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The Role of Working Memory in Following Instructions

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The Role of Working Memory in Following Instructions View metadata, citation and similar papers at core.ac.uk brought to you by CORE provided by OpenGrey Repository The role of working memory in following instructions Tianxiao Yang PhD University of York Psychology October 2011 Abstract How do we follow instructions? Research has suggested that working memory may play an important role. This thesis explored the involvement of working memory in following instructions using dual tasks known to selectively disrupt the operation of the visuospatial sketchpad, phonological loop, and central executive components of the Baddeley and Hitch (1974) model of working memory. Across a series of seven experiments, working memory was found highly involved in encoding instructions. On the basis of these findings it is concluded that the central executive involvement was found to be most substantial, supporting the encoding and maintenance of sequences of actions. The phonological loop appears to play a general supporting role in registry and maintenance of verbal instructions. The contribution of the visuospatial sketchpad appears to be to encode and bind visual and spatial cues in an action, as well as retaining the sequence of actions, possibly via forming a map of locations of to-be- enacted objects. These roles of working memory were similar in following spoken and written instructions. The secondary aim of the thesis was to investigate the action advantage in following instructions, which refers to the superior performance in enacting instruction sequences than simply recalling them verbally. This action advantage was established in both spoken and written instructions in a task paradigm containing rich visual spatial and motor cues, although was absent in a computer-based task involved limited actions upon abstract shapes. As the action advantage was not selectively impaired by the concurrent tasks employed in these experiments, its origins are unlikely to be in working memory. It is therefore concluded that working memory contributes substantial to the following of instructions, but it is not the source of the action advantage present in a rich task environment. 2 Contents Abstract ..................................................................................................................... 2 Contents .................................................................................................................... 3 List of figures .......................................................................................................... 12 List of tables ............................................................................................................ 10 Acknowledgements ................................................................................................. 12 Declaration .............................................................................................................. 14 Chapter 1: Introduction ......................................................................................... 15 An overview ......................................................................................................... 15 Following instructions .......................................................................................... 17 Written instructions................................................................................... 17 Spoken instructions ................................................................................... 18 Imitation ................................................................................................... 20 Direct mapping..................................................................................... 20 Active intermodal mapping mechanism ................................................ 21 Working memory in imitation .............................................................. 22 Dual routes ........................................................................................... 22 Imitation and goals ............................................................................... 23 Comparing different types of media .......................................................... 24 Cognitive theory of multimedia learning ................................................... 25 Effects in multimedia environment ....................................................... 26 Cognitive load theory ................................................................................ 28 Effects and techniques .......................................................................... 29 Individual difference and limitations .................................................... 30 Dual coding theory ................................................................................... 32 Summary .................................................................................................. 34 Actions ................................................................................................................. 34 Action planning ........................................................................................ 35 3 Mental practice ......................................................................................... 36 Monitoring during action execution .......................................................... 38 Action advantage ...................................................................................... 40 The subject-performed task effect ............................................................. 42 Summary .................................................................................................. 44 Working memory ................................................................................................. 45 The embedded-processes model of working memory ................................ 46 The multiple component working memory model ..................................... 47 The phonological loop .............................................................................. 48 The visuospatial sketchpad........................................................................ 50 The central executive ................................................................................ 53 The episodic buffer ................................................................................... 54 Separating working memory components .................................................. 57 Summary .................................................................................................. 59 The interface between perception, memory, action and language .......................... 61 Ventral and dorsal system in perception and action ................................... 62 Cooperative work of cognitive functions in following instructions ............ 63 Summary .................................................................................................. 65 Working memory and following instructions ........................................................ 67 Correlational studies ................................................................................. 67 Experimental studies ................................................................................. 70 Sequential representations ......................................................................... 71 Overview of the thesis .......................................................................................... 75 Findings and research questions ................................................................ 75 Dual task methodology and hypotheses ..................................................... 76 Outline of the experiments ........................................................................ 77 Chapter 2: Following spoken instructions in a computer-based task ................... 79 Introduction .......................................................................................................... 79 4 Experiment 1 ........................................................................................................ 81 Introduction .............................................................................................. 81 Method ..................................................................................................... 84 Participants .......................................................................................... 84 Materials .............................................................................................. 84 Design .................................................................................................. 86 Procedure ............................................................................................. 87 Results ...................................................................................................... 89 Actions................................................................................................. 89 Elements .............................................................................................. 90 Binding ................................................................................................ 92 Serial positions ..................................................................................... 93 Practice effect ...................................................................................... 94 Strategy report ...................................................................................... 96 Ratings of difficulty ............................................................................. 97 Discussion
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