WORKING

MEMORY
COGNITIVE MODELS OF SHORT-TERM STORAGE

PSYCH 120A, Fall 2015

Lecture #8

Dr. Jesse Rissman, Instructor

The short of short-term memory

A central idea regarding short-term memory is that informaOon
is only available for a very brief period if not rehearsed.

(Permits rehearsal)
(Prevents rehearsal)

Peterson and Peterson (1959)

A bit of history
William James (1890): postulated two forms of memory

Primary memory
n

The immediate contents of consciousness

Effortlessly available and fleeting

Limited capacity

Secondary memory
n
n
n

Memories of the past

Permanent but available with effort
Unlimited capacity

Donald Hebb (1949): proposed distinction between short-term

memory (STM) and long-term memory (LTM) mechanisms

STM: relies upon temporary activation

LTM: relies upon structural changes in neurons / connections

Key disOncOons between STM and LTM

STM

LTM

Active contents of consciousness

Not currently in consciousness

Active nodes in LTM

Inactive until cued

Fast access to contents

Slower access

Limited capacity

Unlimited capacity

Fast forgetting

Slower forgetting

Transiently increased neural firing

Plastic changes in synaptic

relative to baseline

connection strength

Taxonomy of memory

Short-term memory (a.k.a. working memory)

Maintains and manipulates informaOon relevant to ones current goals

NOTE: someOmes the term STM is reserved for simple informaOon
maintenance, whereas WM is used to imply maintenance plus manipulaOon
n

However, we will use the terms STM and WM interchangeably

Long-term memory

Holds the stored record of prior experience

Declara7ve memory = memories that can be verbally expressed

n

Episodic memory
n

Seman7c memory
n

Memory for specic life events (with spaOal and temporal context)
Memory for facts and general knowledge (acontextual)

Nondeclara7ve memory = memories that cannot be verbally expressed

n

Procedural memory
n

Memory for skills and habits; demonstrated by doing (e.g., riding a bike)

Taxonomy of long-term memory

We almost always use both WM and LTM

to accomplish a task

How is memory involved in doing mental arithmeOc?

Long-term memory
n rules of arithmeOc
n learned strategies for solving problems

Short-term memory / Working memory

n Holds informaOon about the parOcular problem
n Applies the rules and strategies retrieved from long-term

memory to the present informaOon

n Transiently stores intermediate outcomes and nal soluOon

The Modal Model of Memory

Short-term Mem.

Sensory
registers

(STM)

temporary
working memory

visual

Input

auditory
hapOc

a`enOon Control Processes:

rehearsal
recoding
retrieval strategies

Atkinson & Shirin (1968)

Long-term
Mem.

(LTM)

Permanent
memory
store

Sensory Registers
q

InformaOon from the dierent sensory modaliOes

is iniOally stored in separate sensory registers.
q Iconic memory is a visual sensory store
qShort duraOon (less than one second)

q Echoic memory is an auditory sensory store

qLonger duraOon (several seconds)

The Modal Model of Memory

Sensory memory trace:

The iniOal sensory trace contains more informaOon than

we can ulOmately remember!

Iconic memory traces decay by 300 to 500 msec
Echoic memory traces might last ~2-4 sec

The Modal Model of Memory

Short-term memory (STM):

Longer lasOng than sensory stores (~18 sec without

rehearsal)
Available to conscious access
Processes to regulate ow of info to & from LTM

What is the capacity of STM?

George Miller (1956)

The maximum number of items recalled without error is 7 2

n

But what is an item?

Memory span is not limited to a certain number of items per se,

but rather by the number of chunks
n Chunking: Grouping a series of apparently random items into a
smaller number of meaningful segments to enhance recall


UFOIBMTNT

UFOIBMTNT

Nelson Cowan (2000)

When rehearsal and long-term memory are factored out, our true
STM capacity is actually only about 4 chunks

Lets try another memory experiment

You will be presented with 20 words, one amer the

other. Each word will be presented for 2 seconds.
Please try to remember the words for a later memory
test. Amer the last word, you will see the word
recall, at which point you should write down as
many words as you can remember, in any order.
Ready?

RECALL!

How many?

Which ones?

Serial Position Effects

Recency effect
Better

memory for
the last few items on
the list

Based

on working
memory

Serial Position Effects

Primacy effect
Better

memory for the

first few items

Based

on retrieval from
long-term memory

Serial Position Effects

30 seconds not enough to
eliminate the recency effect

Another intervening
task is needed to do so

Serial Position Effects

Slower presentaOon yields be`er memory for early and middle list items,
due to enhanced encoding /rehearsal opportuniOes.
More rehearsal Be`er storage in long-term memory
PresentaOon rate has no inuence on recency eect

The Baddeley & Hitch (1974) model of

working memory

Replaced the concept of a unitary short-term store

with a mulO-component working memory system
Storage (maintenance)
components
Phonological
loop

Visuo-spaOal
buer

Processing (manipulaOon)
component

Central
ExecuOve

The phonological loop and

visuo-spaOal buer

The phonological loop (a.k.a. arOculatory rehearsal loop)

maintains linguisOc informaOon in a phonological form

The visuo-spa7al buer (a.k.a. visuo-spaOal sketchpad) aids in

the temporary maintenance of visual and/or spaOal informaOon

e.g., rehearsing a phone number

e.g., glancing at a map and then holding the routes in mind while looking
at a fork in the road

DissociaOon between phonological

loop and visuo-spaOal buer

Stroke PaOent P.V.

Damage to lem hemisphere temporal lobe and frontal lobe regions

Normal intelligence

But unable to understand even short sequences of spoken digits

And unable to perform mental arithmeOc

PaOent PV: single consonant memory task

visual

auditory

Basso et al., 1982

PaOent E.L.D. (Hanley et al., 1991)

Suered stroke to right hemisphere frontal/temporal lobe region

Severe decit in visuospaOal memory

Reported diculOes in nding her way home, and memory problems

for unfamiliar material

Impaired at Corsi blocks (spaOal span task)

Normal auditory short-term memory

Double dissociaOon within WM

Task Performance

PaOent P.V.

PaOent E.L.D.
Auditory

VisuospaOal

- Suggests that working memory is not a unitary funcOon

The central execuOve system

A set of control processes involved in the processing of informaOon from

the phonological and visuospaOal stores
Goal management

SelecOon

Choosing which aspects of a parOcular piece of informaOon to work with

Scheduling

Keeping track of goals at various levels

Deciding the order in which to perform a set of operaOons

These execuOve control funcOons are thought to depend on the prefrontal cortex!

The central execuOve is actually a

complex network of brain regions

Nee et al. (2013)

The relaOonship between WM capacity

and general intelligence

Evidence suggests that general uid intelligence is

closely Oed to WM capacity
Individual dierences in intelligence are much more

strongly correlated with performance on WM tasks

requiring maintenance + processing, than on tasks
requiring mere maintenance
The Opera7on
Span Task