Authors: Alan Baddeley
ISBN-13: 9780198528012, ISBN-10: 0198528019
Format: Paperback
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
Date Published: April 2007
Edition: (Non-applicable)
Alan Baddeley succeeded Donald Broadbent as Director of the APU in Cambridge. Some 20 years later he moved to Bristol University. He is now at University of York where he has re-established his old collaboration with Graham Hitch. His interests are in human memory in general and working memory more specifically, and in combining basic and applied research. He is a Fellow of the Royal Society, of the European Academy and is a foreign member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. He has received the APA Distinguished Scientific Contribution Award, the Aristotle Prize for contributions to European Psychology, and was awarded the CBE for contributions to the study of memory.
Book Synopsis
The first edition of Working Memory was published in 1986 and was both widely cited and highly influential. The follow-up to this classic book has two aims - to discuss the developments that have occurred within the multicomponent model, since the publication of Working Memory, and secondly, to place the concept of multicomponent working memory in a broader context. The updating section of the book comprises two chapters each on the phonological loop, the visuo-spatial sketchpad, the central executive and the episodic buffer, with further chapters on the relevance to working memory of studies of the recency effect, of work based on individual differences, and of neuroimaging research.
The broader implications of the concept of working memory are discussed in chapters on social psychology, anxiety, depression, consciousness and on the control of action. The final "life, the universe and everything" chapter discusses the relevance of a concept of working memory to the classic problems of consciousness and free will.
This new volume from one of the world leaders in memory research will doubtless emulate the success of its predecessor, and be a major publication within the psychological literature.
Table of Contents
Preface xi
Acknowledgements xvii
Introduction and overview 1
Some history 2
Multicomponent working memory 5
The multicomponent model 7
Conclusions 13
Why do we need a phonological loop? 15
The evolutionary relevance of the loop 15
Language acquisition 16
Sublexical short-term memory 21
The problem of serial order 25
Chaining models 26
Contextual models 27
The phonological loop: challenges and growing points 35
Nairne's critique 35
The word length effect 38
Disrupting the phonological loop 49
The irrelevant speech effect 51
The phonological loop: an overview 60
Conclusion 62
Visuospatial short-term memory 63
The case for a separating visuospatial and verbal working memory 63
Fractionating visuospatial working memory 64
Memory for spatial location 65
Object-based short-term memory 67
Sequential storage in visuospatial short-term memory 73
Separating the threads 77
Conclusions 83
Imagery and visuospatial working memory 85
Visuospatial coding and verbal memory 86
Modelling the visuospatial sketchpad 91
Visual imagery 94
Conclusions 100
Recency, retrieval and the constant ratio rule 103
Recency in free recall 103
The constant ratio rule 105
Theories of the recency effect 108
The evolutionary function of recency 114
Fractionating the central executive 117
The central executive as rag-bag 118
Executive processes and the frontal lobes 119
Working memory and executive processes 122
Focusing the limited capacity 124
Task switching and the central executive 129
Division of attention as an executive skill 133
Conclusions 138
Long-term memory and the episodic buffer 139
Some reductionist views 139
Some skeletons in the working memory cupboard 141
The episodic buffer 148
Exploring the episodic buffer 157
Binding in visual working memory 157
Binding in memory for prose 160
Some implications 169
Individual differences and working memory span 175
The psychometric tradition 175
The concept of intelligence 176
Individual differences in working memory 181
What does working memory span measure? 184
What limits working memory span? 189
The speed hypothesis 189
The resource pool hypothesis 190
The inhibition hypothesis 192
Components of working memory 198
Fractionating the central executive 203
Working memory and education 205
Conclusion 209
Neuroimaging working memory 211
Positron emission tomography (PET) 211
Functional magnetic resonance imagery (fMRI) 213
Electroencephalography (EEG) 213
Other techniques 214
The naming of parts 216
What have we learned from imaging working memory? 217
Imaging the central executive 224
Meta-analysis of executive processing 228
Imaging retrieval processes 230
Some conclusions 231
Working memory and social behaviour 235
What controls behaviour? 235
Habits, schemata and deterministic control 236
The sense of agency 242
Working memory and self-control 246
Conclusions 255
Working memory and emotion 1: fear and craving 257
Cognition in extreme emotion 258
Clinical studies of anxiety and cognition 265
Modelling the impact of anxiety and cognition 269
Addiction and craving 272
Conclusion 275
Working memory and emotion II: depression and the wellsprings of action 277
Comparing the effects of anxiety and depression 277
Psychological theories of depression 284
The wellsprings of action 286
Working memory and depression 289
Emotion and the multicomponent model 293
Emotion: a broader view 295
Conclusions 300
Consciousness 301
A pragmatic approach to consciousness 301
Core consciousness 302
Consciousness under anaesthesia 304
Conscious control and the global workspace hypothesis 306
A neural basis for cognitive workspace 309
Consciousness and working memory 314
The multilevel control of action 317
Implicit control of action 317
A model of motor control 323
Implications of motor control for working memory 332
Conclusions 334
Working memory in context: life, the universe and everything 335
An evolutionary perspective 336
Some philosophical implications 339
Epilogue 348
References 351
Index 405
Subjects