Today.Az » Weird / Interesting » How the brain keeps track of what we're doing?
28 July 2011 [21:30] - Today.Az
"Working memory" is what we have to keep track of things moment to moment: driving on a highway and focusing on the vehicles around us, then forgetting them as we move on; remembering all the names at the dinner party while conversing with one person about her job.
Most psychologists explain working memory with a "controlled
attention" model: one flexible system that directs the brain's focus to
stimuli and tasks that are important and suppressing the rest. The
capacity of working memory, they say, is limited by our ability to
attend to only one thing at a time.
Now, in the August issue of Current Directions in Psychological Science,
a journal published by the Association for Psychological Science,
University of Edinburgh cognitive neuroscientist Robert H. Logie
challenges this model.
"We have a range of different capacities, each with its own function,
and they operate at the same time" when we perform a task or think
about something, says Logie. Within this "multiple-component framework,"
working memory capacity is "the sum of the capacities of all these
different functions."
This "workspace" in the brain, as Logie calls it, allows us to do
something while other functions operate in the background or to apply
ourselves to a single task involving more than one function. In reading,
for instance, we both see words and process meaning. The "sum" of the
capacities isn't a gross measure, though, because we often tax one
function more than another. In reading, processing has its shoulder to
the grindstone, while vision takes it easy.
In addition to the attentional model of working memory, Logie
critiques the experimental methods shaped by it. Example: Studies
measuring capacity ask participants to read a sentence (process) and
remember the sentence's last word (memory), then read several sentences
and recall all the final words in order. How well a person does can
predict performance on other tasks or exams. But the experiment, which
assumes one big resource pouring into different tasks until it's used
up, tests only one function, memory for words.
If you want to understand not just the capacity but the structure of
working memory -- which Logie considers a more fruitful avenue of
research -- there's a better experimental methodology: cognitive
neuroscience. "Imaging data demonstrate that if you ask people to do one
sort of task, you get one [brain] pattern, and if you ask them to do
another, you get another pattern." Make the same task harder -- say,
remember word lists faster -- and "you see increased activation in the
same area." Complicate it -- add words to the sequence, and thus
processing along with recall -- and different networks fire.
The multiple-component model holds great practical promise, says
Logie. In education, "if you assume there is a single general capacity,"
interventions for people struggling to learn are few. Assume multiple
components to draw on, and those other resources stand ready for
development.
Similarly, if you see general impairment in aging or after brain
damage, you can give only generalized support. Look for decline or
impairment in specific functions -- not just physical but cognitive --
and you can exercise the still-robust functions, helping people live
richer, more independent lives. /Science Daily/
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