What's working in working memory: a role for the Central Executive.
Two experiments are reported which seek to explore the nature of the Central Executive of Baddeley's (Baddeley and Hitch, 1974) model of working memory. Experiment 1 uses a dual task methodology to compare performance on two storage tasks, making use of the two slave systems, the Phonological Loop (PL) and the Visuo-Spatial Scratch Pad (VSSP). Results suggest that storage can be thought of as based on the use of slave system independent resources. Experiment 2 uses a similar approach to compare performance on 2 processing tasks, again one PL based, the other VSSP based. These results suggest that processing is based on a central, shared set of resources. The two experiments support both a multiple resources model of working memory and more specifically identify a role for the Central Executive.
Duff
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SC
Department of Psychosocial Science, University of Bergen, Norway. Simon.Duff@psych.uib.no
D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D003071:Cognition; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008568:Memory; D011939:Mental Recall; D008960:Models, Psychological; D010364:Pattern Recognition, Visual; D010700:Phonetics; D017603:Signal Detection, Psychological; D014936:Word Association Tests