BHS 499-07 Memory and Amnesia

1. BHS 499-07Memory and Amnesia Working Memory

2. Baddeley’s Model • Baddeley and Hitch’s (1983) tripartite (three-part) model • Central executive • Control center of working memory • Two slave systems: • Phonological loop -- processes verbal/acoustic information • Visuo-spatial sketchpad -- processes visual and spatial information

4. Phonological Loop • Components: • Phonological store – temporary store for speech input • Articulatory loop – where subvocal rehearsal happens (our inner voice) • Word length effect – word span is smaller for long words than for short ones.

6. Other Phonological Effects • Articulatory suppression – talking about something makes it difficult to remember something else. • Irrelevant speecheffect – background speech, even in another language, interferes with phonological processing. • Phonological similarity effect -- rhyming causes confusion at recall.

8. Lexicality Effect • Working memory can be affected by the contents of long term memory. • Memory spans are larger for lists of words than for non-words. • Long-term memory supports and enhances phonological processing and can even reverse some effects. • Rhyming in the context of songs or sentences helps, not hurts recall.

9. Visuo-Spatial Sketchpad • Operations of the visuo-spatial sketchpad: • Mental scanning – occurs as if seeing the actual object. • Mental rotation • Boundary extension – people redraw images with boundaries not present in the original. • Dynamic memory – interpretation of perceived motion.

12. Representational Effects • Representational momentum – people extrapolate along the current trajectory to predict an object’s final resting place. • Representational gravity – memory for object positions is distorted toward the earth. • Representational friction – objects moving in space slow down with friction. • Context affects these phenomena (church steeple vs rocket ship)

16. Central Executive • Allocates attentional resources to accomplish tasks. • A catch all explanation for cognition theories. • Distributes memory resources. • Memory can be improved by increasing arousal and thereby working memory resources. • More sleep, gum chewing increases arousal

17. Central Executive (Cont.) • Suppression – used to keep irrelevant info out of working memory. • Dysexecutive syndrome – disorder involving loss of central exec. function • Perseveration – difficulty disengaging from one function and switching to another. • Distraction – drifting thought processes that lock onto some environmental stimulus.

18. Span Tests • Simple – one cognitive function at a time • Complex – two components: • Retention • Active processing – more than STM • Reading • Comprehension • Operation • Spatial