Working Memory

Question 1

What is working memory?

Answer 1

Small amount of information that can be held in mind and used in the execution of cognitive tasks

Question 2

John Locke (1690)

Answer 2

Distinguished between contemplation and memory

Question 3

William James (1890)

Answer 3

Distinction between primary memory, the items of consciousness and the trailing edge of what is perceived in the world, and secondary memory, the items in storage but not currently in consciousness

Question 4

Ebbinghaus (1885/1913)

Answer 4

Tried to memorise nonsense syllables
Found it easy to recall lists of 7 but harder to recall lists of 12
Also found that he forgot most of the words in the first 20 minutes

Question 5

Information processing approach to cognition

Answer 5

1950s
Alternative to behaviourism
Humans are processing systems: we encode, store and retrieve information, then produce a behavioural output
Based on computer metaphor

Question 6

Assumptions of information processing approach

Answer 6

Information moves through a series of stores
Information moves serially
Cognitive system has a limited capacity

Question 7

Tasks and mental processes can be placed on a ____ relative to how much ______ they require. This varies from an _____ process to an ______ process.

Answer 7

Continuum
Capacity
Automatic
Effortful

Question 8

Atkinson and Schiffrin (1968)

Answer 8

First information processing models of memory
Proposed that we don’t just have one system or process for storing information, but several
Sensory memory
STM
LTM

Question 9

What are executive control processes?

Answer 9

Ability to switch attention to other tasks

Ability to suppress attention to irrelevant things

Question 10

Cognitive development involves changes in

Answer 10

Hardware - capacity of memory and the speed information can be processed in different systems
Software - children’s ability to use strategies (metacognitive abilities)

Question 11

Overview of processing limitations (Brainerd, 1983)

Answer 11

Encoding
Retrieval
Capacity/storage
Metacognitive

Question 12

Encoding limitations

Answer 12

May be driven by failure to attend to the right information

May be failure to use an effective encoding strategy

Question 13

What is selective attention?

Answer 13

The ability to attend to a specific part of a task

Question 14

Miller & Seier (1994)

Answer 14

Asked young children to remember the location of animals
Children make this task more difficult by also looking at the location of task-irrelevant household items
Older children look in the right place initially

Question 15

Children under ___ were thought to not use rehearsal

Answer 15

10

Flavell et al, 1966

Question 16

It is now recognised that young children can use ____ but in a less effective way than ___

Answer 16

Rehearsal

Adults

Question 17

With age, children can read or say words at a faster rate and ____ increases accordingly

Answer 17

Memory span

Question 18

Rehearsal bilingual study

Answer 18

Primarily Welsh-speaking children have better memory for numbers in English than in Welsh as they are quicker to say and therefore easier to rehearse
(Ellis & Hennelley, 1980)

Question 19

Organisation - Moely et al (1969)

Answer 19

Children younger than 10 do not spontaneously group items into categories that can be easily remembered

Question 20

Elaboration

Answer 20

Children remember pairs of words better if they are provided with an association between them
Young children seen unable to make their own associations
Or they use less effective/distinctive elaborations

Question 21

Retrieval limitations

Answer 21

Children may know the retrieval strategy but retrieve the wrong one from memory
Reflects lack of knowledge of using the strategies

Question 22

Tommy puppy study

Answer 22

Help Tommy remember when he got a puppy for Christmas
10 year olds were able to name a strategy to remember
Only half of 5 year olds can

Question 23

Storage limitations

Answer 23

Limit of the amount of information that a child can store and thus remember

Question 24

Storage capacity increases with…

Answer 24

Age

Question 25

____ can affect storage ability

Answer 25

Experience

Question 26

Chess study

Answer 26

10 year old chess experts vs adults
Asked to memorise either digits or chess board positions
10 year olds were better at the chess positions, adults better at digits
Shows experience affects storage ability

Question 27

Working memory span is usually ____ than a child’s short term memory span

Answer 27

Two items less

Question 28

Metacognitive limitations

Answer 28

Children have poor metacognitive skills and limited experience, they therefore may not be aware that they have limitations so they may not make an effort to encode something properly

Question 29

More knowledge can sometimes lead to ____ errors in recall

Answer 29

More

Question 30

Errors in recall

Answer 30

Recalling details that have never been mentioned
Overgeneralising facts to situations in which they do not apply
Adding facts that fit with previous knowledge but did not apply to specific situation
Implications for EWT

Question 31

Piaget’s and Inhelder’s (1951) Probability Judgement Task

Answer 31

4 and 5 year olds were shown 10 tokens, 7 with one symbol and 3 with another
Had to predict which token would be pulled from the bag
Best strategy would be to predict the most frequent token all the time, but children only did this on the first trial

Question 32

Explaining the results of the Probability Judgement Task

Answer 32

Suspected a storage limitation (children had forgotten the frequency of the tokens)
Gave them a second set of tokens to remind them which one was both frequent
Then suspected a retrieval limitation (children retrieve the most recent information, their last response, and based their decision on this)
When children were reminded about frequency before they made a decision, they were more successful

Question 33

Working memory supports many other developing skills

Answer 33

Language
Academic skills - particularly maths
General school readiness (ability to sit still, attend and pay attention)

Question 34

3 - 4 year olds with better working memory learned novel labels for toys ______ than children with poor working memory skills

Answer 34

Significantly faster

Question 35

Working memory is also important for language ______

Answer 35

Comprehension

Question 36

Working memory skills at age 4 predict _____ and _____ skills at age 6, while controlling for SES

Answer 36

Reading

Writing

Question 37

Working memory at age 5 was a better predictor of ____ and _____ at age 11 than ______

Answer 37

Literacy
Numeracy
IQ

Question 38

Working memory skills in 7 - 8 year olds predict ______,, even after controlling for ______

Answer 38

Maths achievement

Vocabulary

Question 39

Visual-spatial WM is most strongly associated with maths in ______

Answer 39

Younger children

Question 40

Verbal WM is most strongly associated with maths performance in ______

Answer 40

Older children

Question 41

Verbal WM is used when maths is presented ______

Answer 41

Horizontally

Question 42

Visual WM is used when maths is presented _______

Answer 42

Vertically

Question 43

Around ____ of children could be classified as having poor working memory

Answer 43

10%

Question 44

What do children with poor working memory do when their memory becomes overloaded with information?

Answer 44

Abandon the task or guess

Question 45

How can teachers help children with poor working memory?

Answer 45

Auditory - Giving one instruction at a time

Visual support - Write instructions on the board, use checklists, visual aids such as number lines

Question 46

How can psychologists help children with poor working memory?

Answer 46

Test what kind of interventions are most effective

Question 47

Interventions can be…

Answer 47

Specific training on whatever the child is struggling with
Cognitive training targeting a domain-general skill like working memory
Training targeting metacognitive aspects of memory such as strategies