Chapter 9 Working Memory and Cognitive Control

Modified: 2024-11-07 7:33 PM CST

Behavioral Processes

• Focus of this chapter is Short Term Memory (STM)
  • Transient Memories include:
    • Sensory memory
    • STM
• Sensory Memory (review from chapter 7 webpage)
  • A.K.A. the sensory register
    • Iconic (visual)
    • The eyes gather vast amounts of visual data but only a little goes deeper into the brain
  • Partial recall experiments (Sperling)
  • Sperling would briefly flash a stimulus similar to the one below

A	G	R
M	P	E
O	B	N

• Then, he would show a stimulus such as:

	a	a
a	__	a
a	a	a

• In the case above, respondents would respond "P"
  • But respondents could remember only if two seconds or less had elapsed
  • With 9 letters correct performance was nearly 100%
  • With 12 letters correct performance was 75%
  • Sperling's experiments demonstrate how the visual sensory register works
• Echoic (auditory sensory register)
  • The ears gather vast amounts of auditory data but the auditory sensory register holds it for nearly 30 seconds
  • Here's an example why:
    • "A funny thing happened to me on the way to work this morning, but first let me remind you we are nearly at midterm, it seemed warmer than usual this morning too, now let me tell you about that funny incident..."
  • Notice that the brain needs to hold auditory information longer. (BTW, nothing funny happened this morning :-)
  • I imagine the words I'm listening to as akin to a railroad train, each car being another word.
• Other sensory registers (new to chapter 9)
  • Haptic memory: A brief memory of something touching your skin, such as a raindrop or a dog's fur.
    • Has a cat licked your hand? Remember how it felt?
  • Olfactory memory: The ability to smell something, such as fresh flowers or something from your childhood
    • The visual world provides us with some strong examples of the relationship between perception and sensation.
    • The odor world, however, is much more difficult for us to talk about.
    • One problem is that our language is not rich in words about odor.
    • For example, try to describe to someone how your favorite food smells. You should find that task very difficult.
    • Cain's (1982) study made that task easier for subjects.
    • Rather than ask subjects to identify odors abstractly (e.g., using words like, "oily", "foul", and "goaty"), participants were allowed to smell common, everyday objects, and then to pick them out again while blindfolded.

    • That process revealed that the objects listed were the easiest to identify.
      • Where the brand names are listed, they were important.
      • As you read the list, you should be able to imagine a smell image of the object.
      • Women were better at identifying odors than men, but that was largely interpreted as a training difference.
      • Women in our culture have more experience at identifying and discriminating odors.
      • There were a few odors, however, that men identified better. They included bourbon, horseradish, and Brut aftershave.
        1. Johnson's Baby Powder
        2. Chocolate
        3. Coconut
        4. Crayola crayons
        5. Mothballs
        6. Ivory soap
        7. Vick's Vaporub
        8. Bazooka Gum
        9. Coffee
        10. Caramel

  ---

  Reference

  Cain, W. S. (1982). Odor identification by males and females: Prediction versus performance. Chemical Senses, 7(2), 129-142.

  • Gustatory memory: The ability to taste something, such as pesto on a pizza.
    • I like strong cheeses (think limburger). I can imagine how it tastes.
• All of the registers are the equivalent of computer buffers, places where information can be stored
• Short Term Memory (review from chapter 7 webpage)
  • STM lasts about 30 seconds
    • But rehearsal can maintain STM longer
    • Example
      • I break down on the highway and need to call a tow truck
      • I find the number, call it, and it's busy
      • When I try to remember it two minutes later, I cannot.
      • But, had I repeated the number to myself during the interim I could have dialed it.
      • That is a REHEARSAL method
  • STM has Limited Capacity-
    • George Miller found that STM can contain 7 items plus or minus 2
      • Magic Number 7 (Miller)
  • STM characteristics (p. 372):
    • Active in consciousness
    • Rapidly accessed
    • Limited capacity
    • Forgotten quickly
  • Chunking (review)
    • Words are chunks and so are sentences
      • So, STM can include 7 plus or minus two chunks
      • Musical phrases, too, can be thought of as chunks
      • Novice musicians play every note
      • Advanced musicians see and play music as familiar groups of notes (e.g., phrases)
    • Chunking Game
      • Hard to do online: In class I would ask you to guess what word I was thinking, then write the correct letters:
        • argumenta___ (could be argumentation, argumentative...)
        • Notice that Google and other apps attempt to predict ahead of what you are typing
        • So does ChatGPT
      • I'd also cheat:
        • xykpro... (no such word in English)
        • That's why your password should not be a word. See why?
          • Only around 300,000 words in English, but MANY more combinations of letters, numbers, and symbols
          • Harder for someone to hack into your account that way
      • Also works for sentences:
        • You can lead...
        • That dog won't...
        • A stitch...
        • Can you finish the chunks above?
        • All of these are aphorisms or common sayings
        • We remember them whole, as chunks
        • See HERE for more such aphorisms
  • Working Memory (review and more)
    • Baddeley's Model of Working Memory (an alternative view of STM) has the following parts
      • Central Executive System
      • Phonological Loop
      • Visual-Spatial Sketchpad
      • Video: Working Memory
    • (New) Visuospatial sketchpad:
      • Holds visual and spatial memories
      • Word-length effect:
        • People remember fewer words in a list as the words get longer
          • But, Edwards (2011) argued that Zipf's idea that words got shorter over time with use..
          • After analyzing 11 European languages, Steven Piantadosi stated that longer words carry more information.
          • Short words, he said, are the least informative.
          • Word length is positively correlated to the information words contain.
        • Example in the text (p. 376)

      		3	4
      	1	2	5
      		7	6

      • I don't know about you, but I could not answer the question without drawing the grid above!
    • Phonological loop:
      • Holds auditory memories
      • Visual/spatial and auditory stored separately (they are independent)

      Brooks, 1968 conducted a dual task experiment (see p. 377)

      • Participants were to imagine a large capital letter "F" like the one below.
        • They were asked to imagine an "*" traveling around the F and to report its position.
        • There were three groups:
          • Vocal
          • Tapping
          • Pointing
        • The pointing group had the slowest reaction time.
        • Brooks interpreted their slow time as interference. Pointing, too, was visual.

    *--> F

    • Animals, too, can remember the location of hidden food (p. 377)
    • Delayed spatial-response task
      • Rhesus monkey is shown the location of a hidden food reward, a screen hides the situation, and then time passes
        • The monkey can remember where the food reward was
    • Delayed nonmatch-to-sample (DNMS) task (see Figure 9.5 C, p. 378)
      • Monkey is shown location of hidden food
      • But, food is switched to NEW item hiding the food
      • Monkey learns NOT to respond to the original item
      • Items covering the food are switched each time.
        • Rule: Pick the new item.
    • Central executive:
    • Monitors and manipulates both sensory buffers
    • Provides cognitive control of working memory
    • Adds and deletes items from the buffers
    • Selects items to guide behavior
    • Retrieves information from long term memory (What is the capital of Burkina Faso?)
    • Transfers information from visuospatial sketchpad and phonological loop to long term memory
    • Notice that:
      • Verbal tasks interfere with verbal short term memory
      • Visual tasks interfere with visual short term memory
      • But verbal tasks do not interfere with visual short term memory
      • Nor do visual tasks interfere with verbal short term memory (see p. 375)
  • Place or State Model?
  • Tradition model (Atkinson-Shiffrin) see STM as a location (e.g., place)
    • Traditional metaphors emphasize this idea:
      • Desktop (STM)
      • File cabitet (LTM)
      • RAM (STM
      • Hard Drive (LTM)
  • Newer State Models are unitary
    • One metaphor is the museum
    • Instead of a special viewing room for a limited number of paintings to view, these models "keep" the paitings in the museum itsself, and use illumination to highlight the desired painting (see p. 379)
    • Later, see below, state models and brain data will be compared.

Cognitive Control