Chapter 4 : Working Memory

Chapter 4:

“Working Memory”

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1. Summarize the reading in a few sentences

Chapter 4 discussed the 4 components of the working memory, the more modern term for the short term memory. There has been much research done by such people like George Miller who proposed the chunking information in order for our minds to remember things like numbers. Brown/Peterson also studied the importance of rehearsal, or repeating items silently to enhance memory. The chapter also looked at factors such as pronunciation time and semantic similarity which can affect our working memory’s capacity. It then went into detail describing the components of the working memory such as the visuospatial sketchpad, episodic buffer, phonological loop, and the central executive. Each of these components of the working memory work separately, yet it takes all of them to process and store all of the information and stimuli together that we encounter in our lives.

2. How does it fit into what I have already learned in this course?

This chapter fits into what I have already learned in this book already about other cognitive processes such as attention and consciousness. They are all very detailed and operate within their own essence, yet take all other systems working together for our minds and bodies to function the way they do.

3. What am I still not clear on?

One aspect that was generated within my discussion group about this chapter had to do the Central Executive and how it is like a supervisor in an organization. It is responsible for suppressing irrelevant information, and deciding what to do or not to do next. It plays a major role in attention, planning strategies and coordinating behavior. Yet, the book describes this component as having very limited ability to perform simultaneous tasks. It seems to me that any supervisor controlling many aspects of a corporation would have the capability to take on many tasks at once.

4. How would I apply this to my own teaching?

I can apply this to my teaching in recognizing different cognitive processes in my students. There are so many areas of cognitive psychology that can affect the way students are learning and processing information. From this chapter, I am specifically drawn to factor of semantic similarity that can affect the working memory. Specifically, the proactive interference reminds me that my students may have trouble learning new material because previously learned material may be interfering.

5. What proof does the author offer that makes me believe this is valid? Do I believe it? Why?

The author provided examples of studies on Proactive Interference in the textbook, such as the one that focused on category of items that are shifted from letters to numbers and asked each person to recall the list of three words after counting backward from the number for 18 seconds. They found that the number of items that we can store in working memory such as words that have been previously stored can interfere with the recall of new words that are similar in meaning.

6. Why is this important? What does it help improve or explain or predict?

This chapter on working memory is important for me to not only understand factors affecting my short term but also understanding my students and factors that affect their learning that I as their teacher can find ways to control or prevent.

7. When would I actually use this-under what circumstances and for what kind of students?

I would actually utilize information from this chapter about working memory for myself and for my students when trying to learn new information in classes. It is also important to consider some of the aspects of this chapter when thinking about studying for quizzes in order to retain the new information.

8. Are there other ways to accomplish the same thing that are faster, cheaper, or better?

I think with any aspect of cognitive psychology, it is important to do the research to find other studies that have been done on the same material and make a decision on what you personally believe based on other sources. Its important to compare the ideas that other researchers have, especially since it seems that over the history of psychology, theories change and develop with each new studies that prove something different.