University of Leicester Year 1 Psychology Learning and Memory Professor Graham Davies Lecture 4 Copies of Overheads Working Memory and Levels of Processing

Varieties of Amnesia anterograde amnesia – inability to learn information subsequent to accident (some stroke victims) retrograde amnesia – inability to remember prior to accident (concussion) classic case of anterograde amnesia: HM (Milner, 1966) - Good memory for events prior to operation - But little or no recall for subsequent events

Support for the modal model from anterograde amnesia Normal memory span but grossly defective superspan (Drachman & Arbit, 1966) Normal recency effect but greatly reduced primacy effect (Baddeley & Warrington, 1970)

Refutation of the modal model from later studies Anterograde amnesia patients can learn motorskills (jigsaw puzzles) and even verbal material with prompting (Warrington & Weizkrantz, 1970) Some aphasic patients show grossly defective STM but relative intact LTM (Shallice & Warrington, 1970) “double disassociation”

More generalised criticism of the Modal Model: Levels of processing (Craik & Lockhart, 1972) Pre-occupation with structure at the expense of process Memory as a bi-product of processing rather than a deliberate act Pre-occupation with rehearsal at the expense of other control processes How a stimulus is processed determines recall as much as the stimulus itself (Craik & Tulving, 1975) ‘Short-term memory’ not a passive state but the centre of the cognitive system

The ‘Working Memory’ Approach (Baddeley, 1986) If all information goes through short-term memory, then filling STM with irrelevant material should seriously impair cognitive function Simultaneous rehearsal of 3 digits does not impair free recall, 6 digits does (the ‘dual task’ approach) Baddeley & Hitch, 1974) Modular approach to memory - The central executive - The phonological loop - The visual sketchpad

Testing working memory with dual tasks ‘Knock out’ phonological loop (‘one,two, three..’) and the normal superiority of single (‘sum’) to multi- syllable (‘university’) words is lost (Baddeley et al. 1975) ‘Knock out’ sketchpad (simultaneous tracking_ and the normal effectiveness of imagery – based mnemonics is lost (Baddeley & Lieberman, 1980) Working memory approach used profitably in understanding retrograde amnesia, dyslexia, vocabulary development and mental arithmetic – a simple but versatile idea.