Incongruent trials (red) ​ Congruent trials (blue) ​ Neutral trials (cat) ​ When responding to incongruent stimuli, color has no impact on word reading, but word identity interferes with color naming ​ Color naming is controlled, whereas word reading is automatic ​ Incongruent conditions give rise to conflict, requires cognitive control to mediate between competing resources ○​ Cognitive control and habits ​ Our behavior reflects constant trading off between controlled and automatic responses ​ Ingrained vs flexible ​ Fast vs slow ​ Habitual vs goal driven ​ Habits are formed through repeated experience ​ Associations between cues/context and recurring responses (conditioning, procedural learning) ​ Reflexive, automatic: presence of cue triggers the habitual behavior ​ Don’t require activation of a goal ​ Rigid (insensitive to changes in goals or outcomes) ​ Goals are internal representations of a desired outcome or objective ​ Guide behavior, direct attention, organize thoughts ​ Like other explicit memories, differ in their strength and availability in memory  ​ Goals are often poor predictors of behavior when they conflict with well formed habits ​ Cognitive control is required to maintain a goal and adjust behavior away from competing habit ​ Under reduced cognitive capacity (due to fatigue, stress, distraction), habits take over ​ How to change undesirable habits? ​ Context change: change environment (removing cues) to disrupt automatic execution of habitual response ​ Repetition: slowly strengthen new habitual responses in (new) stable context ​ Goal reminders: create salient reminders that cue retrieval of the relevant goal ​ Commitment devices/incentives: increase the perceived benefit of controlling behavior ○​ Summary ​ Baddeley-hitch model of working memory: independent processes for maintaining verbal and spatial information in STM; central executive for manipulating contents of STM in order to support behavior ​ Working memory is active: takes effort to hold ideas in mind and manipulate information ​ Central to exerting cognitive control over behavior, especially in the face of distraction or to overcome habitual responses