Working Memory: Theories, Models, and Controversies

Annu. Rev. Psychol. 2012.63:1-29. Downloaded from www.annualreviews.org by California State University - Channel Islands on 09/12/12. For personal use only. Working Memory: Theories, Models, and Controversies Alan Baddeley Department of Psychology, University of York, York YO10 5DD, United Kingdom; email: [email protected] Annu. Rev. Psychol. 2012. 63:1–29 Keywords First published online as a Review in Advance on attention, central executive, phonological loop, episodic buffer, Annu. Rev. Psychol. 2012.63:1-29. Downloaded from www.annualreviews.org September 27, 2011 by California State University - Channel Islands on 09/12/12. For personal use only. visuo-spatial sketchpad, short-term memory The Annual Review of Psychology is online at psych.annualreviews.org Abstract This article’s doi: I present an account of the origins and development of the multicom- 10.1146/annurev-psych-120710-100422 ponent approach to working memory, making a distinction between Copyright c 2012 by Annual Reviews. the overall theoretical framework, which has remained relatively stable, All rights reserved and the attempts to build more specific models within this framework. 0066-4308/12/0110-0001$20.00 I follow this with a brief discussion of alternative models and their rela- tionship to the framework. I conclude with speculations on further developments and a comment on the value of attempting to apply models and theories beyond the laboratory studies on which they are typically based. 1 Contents THE EPISODIC BUFFER . 15 WORKING MEMORY: WMandBinding.............. 15 THEORIES, MODELS, AND Visual Binding and WM . 16 CONTROVERSIES . 2 Binding in Verbal WM . 17 Short-Term Memory . 4 LINKING LONG-TERM AND Evolution of a Multicomponent WORKING MEMORY. 18 Theory.................... 5 Is WM Just Activated LTM? . 18 CHARACTERISTICS OF THE Long-TermWM.............. 18 PHONOLOGICAL LOOP . 7 LTM and the Multicomponent The Phonological Similarity Model..................... 18 Effect...................... 8 NEUROBIOLOGICAL TheWordLengthEffect...... 8 APPROACHES TO Articulatory Suppression . 8 WORKING MEMORY. 18 Irrelevant Sound Effects . 8 SOME ALTERNATIVE Retaining Serial Order. 9 APPROACHES............... 19 The Phonological Loop TheoriesofSTM.............. 19 andLTM.................. 10 TheoriesofWM.............. 19 The Phonological Loop: Cowan’s Embedded Processes Master or Slave?. 11 Theory.................... 20 The Phonological Loop: Individual Difference–Based Critique . 11 Theories................... 20 VISUO-SPATIAL Jonides and the Mind SKETCHPAD................ 12 andBrainofSTM.......... 21 VisualSTM................... 12 Computational Models SpatialSTM.................. 12 ofWM.................... 21 Visuo-SpatialWM............ 13 WHATNEXT?................. 22 THE CENTRAL A Speculative Model EXECUTIVE................ 13 and Some Questions. 22 The Executive as Integration.................... 23 Homunculus . 13 In Praise of Negative Results. 24 Fractionating the Executive . 14 Applications................... 24 Interfacing with LTM . 14 CONCLUSION................. 25 Annu. Rev. Psychol. 2012.63:1-29. Downloaded from www.annualreviews.org by California State University - Channel Islands on 09/12/12. For personal use only. WORKING MEMORY: THEORIES, since the early years, not all of course related MODELS, AND CONTROVERSIES to or supportive of my own work, but a recent attempt to review it (Baddeley 2007) ended I was honored, pleased, and challenged by with more than 50 pages of references. What the invitation to write this prefatory chapter, follows is a partial, as opposed to impartial, pleased because it offered the chance to take a WM: working account of the origins of the concept of multi- broad and somewhat autobiographical view of memory component working memory (M-WM) and of my principal area of interest, working memory M-WM: my own views on its subsequent development. (WM), but challenged by the potential magni- multicomponent My first draft would have filled the chapter tude of the task. The topic of working memory working memory page allowance with references; I apologize to has increased dramatically in citation counts 2 Baddeley all of those whose work should have been cited rival theories to confront each other in the and is not. all-important “crucial experiment” that settles I entered psychology as a student at Univer- the issue. This approach was closer in spirit to sity College London in 1953, a very exciting Hull than to Tolman. time for the field of psychology, which had My own first published study (Baddeley benefited greatly from developments during 1960) attempted just such a crucial experiment, the Second World War, where theory was en- predicting that rats would be smarter than they riched by the need to tackle practical problems. should be according to Hullian theory, and As a result, prewar issues such as the conflict demonstrating, to my own satisfaction at least, between Gestalt psychology and neobehavior- that this was the case. Alas, by the time it was ism began to be challenged by new data and published, the whole field of learning theory new ideas, some based on cybernetics, the study seemed to have collapsed. Neither side was able of control systems, with others influenced by to deliver a knockout blow, and people simply the newly developed digital computers. This in abandoned the research area. I resolved at that turn led to a renewed interest in the philosophy point that if I myself were to develop a theory, of science as applied to psychology. Typical it would be based very closely on the evidence, questions included, is psychology a science?; if which would survive even if the theory proved so, is it cumulative or are we doomed to keep totally wrong. It is an approach I have followed on asking the same questions, as appeared to ever since. be the case in philosophy? What would a good But what is the answer to our original ques- psychological theory look like? tion, should theorists be architects, building As students we were offered two answers to elegant structures such as Newton did, or this question. The first, championed by Cam- should they be explorers, gradually extending bridge philosopher Richard Braithwaite (1953), the theory on the basis of more and more regarded Newton’s Principia as the model to evidence, as in the case of Darwin? Clearly both which scientific theories should aspire, involv- Newton and Darwin got it right, but for fields ing as it does postulates, laws, equations, and at a different stage of development. Newton predictions. Within psychology, the Newto- claimed that his success resulted from “standing nian model was explicitly copied by Clark Hull on the shoulders of giants,” who no doubt stood in his attempt to produce a general theory of on the shoulders of lesser mortals like ourselves. learning, principally based on the study of maze Darwin had few such giants available. I suggest learning in the albino rat. that any complete theory is likely to require An alternative model of theorizing came explorers in its initial stages and architects to from Oxford, where Stephen Toulmin (1953) turn the broad concepts into detailed models. I argued that theories were like maps, ways myself am very much at the explorer end of the Annu. Rev. Psychol. 2012.63:1-29. Downloaded from www.annualreviews.org by California State University - Channel Islands on 09/12/12. For personal use only. of organizing our existing knowledge of the continuum, but I fully accept the importance of world, providing tools both for interacting with the skills of the architect if theory is to develop. the world and for further exploration. Edward My research career really began with my ar- Tolman in Stanford had a view of learning in rival at the Medical Research Council Applied rats that fitted this model, using it to challenge Psychology Unit (APU) in Cambridge. Its role Hull’s neo-behaviorist approach. This raised was to form a bridge between psychological the- the crucial question as to how you might decide ory and practical problems, and the year I ar- between the two apparently opposing views. rived, Donald Broadbent, its director, had just The dominant answer to that question, in the published his seminal book, Perception and Com- United Kingdom at least, was provided by Karl munication, which provided one of the sparks Popper (1959), a Viennese-trained philosopher that ignited what subsequently became known who argued strongly that a valid theory should as the cognitive revolution. I was assigned to make clear, testable predictions, allowing the work on optimizing the design of postal codes, www.annualreviews.org • Working Memory: Theories, Models, and Controversies 3 which led me to combine the classic tradition of I decided to see if the acoustic similarity ef- nonsense syllable learning with new ideas from fect could be used to provide sensitive indirect information theory, resulting in my generat- measure of telephone line quality. It did not; STM: short-term memory ing memorable postal codes for each town in the effects of noise and similarity were simply the United Kingdom. The Post Office thanked additive, but I was intrigued by the sheer mag- LTM: long-term memory me and went on their way regardless; the code nitude of the similarity effect. Similarity was a they adopted could, however, have been much central variable within the dominant stimulus- worse, as is indeed the case in some countries, response interference theory of verbal learning but that is another story. (see Osgood 1949), but the type of similarity By

Load more