Understanding of Working Memory

Understanding of Working Memory

Our understanding of working memory owes much to the pioneering work of Alan Baddeley in the early 1970s. On the basis of his studies of short-term memory, he came to view the mind in terms of two kinds of cognitive systems: a set of specialized systems dedicated to specific mental tasks, and a general-purpose system utilized in all active thing processes.

Specialized systems come in two flavors. Verbal systems, like systems involved in speech comprehension, are mainly present in the human brain, whereas nonverbal systems are present in all brains. Nonverbal specialized systems are epitomized by sensory systems. Each is involved in processing unique kinds of stimuli (sights, sounds, smells, and so on). As part of their operation, the verbal and nonverbal specialized systems are able to retain what they've just processed for brief amounts of time (seconds.) This capacity aids in perception, allowing the system to compare what it is seeing or hearing now to what it saw or heard a moment ago. For example, when listening to a lecture, you have to hold the subject of each sentence in your mind until the verb appears, and sometimes you have to refer back to your memory of earlier sentences to figure out the referent of a pronoun.

The general-purpose system consists of a workspace and a set of mental operations called executive functions that are carried our on information held in the workspace. Although only a limited amount of information can be retained at any one time, the workspace can hold on to and interrelate information of different types from different specialized systems *the way something looks, sounds, and   smells can be associated with its location in external space and with its name). This ability to integrate information across systems allows for abstract representation of objects and events. It is especially well-developed in humans, and is likely to contribute to the uniqueness of human cognition.

The information in your working memory is what you are currently thing about or paying attention to. And because working memory is not a pure product of the here and now. It also depends on what we know and what kinds of experiences we've had in the past. In other words, it depends on long-term memory.

Synaptic Self. How Our Brains Become Who We Are. Joseph LeDoux (author of The Emotional Brain).

We forget too much and too often. Illustration by Elena.