Working Memory

Chapter 4

Working Memory
Some memories are very fragile and go into oblivion
very quickly. Working memory is one such memory.

1. Try this. Do this mentally. Write your answers on

paper.
a. 7 X 9 = 63
b. 74 X 9 = 666
c. 74 X 96 = 7104

Working Memory (WM)

1. We know attention is limited. So information that
gets to memory is also limited. Thus capacity of
working memory is limited.
2. Working memory is brief, immediate memory we
use for current information. A portion of working
memory coordinates ongoing mental activities.
3. Working memory has been known as short-term
memory, and is contrasted from long-term. Some
investigators believe the two are the same
(Nairne, 2002).
3

1
 Classic Research on
Working Memory
(Short-term Memory)

Short-term Memory
In the 19th century, Sir George Hamilton discovered
that he could accurately store about 7 items
(marbles) in memory if he glanced at the items
quickly. If the items were more than 7 his accuracy
decreased.

Sir George Hamilton 5

Short-term Memory
1. Miller (1956) wrote, “The magical number seven
plus or minus two: some limits on our capacity
for processing information”.
2. Miller suggested that the
capacity of our short-term
memory was small. We could
store about 5-9 items in it.
3. He also showed that items could
be “chunked”, which would
increase our memory capacity.
George Miller 6

2
 Try This !
CTAIILTCSFRO
RECALL!

FRACTOLISTIC
RECALL!

Another Example
870-230-5339 (10 items)
870 + 230 + 5 3 3 9
(1) (1) (4)
2 chunks + 4 items (6 items)

Capacity of short-term memory may be increased

by a process called “chunking”.

Miller’s Memory
Miller thus conceived of short-term memory as a
passive store capable of holding 7±2 items or chunks.

7
5
870
apple
1876
P
water
3
Z
9
Working Memory

3
 Short-term Memory: Duration
Brown (1958) Peterson and Peterson (1959) used
blocking of rehearsal to measure the duration of
short-term memory.

10

Short-term Memory: Duration

These experiments suggested that duration of
information in short-term memory stays for about
18 seconds and then decays, unless rehearsed.
100
90
Percent Correct Recall

80
70
60
50
40
30
20
10
0
0 3 6 9 12 15 18
Time Delay (Seconds) 11

Recency Effect
1. Short-term memory (and long-term memory)
have been studied through serial position effect
procedures, which generate a U-shaped curve.
2. When a list of items are recalled, items at the
beginning of the list and at the end of list are
recalled more than the items in the middle. This
is called the serial position effect.
3. Recall of beginning items refers to primacy effect
and the items recalled at the end of the list refer
to recency effect.
12

4
 

Recency Effect


12 dizzy
13 car
14 apple
15 jet
16 groom
17 pair Primacy Recency
Effect Effect
18 blue
19 pride
20 water Short-term
Memory
List

4. Recency effect can also determine the capacity

of short-term memory. 13

Model of Memory
1. Based on experiments like serial position effect
Atkins and Shiffrin (1968) proposed two separate
stores for short-term (recency effect) and long-
term (primacy effect) memories.

14

Model of Memory
2. Atkins and Shiffrin (1968) also suggested that
control processes like rehearsal could improve
short-term memory.
3. With recent advancements by Alan Baddeley our
way of looking at short-term memory has
changed. In fact the name short-term memory
has changed to working memory.

15

5
 Factors Affecting Working Memory
1. Capacity of working memory may be affected by
the length of the items on the list. If each item
on the list was short (single syllable) it would
take less time to pronounce it.
2. Memory capacity improved with shorter
pronunciation time than when it was longer.
Short Pronunciation Long Pronunciation
Burma Switzerland
China Nicaragua
Greece Afghanistan
Cuba Philippines 16

Pronunciation Time
3. The most through study on pronunciation time
on the capacity of shot-term memory was
carried out by Naveh-Benjamin and Ayres (1986).
4. The investigators took numbers in four languages
and looked at memory spans.
5. Since number in English and Spanish were
shorter than Hebrew and Arabic. Capacity of
memory spans were greater in former than latter
languages.

17

Syllable Length
No. English Spanish Hebrew Arabic
1 One Uno Eh'ad Wa’hid
2 Two Duo Shnyim Ith’n’an
3 Three Tres Shlosha Tha’la’tha
4 Four Cuatro Arba'a arba’a
5 Five Cinco H'amisha Kham’sa
6 Six Seis Shisha Sit’ta
7 Seven Siete Shiv'a sab’a
8 Eight Ocho Shmona Tha’ma’niya
9 Nine Nueve Tish'a tis’a
10 Ten Diez Assara ‘ashra
Syl 1.0 1.6 1.9 2.4 18

6
 Memory Span
Results clearly show that as the pronunciation time
increases the memory span decreases.
8.0
Memory Span

7.0

6.0

5.0
English Spanish Hebrew Arabic
1.0 1.6 1.9 2.4

Mean Syllable per Digit 19

Proactive Interference
1. Meaningfulness of words can have important
affect on capacity of working memory.
2. Wickens and colleagues (1976) used proactive
interference and release from it to show how
capacity of memory can increase.
3. Proactive interference involves having trouble
learning new material because older material
interferes, especially if the material to be learnt
is the same or similar.

20

Proactive Interference: Release

4. However, there can be release from proactive
interference when new material is different from
older material.
5. Wickens and colleagues (1976) used 5 semantic
categories, fruits, vegetables, flowers, meats, and
occupations as new material to be learnt when
the original category was fruits.
6. Results showed a consistent release from
proactive interference as the categories became
more and more dissimilar.
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7
 Semantic Similarity
100
90
80
70
Percent Correct

Occupations
60
Meats
50
Flowers
40
30 Vegetable

20 Fruit

10
0
1 2 3 4
Trial

22

Working Memory
Approach

23

Non-unitary Nature of Working

Memory
1. What caused Baddeley to suggest that working
memory is not unitary?
2. Baddeley and Hitch (1974) gave participants
random numbers 0-8 digits long to rehearse in
order, and also gave them spatial reasoning task to
perform. Showed BA, and then a statement A
follows B. Answer yes.
3. Simultaneously doing reasoning task did not
increase errors on recall of random numbers.
Suggesting that working memory had multiple
parts, with overall larger capacity as envisioned by
24
Miller.

8
 Model of Working Memory
Baddeley (2006) final division of working memory
consisted of the following components.

Working Long-term
Memory Phonological Memory
Phonological
Loop Loop

Central Episodic Episodic

Executive Buffer Buffer

Visuospatial Visuospatial
Sketchpad Sketchpad

25

Phonological Loop
1. Many studies proposed that phonological loop
was acoustical in nature.
2. And involved rehearsing verbal material in this
acoustical form.
3. If verbal material is acoustical in form then many
errors in working memory can be based on
acoustical confusions. Working
Memory Phonological
Loop

26
Rehearsal

Acoustical Confusions
4. Wickelgren (1965) showed that acoustical
confusions lead to errors when similar sounding
letters and numbers were recalled.
Lists Errors Recall
4 N F 9 G 4
B 3 0 R 2 P, E, V, D, 3 P
5 A 7 6 E 5
6 8 C Z 8 6
Y 2 4 K L Y
3 K N 2 D C, E, V, D, B C
N Q 5 H 1 N
T 1 C 5 7 T 27

9
 Acoustical Confusions
5. Kintch and Buschke (1969) showed that
homonyms cause similar acoustic confusions.
When asked to recall the word after the word so
(sounds like sew) the participants erred in
recalling tax. Recall Error Recall
Tacks
So Sew
Buy Buy
Owe
Tied
Sew So
Tax Tax
28
By

Division of Phonological Loop

Gathercole & Baddeley (1993) have recently
suggested that phonological loop could be further
subdivided into two parts.

Working Phonological
Memory Store
Sub-vocal
Rehearsal
Process

Phonological Loop
29

Biology of Phonological Loop

Recent studies have suggested that phonological
loop resides in left hemisphere. The phonological
store resides in parietal cortex and sub-vocal
rehearsal process in the frontal cortex.

Parietal
Frontal Cortex
Cortex

Left
Hemisphere
30

10
 Visuospatial Sketchpad
1. A division of working memory that generates and
stores visual and spatial information.
2. Visuospatial sketchpad stores information about
a visual scene and lets us navigate through it.
3. The sketchpad stores a coherent picture of
objects in the scene and their relative position in
it. Working
Memory

Visuospatial
Sketchpad

31

Visuospatial Sketchpad
4. It stores visual information processed by verbal
stimuli. Visualization or imagining related stories.
5. Visuospatial sketchpad also has limited capacity,
like the phonological loop. To much information
in the store makes it difficult to accurately
recover the information.

32

Visuospatial Sketchpad: Research

1. Perceptual processes and processes that require
imagination cannot be carried simultaneously
(Baddeley, 1999; 2006).
2. There is not a lot of research carried out on the
visuospatial sketchpad:
a. No standard visual stimuli like letter or words
for verbal tests.
b. People tend to respond to visual stimuli by
giving them names.

33

11
 Visuospatial Sketchpad: Uses
1. The sketchpad is useful for people in engineering
and architectural disciplines.
2. Sketchpad retains images thus we can interact
with environment using our imagination.

34

Visuospatial Sketchpad:
Neurobiology
1. Visual and spatial information are processed in
the right hemisphere.
2. Visual, frontal and parietal cortices are involved
with processing visuospatial information for
working memory
Parietal Frontal
Cortex Cortex

Visual
Cortex Right
Hemisphere 35

Central Executive
The central executive integrates information from
the phonological loop, visuospatial sketchpad,
episodic buffer and long-term memory.
Working Long-term
Memory Phonological Memory
Phonological
Loop Loop

Central Episodic Episodic

Executive Buffer Buffer

Visuospatial Visuospatial
Sketchpad Sketchpad
36

12
 Central Executive : Characteristics
1. The central executive itself is not a memory
store, but works like a CEO decides on a number
of executive functions.
2. Decides on issues that are important and attends
to them, giving less attention to non-important
issues.
3. Gathers information from many sources,
including phonological loop, visuospatial
sketchpad, episodic buffer and long term
memory to make such decisions.
37

Central Executive: Characteristics

4. Limited ability to perform simultaneous tasks.
Cannot make many decisions at the same time.
5. Selects strategies and figures out how to tackle a
problem.

38

Central Executive & Daydreaming

1. Central executive engages in strategies to tackle
problems faced by working memory.
2. In some cases these strategies fail. Teasdale and
colleagues (1995), asked participants to generate
a random number list using 1 through 10
numbers for 5 minutes, producing each number
a second.
3. The task became difficult and the individual
starts to have stimulus independent thoughts
(SITs) or daydreams.
39

13
 Central Executive & Daydreaming
4. During SITs the random number list does not
remain very random, suggesting that the central
executive ability to do simultaneous tasks is
compromised.

40

Central Executive: Neurobiology

The biology of the central executive is little
understood. Investigators have suggested, based on
imaging studies, that Dorsolateral Prefrontal Cortex
(DPFC) is active when people engage in central
executive tasks.

Dorsolateral
Prefrontal
Cortex (DFPC)

41

Episodic Buffer
1. After 25 years of research and investigations
Baddeley proposed the fourth component of
working memory, episodic buffer.
2. Episodic buffer fourth component of the working
memory and holds information about episodes
that take place in our personal life.
Working
Memory
Episodic
Buffer

42

14
 Episodic Buffer
3. The capacity of episodic buffer is small.
4. Contents in episodic buffer can be combined
from phonological loop (verbal), visuospatial
sketchpad (visual-spatial) and long-term
memory.
5. Because episodic buffer is new little is known
about it.

43

Depression & Working Memory

1. Depression is a common psychological disorder
affecting 10-15% of people at any one point in
their life (US data).
2. Depressive conditions includes: sadness,
hopelessness, feeling fatigue, no interest in
leisure activities.
3. So it is important to consider depression and its
affects on working memory.

44

Depression & Working Memory

4. Christopher and McDonald (2005) looked at a
number of measures for working memory in
depressed patients.

Working Memory Depressed Patient Normal

Phonological
3.4 letters 5.3 letters*
Loop
Visuospatial
Mean Span 6.7 Mean Span 7.8*
Sketchpad
Span letters 2.8 Span letters 4.9*
Central Executive
Span String 3.2 Span strings 7.4*
45
* All significant differences

15
 Timeline of Working Memory
1. Short-term memory (1950-60) presented a rigid
limited and passive form of memory, radically
changed by Baddeley to what we now as working
memory.
2. Research on working memory during 1970-90
focused on phonological loop, visuospatial
sketchpad, and central executive.
3. From 1990 onwards discovery of episodic buffer,
and research on it has been on the forefront of
investigations in working memory.
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16