SPRING working memory and executive attention

Question 1

what is working memory

Answer 1

online processing of a task over short periods of time
actively holds and processes info
quick access - special access to conscious and way of remembering
assoc with STM - process info into visospatial and phonological loop
baddeley and hitch 1974

Question 2

types of STM tasks

Answer 2

serial recall
digit and letter span
corsi block task
brookes matrix task
dots task

Question 3

what STM tasks can be varied to visuospatial info

Answer 3

corsi blocks
brookes matric
dots

Question 4

describe baddeley 2000 working memory model

Answer 4

central exec control and catrogoris einfo into visuospatial or phonological loop
episodic buffer allows communication between the two
ltm strorage also

Question 5

define the central executive

Answer 5

drives the whole system (e.g. the boss of working memory) and allocates data to the subsystems (VSS & PL). It also deals with cognitive tasks such as mental arithmetic and problem solving.

Question 6

define the visuospatial sketch

Answer 6

Stores and processes information in a visual or spatial form

Question 7

define the phonological loop

Answer 7

part of working memory that deals with spoken and written material
onsists of two parts
Phonological Store (inner ear) – Linked to speech perception
Articulatory control process (inner voice) – Linked to speech production
visual verbal info first go through GP translation before store in phon

Question 8

how can you investigate the evidence for two seperate wm stored

Answer 8

look at dual tasks studies and dissociations in ability

Question 9

Farmer berman and fletcher 1986 investigating wm store dissocciations

Answer 9

double dissociation between disruption to performance on verbal (“A is not followed by B – BA”) and spatial (which hand does a manikin hold a probe item) reasoning tasksd

Question 10

patient KF investigating wm store disocciations

Answer 10

KF suffered brain damage from a motorcycle accident that damaged his short-term memory. KF’s impairment was mainly for verbal information - his memory for visual information was largely unaffected.

Question 11

patient PV investigating wm store disocciations

Answer 11

left hemisphere stroke resulted in normal LTM but impaired verbal STM- unable to decide if a long sentence were true or false (ie the world divides the equator into two hemispheres; the northern and southern) because they couldn’t remember what was at the start of the sentence. also unable to learn pairs of novel words with words they already knew (van-jalka). These experiments helped reach the conclusion that PV is unable to hold items in a short term phonological store.

Question 12

patient ELD investigating wm store disociations

Answer 12

aneurysm in the right hemisphere
couldn’t remember new routes or faces (could recognise new voices)
ELD has difficulty in remembering short sequences of visuospatial information yet phonological loop function normally
deficit can be interpreted as impairment in the visuospatial sketchpad
ELD shows poor imagery for material exposed to since her illness but not acquired before her illness

Question 13

describe the slave stores in respect to maintenance and rehearsal

Answer 13

both loops have maintenance and rehearsal of info to keep memory within the store - transfer to ltm

Question 14

describe engle 2001 wm alternative

Answer 14

working memory capacity = STM and attention
WM
capacity not how many items can be stored but differences in the ability to control attention & maintain information in an active, quickly retrievable state
using attention to maintain or suppress information.
more items maintained as active is a result of ability to control attention not a larger memory store - greater WM capacity = greater ability to use attention to avoid distraction

Question 15

problem with simple span scores for wm (engle 2001)

Answer 15

digit span score does not correlate very highly with other cognitive capabilities - ability to serial recall verbal strings is not that important?
“Loading” the working memory subsystems doesn’t catastrophically impair cognitive performance
KF and PV are actually quite cognitively competent in “real world” tasks

Question 16

why might working memory scores be useful

Answer 16

improtant if identifies individua differences in working memory
mean more outside of the lab - good for real world application

Question 17

daneman and carpenter wm score in real world

Answer 17

reading span predict real world performance on other cognitive measures

Question 18

what is the digit span task

Answer 18

shown slides with specific stimuli - do task and then recall last 3 digits seen

Question 19

what is the reading span task

Answer 19

read paragraph then recall last 3 words seeen

Question 20

what is the operation span task

Answer 20

do mental artihematic and state if answer given is correct and then recall last three words seen

Question 21

what is exective attention (kane and engle 2002)

Answer 21

capability whereby memory representations are maintained in a highly active state in the presence of interference

individual diffrerences reflect capability to prevent distraction during attentional focus and reflect only in situations that encourage/demand controlled attention
aso reflect attentional focus and secondary memory search set

Question 22

conway and engle 1994 wm and distrsactions

Answer 22

wm capacity viewed as responsible for maintaining attention on relevant info and suppressing distractions

Question 23

harsher and zacks 1988 wom and distractions

Answer 23

wm capacity is the content of wm

inhibitory capacity ergulates content and capacity of wm

Question 24

what are individual differences in executive attention thought to reflect

Answer 24

differences in inhibitory capability

Question 25

evidence for diff in exec attention as inhibitory capability - antisaccade task (kane, bleckly, conway and engle)

Answer 25

ability to atend to task dominates if able to saccade away from a target

Question 26

evidence for diff in exec attention as inhibitory capability - stroop task (kane and engle)

Answer 26

reflects attention and inhibition of the dominant reading response

Question 27

describe Conway, Cowan & Bunting (2001) dichotic listening

Answer 27

showed that high working memory-span participants were less likely than low working memory-span participants to spot their own name on an “unattended” channel.

Question 28

describe elermeier and zimmer 1997 irrelevant sound effects on task performance

Answer 28

background speech distrupt serial recall and related tasks

causing a 30-50% increase in no errors

Question 29

describe beaman and jones 1997/2004 irrelevant sound effects on task performance

Answer 29

possibility that wm SPAN accounts for individual differences in auditory distraction on an immediate recall test
no evidence that high wmSPAN more resistant to disruption caused by irrelevant speech in serial or free recal - must actively try to maintain to be recalled list of words in memory
% mean correct decreases w/related sounds across high and low wm
low wm make more semantically related intrusion errors from the irrelevant sound stream in a free recall test

Question 30

effect of wm capacity on attentional filtering and inhibition beaman 2004

Answer 30

executive attention might act at a lexical (meaningful) level, but not at a purely acoustic (sensory) level
- SPAN mediates semantic components of auditory distraction dissociable from other aspects of the irrelevant sound effect.

Question 31

Marsh, Sorqvist, Hodgetts, Beaman & Jones, 2015 wm capacity on attentional filtering and inhibition

Answer 31

suggest that it can also influence attentional control if the temporal window of the distractors overlaps with that of the targets