PSY 368 Human MemoryWorking Memory cont.
Demos and reviews
Baddeley’s Model
ArticulatoryControl
Visual scribe
Phonological Loop• Two parts: Phonological Store (PS) and
Articulatory Control Process (ACP)• PS - stores auditory info for 1-2 s and then it starts to
decay• ACP - recodes visual info into auditory code for
storage and controls rehearsal
• 4 Main Effects in Serial Recall Task to account for• Phonological similarity effect• Articulatory suppression effect• Irrelevant speech effect• Word length effect
Phonological Loop• Demos
Listen to list, recall words in order
RhinocerosZincGorillaTuberculosisMeaslesCalciumUraniumCarbonHippopotamusMumps
Listen to list, recall words in order
PlanetMusicianLandPropertyTrumpetHouseStarCometOrchestraMoon
Listen to list, recall words in order, while I read the words say ‘the’ aloud
BlockBrickStickBlueChewTrickPrickClueClickBlimp
Read list, recall words in order, while I read the words say ‘the’ aloud
GoldCodeBoldHoldToldColdModeSlowedHopeGoad
Listen to list, recall words in order, while I read the words say ‘the’ aloud
BronzeBookMagazineBikeCopperDressCopierSodaShoeRock
Phonological Loop
• Memory worse for items that sound alike than those that look alike or have similar meanings
• Visual items are recoded to auditory for storage and rehearsal by ACP
• List 1 (Easy to remember/dissimilar phonology and semantics): • PIT, DAY, COW, PEN, HOT
• List 2 (Only slightly harder than List #1/similar semantics) :• HUGE, WIDE, BIG, LONG,
TALL• List 3 (Much harder than List
#1/similar phonology) :• CAT, MAP, MAN, CAP, MAD• What happens if you prevent the recoding of
visual information into auditory information?
• Works for both auditory presentation and visual presentation of the letters.
• Phonological Similarity Effect
e.g., Baddeley (1966)
Phonological Loop• Articulatory Suppression Effect
• Engaging in an auditory task after study removes phonological similarity effect for visual items• Procedure: Say “the” aloud over and over
• No re-coding of visual info by ACP• Phonological info gets in directly, doesn’t need re-coding
Auditory presentation: PGTCD (similar sounding) harder to recall than RHXKW (different sounding)Visual presentation: PGTCD (similar sounding) recalled equally as RHXKW (different sounding)No re-coding, so no chance for
similar sounds to interfere
With suppression
Phonological Loop• Irrelevant Speech Effect
• Background speech presented during study decreases memory for visual items
Salame & Baddeley (1982)
96 7 8 32
‘one’ ‘four’ ‘five’ Semantically similar‘tun’ ‘sore’ ‘fate’ Phonologically similar
‘tennis’ ‘double’ Phonologically differentQuiet control
Phonological Loop• Irrelevant Speech Effect
• Background speech presented during study decreases memory for visual items
Salame & Baddeley (1982)• Amount of disruption is determined
by phonological similarity• In other experiments
• showed no word-length effect for irrelevant speech
• If rehearsal is prevented, irrelevant speech effect disappeared
Conclusions:• Irrelevant speech interferes with recoding of visual info
to auditory
Phonological Loop• Word-length Effect
Results• Recall decreases as the
length of time it takes to say a word increases.
• Rehearsal takes longer for longer words - can’t rehearse as many times
Baddeley, Thomson, and Buchanan (1975)
• Retrieval from PS also takes longer due to auditory coding of items
• Reading rate correlated with memory ability• Digit span depends on language - how long it takes to
say numbers
• Potential Problems with the model• Some of the supportive results can’t be
replicated (e.g., irrelevant speech effect)• Model can’t explain all results:
• why word-length effect is larger for visual than auditory items
• why it differs based on serial list position• Why some effects persist after extended delays
(e.g., 5 mins)
• Model is not precise in explanation of effects
Baddeley’s Model
Cowan’s Activation Model
• Cowan (1999)
• WM = info that is currently highly activated from STM or LTM
• Focus of attention• Emphasizes attention’s
role in activation• Activation of info when
attention is oriented to it
• Activation will decay to cause loss of info from WM (also interference)
STM
WM
Cowan’s Activation Model
• Central Executive • Focuses attention and
other control processes• Capacity of about 4 chunks
• Duration of 20s without reactivation
• STM• activated items that
are just outside of attention - passive store• Things within attentional
focus are available to consciousness
STM
WM
• Potential problems with the model• Only general descriptions so specific
predictions are hard to make• Activation is not operationally defined very
well - when is something is “activated”?• What causes decay? Passage of time isn’t
causal
Cowan’s Activation Model
Nairne’s Feature Model
• Items represented in WM as individual features (e.g., color, length, etc.)• Features indicate
• presentation info (e.g., font, size, gender of voice, etc.) • meaning info (e.g., what the item means, category,
etc.)• Stays the same regardless of presentation
• Features represented by -1 or +1 when studied (yes or no for a feature, 0 if no info for feature)
• Interference: Later items with same features overwrite feature info for previous items
Nairne’s Feature Model
Bold Lower Upper Blue
SCHOOL +1 -1 +1 -1
fish +1 +1 -1 -1
• “fish” presented after “SCHOOL”
- features in common can be overwritten - SCHOOL can become 0, -1, +1, 0
- interference
During retrieval, item features are compared with items in memory - lost features can be updated and restored
Nairne’s Feature Model
• Quantitative model - numerical predictions are possible - can simulate data to generate predictions for studies• Simulations show that model can predict:
1) Recency effect2) Suffix effect
3) Phonological similarity effect
4) Word length effect
Summary of WM
(1) Focus on processing (vs. storage)
(2) Three main modern models- Baddeley model
- Central executive controls VS, PL, EB- Cowan activation model
- WM = attention focus, STM = activated- Nairne feature model (quatitative)
- Items coded as features with overwriting interference
Exam 1 review
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