5

Short-Term Memory and

Working Memory

Short-Term Memory (STM) 119

You have to begin to lose your memory,

if only in bits and pieces, to realize that
memory is what makes our lives. Life without
memory is no life at all. . . . Our memory is
our coherence, our reason, our feeling, even
our action. Without it, we are nothing.

Luis Buuel

o a large degree, our sense of who we are depends upon what we know,
and what we know depends upon our ability to remember what we have
learned. Learning is defined as the permanent change in behavior that
results from experience. But this learned information must be stored within us
in order to be retrieved later. This process of storage is memory: the mechanism that allows us to retain and retrieve information over time. Memory is an
essential, underlying, cognitive process that supports learning and makes it
possible for us to acquire new knowledge and remember new information as
we encounter new situations. This chapter and the three that follow comprise
a unit that describes the different memory mechanisms we all possess, and how
what we know helps us to learn more and function effectively.
A major goal of this unit is to explain some of the subtleties and complexities lurking just below the surface of the memory processes that we generally
take for granted. We begin by describing what has been called short-term
memory (STM), the memory that contains our moment-to-moment conscious thoughts and perceptions. Short-term memory is fleeting: Its contents
endure only as long as we are paying attention to them. Psychologists have
historically found it easy to do research on the nature and limits of STM
because people have immediate experience of its presence. In contrast, we
have less awareness of working memory (WM): the set of mechanisms that
underlies STM and also communicates with long-term memory (LTM), the
semipermanent memory store that endures for a lifetime and aids us in learning new information. LTM will be the focus of Chapters 68. In this chapter
we will discussSTM and its structural support, WM.

chapter outline
n Short-Term

Memory (STM)
The Capacity of ShortTerm Memory
Chunking and ShortTerm Memory
The Importance of Prior
Knowledge
Duration, Forgetting, and
Short-Term Memory
Interference
Rehearsal
Retrieving from Short-Term
Memory

n The

Serial Position Effect

Implications for Memory
Getting Around the Serial
Position Effect

n Working

Memory: The
Structure Beneath ShortTerm Memory
The Phonological Loop
Neuropsychology of the
Phonological Loop
The Visuospatial Sketchpad
Neuropsychology of the
Visuospatial Sketchpad
The Episodic Buffer
The Central Executive

n Phenomena

Explained by
Working Memory
Phonological Confusions
Word-Length Effect
Irrelevant Speech Effect

n Working

Memory and

n Chapter

Summary

Emotion

n Key

Terms

n Questions

Short-Term Memory (STM)

Short-term memory reflects our conscious awareness. We rely on STM
as we carry out everyday activities like remembering a phone number
longenough to call it, remembering the play signaled by the third-base

for Review

120 Chapter 5 Short-Term Memory and Working Memory

coach before taking a swing, or thinking about our next response in a conversation. In order to understand this memory system, we will consider its properties
in terms of the same basic questions that were used in the previous chapter to
understand sensory memory:
What is the capacity of STM?
n How long does information last in STM?
n

Why do we forget facts held in STM?

The Capacity of Short-Term Memory

As its name implies, our short-term memory allows us to retain information for
a brief period of time. How much information can STM hold? Researchers have
devised a number of precise procedures for determining STM capacity (see
Focus on Methods). These procedures have yielded data showing that a typical
adults memory span is approximately 7 (between 5 and 9) unrelated items
(Miller, 1956). STM capacity typically increases as people age until it reaches a
maximum in young adulthood (Dempster, 1981; Huttenlocher & Burke, 1976)
and starts to decline in old age (Kail & Salthouse, 1994).

focus on methods
Short-Term Memory Capacity
The typical way of measuring STM capacity, also called memory span, is to present a sequence of numbers, letters, or
words aloud to a person at the rate of about 1 second per item.
The research participant is instructed to repeat the sequence
verbally, either in the order each item was presented or in
a backward order (Bunting, Cowan, & Saults, 2006; Wilde
& Strauss, 2002). The length of the sequence is continually
increased until the person is correct only 50% of the time.
Another procedure is to average the number of items in the
three longest sequences that the person gets 100% correct
and call that the memory span. To make sure that the person
being tested doesnt know how many items are in the list, and
thereby develop a special memory strategy that artificially
increases their memory span, a running memory span test is
used in which the number of items on the list varies from list
to list (Pollack, Johnson, & Knaff, 1959). The Table shows that
STM capacity increases with age until, on average, people remember 7 items by age 18. Researchers have proposed three
explanations for the expansion of STM capacity as we age. One
explanation is related to neurological development, another

concerns strategies that people employ as they get older, and

the third is related to how the coding of information changes
with age. These explanations are discussed later in the section
on working memory.

Memory Span Across Age Level

Age (in years)

Memory Span (for digits)

10

12

18

Source: From Dempster, 1981

Short-Term Memory (STM) 121

The basic findings concerning memory capacity go back to the research of

Ebbinghaus (1885/1913), who sought to identify basic memory processes that are
independent of peoples past knowledge. To do this, Ebbinghaus used nonsense
syllables (formed by inserting a vowel between two consonants) as the items to be
remembered, and determined how many runs through a list of nonsense syllables
it would take to recite a list perfectly. Try this yourself by doing the exercise in
Demonstration 5.1.
nnn

D emonstration 5.1

Ebbinghaus Test of Memory Capacity

Over 100 years ago Ebbinghaus used what he called the anticipation method to study primary
memorywhat we now call short-term memory. To experience the kind of task used in this
classic study, do the following: Take 10 pieces of paper and on each write one of the following:
MEB, GEC, TER, BOL, CUV, FIK, DAL, HOK, PUV, and JUH. After turning the stack of papers upside
down, lift each one, turn it over, read it for 2 seconds, and place it aside (face up, but dont look
at it). After you read all 10 pages, turn the stack over again and try to guess the syllable written on each page. Check to see if you are correct, and then do the same for the next page until
youve gone through the whole list. Keep doing this until you are able to anticipate the syllable
on each page in the correct order. How many runs through the list did you require to get 100%
correct? Now read on in the text to see how your efforts compared with Ebbinghauss findings.

In Ebbinghauss primary research, he used himself as the only participant

to be sure that the data were reliable. He used lists of nonsense syllables that
varied in length. If a list had 1 item, it only took one look at the item to be able
to recall it perfectly. With lists of 7 items he required a single run through
the list to recall the items with 100% accuracy. With a list of 10 items (just
like the one you were given in the demonstration), it took 16 viewings of the
list to remember the list correctly. How well did you do? The relationship
between the length of the list and the number of viewings that a person needs
in order to have a perfect memory for the list is shown in Figure 5.1. The
important point is that Ebbinghaus discovered that there is a discontinuitya
jump in the curvebetween the length of the list and the number of viewings
needed to recall it perfectly. Notice that in Figure 5.1 this discontinuity occurs at
about 7items. The number 7 holds fast for lists of nonsense syllables, unrelated
pictures, words, whatever you can think of as long as the individual items are
unrelated. Cognitive researchers have tested memory for all of these items in
their efforts to determine STM capacity.
Chunking and Short-Term Memory It is tempting to think of STM as a kind of
empty bag with a limited holding capacity. However, cognitive research reveals
that STM is not just a formless reservoir, it has a structure. For example, during
an assessment of a persons memory span, if the pacing of the items is broken up
with pauses between every third and fourth item, the persons memory span will
be greater than if no pauses are inserted (McLean & Gregg, 1967; Ryan, 1969;
Wickelgren, 1964). It is no accident that when radio and television advertisers

122 Chapter 5 Short-Term Memory and Working Memory

Source: Based on Ebbinghaus, 1885/1913, Figure 6

Ebbinghaus Learning Curve

18
16
14

Number of viewings

Figure 5.1 The Ebbinghaus Learning

Curve The graph shows how many times
Ebbinghaus needed to look at lists of
different lengths before he could recall
them perfectly. The sharp elbow in the
curve at 7 items reflects the maximum
he could store in STM. This discontinuity
holds for any list as long as the individual
items are unrelated.

12
10
8
6
4
2
0

10

Number of syllabus

recite a phone number they pause between every three or four digits. Otherwise,
the listener will have difficulty retaining the sequence. In a sense, the spoken
digits between the pauses have become a single unit or chunk of information.
The idea that information in STM can be grouped, which increases the capacity of memory, was proposed by Miller (1956) in The Magical Number Seven
Plus or Minus Two: Some Limits on Our Capacity for Processing Information.
Miller concluded that the capacity of STM was really between 5 and 9 meaningful items or chunks of information for the typical adult. In this case, the word
meaningful refers to whether the person is able to find a way of relating the
items to what he or she already knows. This process is called chunking. Take
the following series of 12 numbers, for example. Assume that someone presents
this list to you at a rate of 1 number per second and that you have been asked to
memorize the list:
1 4 9 2 9 0 2 1 0 7 1 4.

If these numbers were presented to you verbally (you could hear but not see
them), and you didnt pay much attention to the relationship among the numbers, you might be able to recall about 7 of them in the correct order. On the
other hand, if the numbers activated information stored in your long-term memory, then you would notice 1492 (Columbuss discovery of America), 90210 (the
title of a TV show), and 714 (the area code for Orange County Californiathe
O.C. and Surf City). The person who noticed these three chunks of information
would most likely be able to recall the entire 12 digits and would be judged to

Short-Term Memory (STM) 123

have an enormous memory span. The effect is striking even with a single word.
Take for example, abracadabra. To someone unfamiliar with magical words in
fairy tales (hocus pocus or wingardium leviosa), this would simply be a series
of 11 letters or five syllables. Such a person would have difficulty recalling this
string of letters perfectly. However, because of the chunking process, someone
familiar with this word will see it as a single entity and will be able to recall it
with little effort. The important message here is that what we have learned and
stored in LTM can play a useful role in retaining information in STM.
The Importance of Prior Knowledge To be a chunk, something needs to fit

together readily as a pattern distinct from the things around it (e.g., Gobet et al.,
2001). For words or pictures to be a chunk, they need to be familiar to the person
(Miller, 1956) and available in long-term memory. This illustrates that STM
overlaps withand relies uponLTM to function efficiently. The depth and
breadth of our knowledge in any given subject can influence our memory for
new information related to that subject. This is one reason why someone may
exhibit phenomenal memory ability in one class at school, but may perform at
an ordinary level in another. The difference is due to what the person already
knows.
Since prior knowledge affects everyones ability to chunk and therefore
retain information in STM, our estimates of a childs memory span may greatly
depend on how familiar the child is with the testing materials being used (e.g.,
Huttenlocher & Burke, 1976; Santos & Bueno, 2003). For example, if a child is not
familiar with numbers at the age of 4, but knows common one-syllable words,
the child may show a memory span of 2 for numbers, but a span of 3 for words.
Memory span tests, therefore, should be tailored to the person. There are no pure
tests of memory that work for everyone: What is meaningful for one person may
be meaningless for another.
This fact is illustrated by a study conducted by Chi (1978), who tested 10-yearold advanced chess players and found, not surprisingly, that their memory span
using numbers was inferior to an adult group of inexperienced chess players. Chi
then asked the children and the adults to look at a chessboard for 20 seconds and
try to reconstruct the configuration of pieces that were on the board (14 pieces).
On this task, the children performed better than novice chess-playing adults.
This shows that for both children and adults, memory span is influenced by
preexisting knowledge (Bjorklund, 1987): long-term memory.

Duration, Forgetting, and Short-Term Memory

We know that information is kept in short-term memory for a short period of
time (hence its name). But, how short is short, and why are items lost from STM?
The standard method of calculating the duration of information in STM is called
the BrownPeterson task after the researchers who separately developed the
procedure (Brown, 1958; Peterson & Peterson, 1959). Try the task yourself by
following the instructions in Demonstration 5.2.

124 Chapter 5 Short-Term Memory and Working Memory

nnn

De monstration 5.2

The BrownPeterson Task

To perform this task, you will need paper and a timer (a buzzer, a watch with a sweep-second
hand, or a stopwatch will work). If you have a friend to assist you with this demonstration it
may help. For each of the three cases listed below, set your timer for the seconds listed to the
right of the letter/number combination. Have your friend read aloud the triplet of letters and
then the three-digit number next to it. Immediately after you hear the number, count backward
by threes from the three-digit number (e.g., if the number is 780, you would recite 777, 774,
771, etc.). Stop counting when the timer goes off and try to write down the triplet of letters.
Try this procedure three times using Items 1-3 below, each of which calls for a different time
duration. Ready?

Letter/No. Combination

Duration

Recalled Letters

1. VZN 823

0 seconds

2. LQB 282

10 seconds

3. XHR 941

20 seconds

How did you perform? If you are like the students in the original study, the number of letters in
each triplet that you are able to recall declined the longer you were asked to hold the letters in
memory by counting backward by threes.

Two important findings related to the duration of STM have come out of
research using the BrownPeterson task: First, the number of items that can
be kept in STM rapidly decays with the passage of time. You can see this in
Figure5.2, which shows that nearly perfect recall occurs with a 0-second delay
and only about 1020% recall occurs with an 18-second delay. For a realistic

1.0

Figure 5.2 The BrownPeterson Task

The number of items that can be kept in

STM declines rapidly without rehearsal.
The graph shows that items in STM are
perfectly recalled when there is only a
0-second delay. But recall declines to
1020% accuracy when there is a delay
of 18seconds.
Source: From Peterson and Peterson, 1959

Proportion correct

0.8

0.6

0.4

0.2

Recall interval (seconds)

12

15

18

Short-Term Memory (STM) 125

example of this, imagine you are told a street address and then are immediately
distracted by a question. In this situation, your ability to recall the street address
would be significantly impaired within 18 seconds. To use a common metaphor
in cognitive psychology, its as if the items in STM decay with time. The duration of unrehearsed information in STM is approximately 18 seconds. In the
demonstration, did the number of letters you were able to remember decline as
the time to count backward increased?
The second finding from this research is that the duration of items in STM
is related to the number of chunks that are present. For example, three unrelated letters, such as C-H-J (equivalent to three chunks), show the same loss
of information over time as three words, such as CAT-HAT-JUG (Murdock,
1961). In contrast, a single word (or a single letter) in STM shows virtually no
loss. The number of chunks influences our ability to keep information in STM.
It appears that the more items or chunks in STM, the more opportunities there
will be for them to become confused with one another. This confusion is called
interference and is an important contributor to our inability to recall items in
our STM.
Interference Interference may be broken into two broad categories: retro-

active and proactive. Retroactive interference occurs when what you know
now makes it difficult to recall something that occurred previously. (Trying
to remember your current phone number may make it difficult to recall one
you had many years ago.) In contrast, when something that you have already
learned interferes with your ability to recall more recent events, it is called proactive interference, which is a source of interference that plagues performance
in memory tasks and in everyday life. (If you take a class in Spanish and then
take one in French, Spanish words will typically intrude upon your consciousness as you try to speak French.) Proactive interference can be embarrassing as
well as frustrating, such as when you call a new romantic partner by a former
partners name. Proactive interference influences memory performance on the
BrownPeterson task discussed previously. The first time students participate
in the task, they show very little loss of information (Keppel & Underwood,
1962), but after many trials, the curve shown in Figure 5.2 emerges because
the task becomes more difficult with each new trial. Letters from earlier trials
start to be mistaken for letters appearing in more recent trials. Fortunately for
people who are trying to memorize facts for school or work, proactive interference does not last forever. It can be stopped if the information people are being
asked to remember is changed to a different type of information. For example,
there seems to be little proactive interference when participants switch from
having to remember letters to remembering numbers (e.g., Wickens, Born, &
Allen, 1963), or switch to remembering words from a different subject area
(e.g., Loess and Waugh, 1967; Wickens, 1970). This explains why taking a
break during study sessions can be so effective. Doing something else for a
while reduces proactive interference, thereby increasing recall of what you are
trying to learn (Loess & Waugh, 1967).

126 Chapter 5 Short-Term Memory and Working Memory

Something has caused the members of this jury in a federal court

to pay close attention. Paying
attention, or rehearsal, is one way
we retain information in STM.

Rehearsal Although pieces of information in

STM last only about 18 seconds when we are not
attending to them, those same pieces of information can endure in STM as long as we pay them
attention. The act of paying attention is called
rehearsal. Focusing our energies on the form and
meaning of the thing we are trying to retain
rehearsing itallows us to keep it fresh in STM.
There are two kinds of rehearsal: maintenance
rehearsal and elaborative rehearsal. Maintenance
rehearsal is typically accomplished by saying
something repeatedly in order to keep it in mind.
This sort of rote rehearsal maintains the items in
STM, but does not guarantee your permanent ability to recall the items freely
after you stop rehearsing them (Glenberg, Smith, & Green, 1977). However,
such rote memorizing can help you recognize the items later (Green, 1987).
Maintenance rehearsal is a good strategy if you want to keep a phone number
in memory long enough to call it, or if you want to be able to pick a number
out of a list later on, but it is not a good way to be able to call the same number
tomorrow (Craik & Lockhart, 1972). Elaborative rehearsal is accomplished by
thinking about the meaningful relationship among the items to be learned and
focusing on how they connect to other things that you know (Craik, 2002). This
type of rehearsal strategy often results in enhanced long-term recall and recognition of things to be remembered (e.g., Benjamin & Bjork, 2000; Franklin
et al., 2008; Mandler, 1980).
Why would either type of rehearsal be effective in helping us to retain information in STM? Whenever we rehearse an item, we are paying attention to it.
One might say that each time we attend to something, whether it is an idea or a
flower in our front yard, we enhance the energy of that item, sometimes called its
activation (J. R. Anderson, Bothell, Lebiere, & Matessa, 1998). If we stop paying
attention to something, its activation level decays and it becomes more difficult
to recall. Keeping things activated in memory has the effect of keeping them
available for recall. Elaborative rehearsal is a more effective means of retaining
and recognizing items over a long period of time. That is because having many
connections associated with something to be remembered increases its level of
activation so that its retrieval is more likely to be triggered by a simple cue or
reminder.

Retrieving from Short-Term Memory

Having examined the capacity and duration of STM, we turn to how information is retrieved from STM. Suppose you are told to go to a store and buy six
items (e.g., apples, bread, soup, peanut butter, cereal, milk) and within a few
seconds someone asks you whether milk is on the list. How do you search your
memory to decide whether an item is stored in STM? To determine the

Short-Term Memory (STM) 127

Probe (yes)
Probe (no)
processes that we use to retrieve facts from STM, Sternberg Memory Set
Jam
Milk
Pear
(1966,2004) developed a task that bears his name: the Sternberg
Nuts
Milk
task. The structure of the task is illustrated in Figure5.3. In it,
Rice
a participant is given a set of up to seven items, which are preEgg
sented rapidly, one at a time, over the course of a few seconds.
In typical studies, the list of items to be scanned
Soon after, a memory test item, called a probe (e.g., milk), is Note:
contains numbers or letters.
presented and the participant must determine whether or not
Figure 5.3 Sternberg Task
the probe is part of the memory set.
Diagram To determine how
Many theories of how people scan their STM have been rigorously tested. people retrieve items from STM,
The theory researchers now believe to be correct requires some uncommon sense participants in the Sternberg task
are given a set of up to 7 items
to understand, and illustrates that our intuitions about how our minds work are to store in STM. The items are
not always correct. Researchers refer to this theory as serial exhaustive search. presented rapidly, one at a time,
This theory proposes that we search every item in our STM in response to a over the course of a few seconds.
question and do not stop searching even when we find the item in memory. Soon after, a memory test item
a probe) is presented.
Rather, we search our STM in its entiretyexhaustively. Figure 5.4 shows what (called
Participants must decide whether
the data confirming the serial exhaustive search theory look like. The graph or not the probe is contained
contains a positive line and a negative line. The positive line reflects the time it within their STM.
takes people to correctly say, Yes, the probe is in my STM. The negative line Based on Sternberg, 1966
reflects the time to correctly say, No, the item is not in my STM when it has
not been found. The exhaustive search theory assumes it will take a person just
as long to scan memory for a positive probe as for a negative probe because the
entire list must be searched in both cases. In addition, the lines illustrate that
as the size of the memory set increases (goes up on the right), so does the time
needed to answer the question about what is in STM because the more items to
be searched, the longer it takes.
The graph contains information that reveals two important aspects of STM
search. First, the lines have a slope: the angle of the line compared with the horizontal. For every new item to be searched in STM, the line goes up 3040milliseconds on the vertical axis. Second, the lines intersect the vertical axis when the

Response time (milliseconds)

800
700
600

Negatives

500

Figure 5.4 Memory Scanning The data in this

400

Positives

300
200
100
0

Set size

graph confirm the serial exhaustive search theory. The

positive (red) line reflects the time it takes a participant
to correctly say, Yes, the probe is in my STM. The
negative (blue) line reflects the time to correctly say,
No, the probe is not in my STM when it has not been
found. The time to scan STM increases with the number
of items in memory (40 ms/item), and a participant
will take as long to scan for a positive probe as for a
negative probe because the entire list must be searched
in both cases.

128 Chapter 5 Short-Term Memory and Working Memory

set size is empty. The time at this point of interception is about 400 milliseconds.
This point of interception represents the time needed to make the overall decision, including the time to press the button and the time to read the question,
irrespective of what is in STM.
The serial exhaustive search theory shows that sometimes the correct hypothesis
runs counter to our intuitions (e.g., Roberts, & Sternberg, 1993): Who would have
thought that even after you find a probe item in STM, you would continue the search?
Serial exhaustive search makes sense, however, if you imagine that you are in a ski race
and want to see if your best friend is watching as you barrel down the hill in a slalom.
You could proceed in two ways. One way would be to follow a self-terminating search
procedure: You could ski slowly down the hill, examining each spectator until you
find your friend and then, having terminated your search, you could speed up to the
bottomundoubtedly losing the race. In contrast, following an exhaustive search
procedure, you could charge down the hill as quickly as possible while still searching
the spectators for your friend. It might take you a few seconds after you spot him or
her to be aware that your friend was actually watching you race. By that time, you
would have reached the bottom of the course. The more spectators you scan, the more
efficient is the serial exhaustive search. The serial exhaustive explanation has been
critically tested in many studies (e.g., J. A. Anderson, 1973; Theios, 1973; Townsend,
1971, 1990) and is still the dominant explanation of how we scan our STM.
These findings with healthy populations allow us to gauge the memory processes of clinical populations, such as people with Parkinsons or Alzheimers
dementia (e.g., Ferraro & Balota, 1999). Figure 5.5 shows the different slopes
1000

College

Figure 5.5 Memory Scanning Data for Different

Groups In this graph, the slope of the lines reflects the
time to compare items in memory. Individuals with
Parkinsons disease require considerably more time per
item to compare two things in memory than do healthy
high school and college students. All three groups are
equivalent in their overall time to read and respond, as
reflected by where the lines intercept the vertical axis.
Memory-scanning procedures help researchers identify
the sources of difficulty in memory retrieval as well as
to assess the effectiveness of different treatments.
Source: After Hunt, 1978

Response time (hundreds of milliseconds)

900

High school

800

Parkinsons

700
600
500
400
300
200
100
0

Set size

Short-Term Memory (STM) 129

and intercepts for three groups using this memory search task (Hunt, 1978).
You can see from this graph that although individuals with Parkinsons respond
as rapidly as typical high school students, they require considerably more time
per item to compare two things in memory. The use of this kind of standard
task enables researchers to identify sources of difficulties in memory retrieval as
well as to assess the effectiveness of different treatments. For example, if a drug
improves memory scanning, it should affect the slope of the line. However, if it
merely makes someone faster in responding, but not better at memory search, it
should affect only the intercept.

SECTION SUMMARY n n n n n n n n n n n n n n n n n n n n n n n
Short-Term Memory (STM)
Short-term memory is the memory system that contains our moment-to
moment conscious thoughts and perceptions: from admiring the beauty of a
sunset to remembering where we put our keys. STM is fleeting: Its contents
endure only as long as we are paying attention to them. The capacity of STM
increases with a persons age until it reaches a maximum of 5 to 9 meaningful
items, called chunks. These chunks reflect the continuous connection between
short-term and long-term memory. As long as we are able to rehearse, or pay
attention to the information in STM, it can reside there indefinitely. However,
without rehearsal, the information is lost from STM in about 18 seconds.
Interference among the items is the primary contributor to the loss of items
from STM. There are two types of interference: retroactive interference (new
information preventing the retrieval of old information) and proactive interference (old information preventing the recall of new information). We can
keep information in our STM by using two major kinds of rehearsal methods:
maintenance and elaborative rehearsal. Both methods keep information active
in STM, but only elaborative rehearsal promotes recall even when we stop
rehearsing.
To answer a question about the contents of their STM, people perform a
serial exhaustive search. They check each item in STM against the item mentioned in the question. Unlike reading a list of items on a piece of paper and
stopping when we have found the target, our memories are scanned completely.
The more items in STM, the longer it takes to decide whether or not a questioned item is present in memory. Different populations of people can be compared based on how much time it takes them to decide whether an individual
item is in memory and how much time it takes them to respond overall. This
information can be used to gauge the effectiveness of therapies designed to
improve STM.
n

130 Chapter 5 Short-Term Memory and Working Memory

The Serial Position Effect

When we try to remember a list of items in any order, the accuracy of our
retrieval of the items shows an interesting relationship to the original list: Items
at the beginning and end of the original list are much more likely to be remembered than items in the middle of the list. This phenomenon is called the serial
position effect because the probability of recalling an item tends to be related
to its position among other items on a list. This is illustrated in Figure 5.6 for
lists that are presented aloud and in writing. The serial position effect is found
in studies testing memory for lists of numbers, facts, states, colors, pictures,
and even ideas within paragraphs or the final scores of soccer games over an
entire season (e.g., Manning, 1980; Phillips & Christie, 1977; M. J. Watkins &
O. C. Watkins, 1974). Each memory curve in Figure 5.7 shows that the early
part of the list is remembered better than the middle part of the list. This is
called the primacy effect. Similarly, the last items on the list (those items most
recently encountered) are also remembered better than the middle items. This
is called the recency effect (Phillips & Christie, 1977). Notice that the serial
position effect holds for all of the list sizes and conditions in the graph in
Figure 5.7.
The serial position effect is another example of the interaction between shortterm memory and long-term memory. To experience this first hand, try the task
in Demonstration 5.3.

Serial Position Effect (2 seconds per item)

1.0
0.9

Figure 5.6 Serial

Source: After Beaman and

Morton, 2000

Visual presentation

0.8
0.7

Probability of recall

Position Effect The serial

position effect is found in
studies testing memory
for lists of numbers, facts,
states, colors, pictures,
and even ideas within
paragraphs or the final
scores of soccer games
over an entire season.
The ability to recall items
from a list reflects where
in the list the items come
from and whether they
arepresented in a visual
mode or an auditory
mode.

Auditory presentation

0.6
0.5
0.4
0.3
0.2
0.1
0

10

15

Serial position

20

25

The Serial Position Effect 131

1.0

0.8

Probability of recall

10-2

15-2

30-1

0.6

20-2
0.4

20-1

40-1

0.2

10

15

20

25

30

Serial position

Figure 5.7 Serial Position Curves for Lists of Different Length The graph shows a serial position

effect for all list lengths and presentation rates. The first number attached to each curve indicates
the length of the list (e.g., 10, 20, 30, or 40 items). The second number tells how many seconds each
word was presented (1 or 2 seconds).
Source: From Murdock, 1962

nnn

Demonstration 5.3

The Serial Position Effect

Memorize the following list of nine words in the correct order. You will need a clock with a
sweep-second hand and a piece of paper to cover the words on the list. You may use a maximum
of 4 seconds to memorize each word. Read the first word on the list with the rest covered, try
to memorize it for 4 seconds, and then go on to the next word. As you move on to a new item,
continue to rehearse the preceding items. Remember you have only 4 seconds. Every time you
rehearse an item, make a mark next to the word to keep track of the amount of rehearsal each
word receives. Here is the list:
BLINK

APPLE

CLEAR

DREAM

PLANT

FIELD

ALLOW

GRAIN

TROOP
When the time is up, try to recall the entire list on a separate piece of paper. Students typically
have the most marks at the beginning of the list. Next in order are the last two words on the list
(rehearsed as the person prepares to write down the list). The fewest marks are typically next
to the middle of the list.

35

40

132 Chapter 5 Short-Term Memory and Working Memory

The demonstration illustrates that the primacy portion of the curve (the first
items to be committed to memory) generally reflects more rehearsal and attention because there is nothing before them that competes for a persons attention.
This helps make these early items accessible to STM and LTM. Fewer rehearsals
of items are possible as the list increases in length (Atkinson & Shiffrin, 1969;
Tan& Ward, 2000). As a result, more attention is given to the early items than
to the later ones. In contrast, the information at the end of the list, the recency
portion, consists of words or other items that are newly placed in STM, which
makes them immediately available, but only temporarily. Students typically
recall these items immediately (e.g., Beamon & Morton, 2000).
The separation between STM and LTM has been tested in many ways. These
tests show that some learning conditions affect the first part of the serial position
effect but not the last part, while other conditions can affect the last part of the
serial position effect but not the first part. For example, if students are forced
to wait 30 seconds before trying to recall a list that they have just committed to
memory, the last few items on the listthose stored in STMwill not be easily
recalled because the delay is over 18 seconds. This phenomenon is called negative
recency (Craik, 1970). Such delays dont affect recall for the information from the
first part of the list, however, because those items are better rehearsed and are
more likely to be encoded into LTM. Negative recency is not limited to recalling
arbitrary lists of words: It has been shown to hold true for recalling commercials
during a TV show (Terry, 2005). After a delay, observers have difficulty recalling
the last few brand names touted by the most recent commercials.
Alternately, if people find it difficult to rehearse the first few items on a list,
the primacy effectmemory for the early part of the listcan be eliminated. For
example, researchers presented lists of words at fast rates (two words every second) and at slow rates (one word every 2 seconds). They found that the faster the
rate of presentation, the poorer the recall of the words at the beginning of the list,
although speed of presentation had no effect on memory for the last few items on
the list (e.g., Murdock, 1962). This speed effect can be seen if you glance back at
Figure5.7 and compare the curves for 20 items (1 second) and 20 items (2 seconds).
The ability to rehearse the first few items is critical to the serial position curve.

Implications for Memory

The serial position effect not only reflects rehearsal conditions (Bjork & Witten,
1974; Van Overschelde, 2002), it also reflects whether the items to be remembered are presented visually or auditorily. In one study, participants either read
digits silently to themselves, or listened to the digits as they were read aloud. The
results can be seen in Figure 5.6, which shows two serial position curves: one for
visual information presented to students and one for auditory information. You
can see from the figure that students had more difficulty recalling the last few
items of a list when they were visually presented (read silently to themselves)
than when they were auditorily presented (Beaman & Morton, 2000). This is
called the modality effect (Crowder & Morton, 1969; O. C. Watkins &

The Serial Position Effect 133

M.J.Watkins, 1980) because there is a different recall pattern depending on the

stimulus modality (visual or auditory) being used. This effect shows how important auditory rehearsal is to STM.
Perhaps you have noticed that immediately after someone speaks to you, the
words disappear and you must rely on your STM to understand fully what was
just said. Because of this, humans may have developed sound-based rehearsal to
keep information available for processing. In contrast, our cognitive system does
not always have to compensate for the loss of visual information because visual
events are not usually as fleeting as soundeven moving objects can be kept in
view for some time period.

Getting Around the Serial Position Effect

One way to circumvent the power of the serial position effect is to make the information distinctive, and therefore more memorable. For example, if you are studying with
a friend and want to help him remember a list of vocabulary words, you can say his
name periodically during the session (e.g., good, Eric). This will redirect your
friends attention to the new information and create the equivalent of a new list. Or,
if you are trying to remember portions of a text that you have highlighted, keep changing the color of the pen you are using; this breaks up the list of facts and makes the
first few items in the new color more memorable than they would be otherwise.
Another way around the serial position effect is to find a way to connect the
information you are trying to remember. The U-shaped curve associated with the
serial position effect is typical for items that are unrelated to each other, but not for
lists of things that are related. Suppose you are trying to remember a list of items
to buy at the grocery store. The serial position effect predicts that you are likely to
forget the items in the middle of the list within a minute. However, if you form a
visual image of each item and create a combined picture of the first item with the
second and the second with the third, and so forth, then when you get to the store,
recalling any item will help you recall the others on the list. As a result, you will
probably not show a serial position effect (Bower, 1970). You can gain firsthand
experience of this memory technique by trying Demonstration 5.4.
nnn

Demonstration 5.4

Ways Around the Serial Position Effect

Have you ever played the game my grandfather owns a grocery store and he sells . . .? This
is a game where the first person states an object in the store, and each succeeding person
repeats the already stated objects and then adds a new one to the end of the list. By creating
a mental image of each object and picturing how it connects to the preceding object on the list,
the serial position effect can be eliminateda winning strategy for the game and for improving your memory of a list of items. You can experience this effect by applying the strategy to
the following list of 15 words. To do so, form a visual image of each object and then connect
each new image to the previous one. For example, say apple and imagine an apple, say
knife and imagine a knife and an apple together, then say plate and put the appleknife
combination on the plate, and so on. The knife stabbed into the apple (maybe with a little
blood) should do the trick (e.g., Kroll & Tu, 1988)! The key factor in this demonstration is not

134 Chapter 5 Short-Term Memory and Working Memory

the use of imagery, but as we will see in Chapter 8, memory is enhanced when we create relationships among the items to be remembered. One further hint: The more bizarre the image
you create, the better the recall.
APPLE

DOOR

BOWL
RAISINS

KNIFE

BELT

PLATE

BROOM CEREAL

GLASS

TOWEL

CUP

MILK

SOAP

CRACKER

Another way around the serial position effect is simply to accept that people
will forget the ideas in the middle of a message and remember only the information at the beginning and end of messages. Commercials for prescription
medicines typically place the description of the drugs possible side effects in
the middle of the commercial. This helps to make the negative information
less memorable. The products name is spoken at the beginning and end of the
advertisement in order to make it more memorable.
SECTION SUMMARY n n n n n n n n n n n n n n n n n n n n n n n
The Serial Position Effect
The items in the middle of a list are not as likely to be recalled as those at the
beginning or end of a list and it doesnt matter whether the list is made up of TV
advertisements, introductions to people at a party, or the main points in a textbook
paragraph. This phenomenon, called the serial position effect, is represented visually as a U-shaped curve and reflects the dual operation of short-term memory
and long-term memory. It is more distinctive for auditory presentations of information than for visually based presentations; this is called the modality effect.
Each portion of the curve can be separately affected by the conditions in which
the information is presented. If information is presented rapidly, it is difficult for
a person to attend to each item so the primacy portion (first part of the curve) will
show poor performance. If a delay occurs between the time the list is presented
and the time it is recalled, the recency portion of the curve (last part of the curve)
will show poor performance. Methods exist to help individuals avoid the serial
position effect. These methods involve making each item in a list meaningful and
mentally connecting list items to one another to form a memorable image.
n

Working Memory: The Structure Beneath

Short-Term Memory
We have seen that STM behaves differently depending on whether the things to be
remembered are presented visually or auditorily, rapidly or slowly, or whether the
items activate information stored in long-term memory and where in a sequence of

Working Memory: The Structure Beneath Short-Term Memory 135

facts a critical item falls. Cognitive psychologists have developed a theory of the underlyCentral
executive
ing mechanisms of STM not only to explain
the properties of STM, but also to explain
how STM helps us interact with the world
and accomplish our goals. This emphasis on
Visuospatial
Phonological
Episodic
the active and structural aspects of STM
sketchpad
loop
buffer
began with the work of Miller, Galanter, and
Pribram (1960). They called STM working
memory to emphasize that it serves as our supVisual
Inner
port system for doing cognitive work, such as
cache
scribe
reasoning, listening, or making decisions.
Great progress in this effort to replace the
static model of STM with a more process-
oriented model of working memory was made
Visual and verbal long-term memory
by Baddeley and Hitch (1974, 1976, 1977).
They defined working memory as a limited
capacity system that allows us to store and manipulate information temporarily so Figure 5.8 Working Memory
that we can perform everyday tasks. Their model of working memory is composed System Baddeley and Hitch
of the four subsystems shown in Figure 5.8: a phonological loop, a visuospatial formulated a process-oriented
of working memory that is
sketchpad, an episodic buffer, and a central executive. The goal of the remainder model
composed of four subsystems: a
of this section is to describe the cognitive functions performed by each of these WM phonological loop, a visuospatial
components and to show how the properties of short-term memory can be explained sketchpad, an episodic buffer,
and a central executive.
by the mechanisms of working memory.
Source: After Baddeley, 2000; Logie, 1995

The Phonological Loop

Sound is a primary means of conveying information. Even when we read silently,
we often generate internal (subvocal) speech: a sound-based (phonological) representation of the visually presented words (e.g., Bookheimer, Zeffiro, Blaxton,
Gaillard, & Theodore, 1995). Like the serial position effect, sound is one of the basic
codes of STM. Not surprisingly, one of the subsystems in working memory is dedicated to the temporary storage of phonological information. This system is called
the phonological loop and it contains two components: the phonological store, a
reservoir in which an acoustic or phonological representation of the stimulus is
stored; and the articulatory control process (like maintenance rehearsal), which
automatically refreshes and maintains the elements in the phonological store. This
control process refreshes the items in the phonological loop as if they were being
rehearsed, though of course the process is subvocal, no sound is actually made.
Without the articulatory control process, the phonological store would be roughly
equivalent to the original description of STM, because without the constant activation of the articulatory control process, items to be remembered would be lost over
time. According to the WM model, the articulatory control process refreshes or
automatically gives energy to each element in roughly a 2-second cycle. Any sounds
(names, numbers, etc.) that can be repeated in 2seconds can be maintained in WM

136 Chapter 5 Short-Term Memory and Working Memory

Central executive

Articulatory control process

ce
ess

Figure 5.9 Working Memory

and the Brain Specific areas of
the brain are associated with the
functions of the phonological loop
and other subsystems of working
memory.
Revlin: Cognitive Psychology
Perm. Fig.:
New Fig.: 05-09
First Pass: 2010-09-17

Phonological loop

(Schweikert & Boruff, 1986). If a set of items requires more than

2 seconds to be repeated, some loss of information from memory
will result because there is a trade-off in WM between the rate of
loss and the rehearsal rate. When the items in the phonological loop
are numerous or difficult to pronounce, the articulatory control
process cannot keep up with refreshing all of the information in
the phonological loop: The more information you have to process,
the more information you will lose from working memory. This
aspect of WM accounts for the fact that STM capacity has a limit
because of the work required by the articulatory control process.
Neuropsychology of the Phonological Loop Specific areas

of the brain are associated with the functions of the phonological loop and other subsystems of working memory. These
are illustrated in Figure5.9. The basic storage function of the phonological loop is
associated with activity in the left parietal region (Nyberg & Cabeza, 2000; Shallice
& Vallar, 1990; Warrington, 1971). It may also connect just below the left parietal
region to the superior temporallobe (Buchsbaum & DEsposito, 2008), a central area
for language processing, which will be discussed inChapters 10 and 11. The refreshing of items within the phonological loop is associated with activity in the prefrontal
cortex (Awh, Jonides, Smith, Schaumacher, Koeppe, & Katz, 1996; Paulescu, Frith,
& Frackowiak, 1993). This part of the brain helps people understand human speech
(see Chapter 9) and is connected to an area of the cortex, called the motor area,
which gives commands to the muscles that allow us to speak. The fact that the areas
of the brain related to WM are also important to speech supports the hypothesis that
the articulatory control process is speech based. Moreover, the fact that the brain
areas associated with storage of words are separate from the area that refreshes those
words is evidence that the phonological loop is separate from the functioning of the
articulatory control process.

The Visuospatial Sketchpad

Sometimes we are called upon to remember a picture, a dance sequence, or imagine a route through a new neighborhood. The cognitive processes that are mobilized to perform these actions rely on another component of working memory:
the visuospatial sketchpad (see Figure 5.8). This WM component is responsible
for storing visually presented information such as drawings or remembering kinesthetic (motor) movements such as dance steps. For example, when you read the
word cat you see the letters and store them; however, if time permits you might
also retrieve a visual image of your favorite cat and store that in the sketchpad
along with the written letters. It works the other way as well: If you see a picture
of a cat, you may implicitly verbalize something like the word cat (Glanzer &
Clark, 1964; Smith & Larson, 1970). However, this requires the participation of
the central executive, described later. The importance of the visuospatial sketchpad is evident when reading a textbook like this one that has words, figures, and

Working Memory: The Structure Beneath Short-Term Memory 137

illustrations that are related to one another. In this case, both the
sketchpad and the phonological loop are working together to
combine the information that is presented on the page as both
words and pictures. The sketchpad maintains the visual representation of stimuli as well as their spatial position on the page
(Hegarty & Just, 1989; Schacter, Wagner, & Buckner, 2000).
The visuospatial sketchpad contains two structures: the
visual cache and the inner scribe (Logie, 1995, 2003; illustrated in
Figure5.8). The visual cache temporarily stores visual information that comes from perceptual experience and contains information about the form and color of what we perceive (Smyth
& Pendleton, 1989). And, as if it were storing a picture, it also
contains some spatial information about what is perceived. In
contrast, the inner scribe performs at least two functions. First,
it refreshes all of the stored information contained in the visuospatial sketchpad. Second, it briefly stores spatial relationships
associated with bodily movement. The two together are involved
in our common experience of visual imagery. The visual cache holds the images
and the inner scribe can manipulate them. Both require the involvement of part
of the central executive called the visual buffer to create our images (Logie, 1995;
see also Bruyer & Scailquin, 1998; Pearson, 2001). Visual imagery will be an
important topic in Chapter 8.
In an experiment to determine whether the visuospatial sketchpad and the
phonological loop are independent systems, university students were asked to
memorize a miniature checkerboard with black and white squares: a perceptual task associated with the visuospatial sketchpad (Cocchini, Logie, Della Sala,
MacPherson, & Baddeley, 2002). At the same time, the students either engaged
in a motor task (also associated with the visuospatial sketchpad) or a verbal task
(associated with the phonological loop). The motor task consisted of using a computer stylus to track a ladybug moving on a computer screen. The verbal task
required the students to repeat back an ever-changing sequence of numbers (a
typical digit-span procedure). Consistent with the concept of a visuospatial sketchpad, tracking the ladybug interfered with remembering the checkerboard (a spatial task). The digit-span task associated with the phonological loop, however,
did not interfere with remembering the checkerboard. Thus, a spatial motor task
interferes with perceptual information stored in the visuospatial sketchpad, but a
phonological task does not. These findings support the theory that the visuospatial
sketchpad and the phonological loop are separate, independent systems.
Neuropsychology of the Visuospatial Sketchpad The visuospatial sketch-

pad is represented in the brain in a manner similar to the phonological loop

(see Figure 5.9) except that it is represented primarily on the right side of
the brain (Courtney, Ungerleider, Keil, & Haxby, 1997; Smith et al, 1995).
Cognitive neuroscience provides evidence in support of the theoretical distinction between the visual cache and the inner scribe. The functioning of these

The cognitive processes that

allow us to follow and remember
a route on a map, like this one of
Montclair, New Jersey, rely on the
visuospatial sketchpad, a component of working memory.

138 Chapter 5 Short-Term Memory and Working Memory

systems is associated with separate neurological areas (Levy & Goldman-Rakic,

2000; Sala, Rama, & Courtney, 2003).
Clinical cases also provide evidence for two subsystems. In one case, an individual with a lesion in the right prefrontal cortex had difficulty remembering
spatial relationships among objects (information associated with the inner scribe),
yet had no difficulty perceiving those same objects (information associated with
the visual cache; Carlesimo, Perri, Turriziani, Tomaiuolo, & Caltagirone, 2001).
The same effect can be seen in laboratory experiments. In one study researchers
were able to knock out the ongoing electrical activity of the part of the brain
associated with the functioning of the inner scribe using a procedure called repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation (rTMS). By doing so, they were able to interfere with a volunteers ability to remember the arrangements of dots (illustrated
in Figure 5.10), but not a volunteers memory for pictures. When the researchers

Inner Scribe Processing:

The dots are presented for 0.3 seconds each, followed by a target. Participants must decide if the target was part
of the memory set.

Memory Set

rTMS Pulse

Memory Test Target

Visual Cache Processing:

The pictures are presented for 0.3 seconds each, followed by a target face. Participants must decide if the target
face was part of the memory set.

Figure 5.10 The Scribe and the Cache Are Separate Systems In this study, researchers were able to

show that the inner scribe and the visual cache are separate systems. Volunteers performed two tasks:
spatial memory for the pattern of dots (using the inner scribe) or memory for faces (using the visual cache).
When performing these tasks, volunteers had targeted areas of their brain briefly knocked out by a pulse
of repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation (rTMS). When the rTMS pulse is sent to the area where the
inner scribe functions (the dorsolateral medial prefrontal cortex) the dot pattern task is interrupted, but not
the face recognition task. In contrast, when the rTMS pulse is sent to the visual cache area (ventrolateral
prefrontal cortex), the face memory task is interrupted, but not the dot pattern memory task.
Source: Mottaghy, Gangitano, Sparing, Krause, and Pascual-Leone, 2002

Working Memory: The Structure Beneath Short-Term Memory 139

subsequently used rTMS to knock out the brain area associated with the visual
cache, they were able to interfere with memory for pictures, but not memory
for the spatial arrangements of dots (Mottaghy, Gangitano, Sparing, Krause, &
Pascual-Leone, 2002). This testing procedure demonstrates the independence of
the two components of the visuospatial sketchpad.

The Episodic Buffer

When people are engaged in a conversation, they have to keep track of what has
been said, the responses to what has been said, and their assumptions about what
individual speakers intended by their remarks. It is as if every conversation is a
ministory or episode with a beginning, middle, and end. To keep track of such
episodes, researchers argue that WM contains an episodic buffer, which acts as
an integrative system that places events occurring in the visuospatial sketchpad
and the phonological loop into a coherent sequence along with memory for the
goals that initiated those events (Baddeley, 2000, 2004). Because the episodic buffer keeps track of the sequence of sentences that are spoken to us, it isnatural to
suppose that some part of the phonological loop wouldbe connected to episodic
memory. This is just what neuroscientistshave found: The lower portion of the
parietal lobe (near where the phonological loop seems to function) acts as an
interface between episodic memory and the executive systems. Of course we
should not think that the episodic buffer is localized only to this area of the brain.
Rather we must always suppose that this part of the brain operates in coordination with other regions of the brain to perform the basic WM functioning (e.g.,
Vilberg & Rugg, 2008).
To appreciate the usefulness of the episodic buffer, remember that STM
research has found that the typical person can remember a list of about 5 to 9
unrelated words. Yet, when those words are organized as a normal sentence,
memory span increases to 15 or 16 words (Baddeley, Vallar, & Wilson, 1987).
This phenomenon is most evident in people whose attention is working well
(Baddeley & Wilson, 2002). The episodic buffer strings the sounds and words
together to form a connected, time-based sequence to hold the words together as
a sentence (as when we are able to chunk a sequence of words). It is the episodic
buffer that also accounts for how people remember lists of unrelated items (not
in a sentence), which was described earlier as the serial position effect.
The concept of the episodic buffer helps us to understand an oddity in the
clinical literature. There are individuals who suffer from a kind of amnesia
that affects their short-term memory. Their memory span might be one or two
unrelated words presented either aurally or visually. They cant repeat back
more words than that and they have a great deal of difficulty understanding
what is going on around them. However, if they are presented with words that
form a sentence, the number of words they are able to repeat is often doubled
(Baddeley & Wilson, 2002). This suggests that there is a sequencing process that
is able to hold items together with a kind of time-based glue. This sequence
works through the episodic buffer. The episodic buffer does not seem to have a

140 Chapter 5 Short-Term Memory and Working Memory

unique area of the brain that performs its functions. It is probably redundantly
represented in a number of places (Baddeley, 2002). This is sensible because the
buffer is called upon to organize so many systems.

The Central Executive

According to Baddeleys model, working memory contains a fourth component, the central executive, which coordinates the activities of the visuospatial
sketchpad, phonological loop, and episodic buffer, and also communicates
with long-term memory via the episodic buffer (Baddeley, 1998, 2002). The
central executive is not a memory store: It is a control system that guides
attention and allocates resources to maximize performance. The attention
system was discussed in Chapter 3 along with the basic spotlight metaphor.
Sometimes the spotlight is moved by automatic processes and other times by
more controlled processes. The central executive is the main system for controlling attention.
Researchers have designed a task to test the central executives effectiveness
in different people (Daneman & Carpenter, 1980, 1983; Daneman & Merikle,
1996). In this task, participants are supposed to read a series of short sentences
and remember the last word of each sentence. Then they are tested on how many
of the last words they are able to recall. The number of such words that a participant is able to recall reflects the ability of the central executive to control two
tasks at once: reading sentences and remembering unrelated words. WM span,
which basically determines WM efficiency (Turner & Engle, 1989), varies among
people and correlates with standard measures of fluid intelligence (the ability
to reason and make decisions on the fly; Kyllonen & Christal, 1990). As we will
see in the chapters on language, WM span also predicts reading comprehension
(Conway, Kane, & Engle, 2003; Swanson & Jerman, 2007).
The central executive coordinates, manipulates, and updates the content of
the WM divisions (Baddeley & Logie, 1999). In general, executive functions,
such as planning and paying attention, are centered in this area of the prefrontal
cortex where the central executive is identified (see Figure 5.9). People who
have damage to this region suffer an inability to plan an action (Owen, Evans,
& Petrides, 1996), difficulty attending to relevant aspects of their environment,
or difficulty handling multiple tasks at once (DEsposito, Detre, Alsop, & Shin,
1995).
A test that measures central executive functioning is the Paced Auditory
Serial Addition Task (PASAT; see Figure 5.11). The PASAT requires participants to add aurally presented consecutive numbers at a rate of about 2.4 seconds
per number and announce the sum. This is more difficult than you might assume
because the participant must not confuse the addition that he or she has just
stated aloud with the next number presented. For example, if the first number
is 4 and the second number is 6, the answer is 10. If the third number is 3, the
answer is 9 (6 1 3). The participant must resist the temptation to say 13 (10 13;
Gronwall, 1977).

Working Memory: The Structure Beneath Short-Term Memory 141

A persons score on this test is the number

4
6
3
8
2
of correct additions. This test makes only minor Presented
sequence
demands on arithmetic knowledge, but puts a premium on the individuals ability to do three things
at once: add two numbers, keep track of the previously presented digit in working memory, and
inhibit the sum of the previous two digits. The
10
9
11
10
PASAT score relates to central executive functioning in the real world and is positively corre- Correct
lated with a persons level of vigilance: his or her responses
(4 + 6) (6 + 3) (3 + 8) (8 + 2)
ability to detect the presence of unlikely events
(Weber, 1988). It also relates somewhat to a persons IQ (Spreen & Strauss, 1991; Wiens, Fuller,
10
13
21
23
& Crossen, 1997). The PASAT has a diagnostic Incorrect
responses
use: People who have recently suffered a concus- showing
sion have greatly diminished PASAT perfor- effects of
(correct) (10 + 3) (13 + 8) (21 + 2)
mances (Erlanger, Kutner, Barth, & Barnes, 1999; concussion
Gronwall & Sampson, 1974).
It has already been mentioned that the PASAT is a measure of central exec- Figure 5.11 The PASAT
utive functioning. Most studies indicate that both age and intelligence affect Procedure The Paced Auditory
Addition Task (PASAT)
performance on the PASAT. In general, older people (50-year-olds) perform Serial
measures central executive
worse than younger people (20-year-olds), and those with higher IQ scores have functioning. It requires
stronger PASAT performance than those with lower IQ scores (Wiens et al., participants to add aurally
1997). These effects suggest a biological basis for the efficiency of the central presented consecutive numbers
a rate of about 2.4 seconds
executive in working memory. Added to this is the effect of brain trauma on at
per number and announce the
central executive functioning. Not only is the PASAT sensitive to the changes sum. The difficulty is that the
in cognitive functioning that result from concussions, it is also sensitive to more participant must not confuse
permanent cognitive damage following traumatic brain injury (Sohlberg & the addition he or she has just
stated aloud with the next
Mateer, 1989).
number presented. The PASAT
A word of caution is useful here. Although it is easy to point to the function- score relates to central executive
ing of the frontal lobes as the location of the central executive, we must remem- functioning in the real world
ber that the frontal lobes are connected toso many other areas of the brain that and is positively correlated with
persons level of vigilance.
we can be confident neuropsychological research will show that additional areas aThe
test also has a diagnostic
outside the frontal lobes are likely to contribute to executive control.
use: People who have recently
SECTION SUMMARY n n n n n n n n n n n n n n n n n n n n n n n
Working Memory: The Structure Beneath Short-Term Memory
Most cognitive researchers view short-term memory as reflecting a set of structures and processes called working memory. The working memory model consists
of four divisions interacting with each other: the phonological loop, visuospatial
sketchpad, episodic buffer, and central executive. The first three of these are
limited-capacity memory structures that hold different representations of what
we experience: sounds, visual and kinesthetic images, and sequential patterns that
coordinate these representations. The central executive is responsible for attending

suffered a concussion show

greatly diminished PASAT
performances.
Source: After Gronwall, 1977

142 Chapter 5 Short-Term Memory and Working Memory

to each of the memory systems and ensuring that any event we experience is properly coded so that it may be retained and used. Many functions of working memory are performed in the parietal lobe and prefrontal cortex. Neurological studies
have shown that the processing of each subsystem is performed in distinct areas
of the brain, except for the episodic buffer, which seems to be redundantly represented in a number of places because it participates in so many memory functions. Neuropsychological findings have provided evidence for the functional
independence of the working memory systems.
n

Phenomena Explained by Working Memory

The following applications of the WM model illustrate how the four components
of working memory function to explain three typical findings associated with
STM: phonological confusions, word-length effect, and irrelevant speech effect.

Phonological Confusions
Phonological confusions occur when people try to remember lists of words or
sentences (such as might occur in a poem) and find that their memory is worse
for items that sound alike than for items that sound different. As a result, the
person trying to remember a series of words or letters that sound alike will be
judged to have a smaller STM span than a person trying to remember a sequence
that does not sound alike. You can experience phonological confusion by trying
Demonstration 5.5.
nnn

Demonstration 5.5

Phonological Confusions
Read aloud the string of seven letters in Set 1 as rapidly as you can, then close your eyes and try
to recall the string of letters in the correct order.
Set 1: P-G-T-C-D-Z-B

Now do the same for Set 2.

Set 2: R-H-X-S-F-M-K

If you are like most adults, Set 1 felt like you were reading a tongue twister and typically takes
longer to read than Set 2. How well were you able to remember each string? When people are
asked to repeat back the letters, in exact order, Set 1 is more difficult to remember than Set 2.

Phonological confusion occurs not only when the letters are presented aloud,
but also when they are presented visually (Conrad & Hull, 1964; Wickelgren,
1964). Working memory provides two explanations for these sound-based confusions. First, when the articulatory control process rehearses the phonological codes
of the letters, it may confuse similar sounds and rehearse one sound or word more
than the other because it cant tell which one it has already rehearsed. Second, these

Phenomena Explained by Working Memory 143

confusions occur even when the letters are visually presented because the central
executive transfers a copy of the visual items to the phonological loop in the form of
a phonological code. Once again, the articulatory control process becomes confused
in its rehearsal of the sounds (Larsen, Baddeley, & Andrade, 2000).

Word-Length Effect
You have probably noticed that when you try to memorize vocabulary in a foreign language, the long words are more difficult to remember than the short
ones. This pervasive phenomenon, investigated years ago by Hawkins and
Shigley (1970), is termed the word-length effect: STM span decreases as the
length of words to be memorized increases. For example, when students are
asked to repeat one-syllable words like mumps, Maine, and zinc, they are
considerably more accurate than when they are asked to repeat words like
tuberculosis, Yugoslavia, and aluminum (Baddeley, Thomson, &
Buchanan, 1975). How does working memory explain this effect? Words with
more syllables increase the number of sounds the articulatory control process
must rehearse. Notice that long words not only have more syllables than short
ones, they take longer to pronounce. To experience how time to pronounce
affects your phonological loop, try Demonstration 5.6.
nnn

D emonstration 5.6

Word-Length Effect
Read the words in Set 1 aloud as rapidly as you can. As soon as you finish, write down all the
words you can remember. Then, do the same for Set 2.
Set 1: COERCE, HUMANE, MORPHINE, MOONBEAM, ZYGOTE, BASEBALL, PAINTING
Set 2: TABLE, EMBER, HACKLE, PILLOW, WIGGLE, CLEVER, TENNIS

Did you remember more or fewer words from Set 1? The two sets of words have the same
number of syllables. However, when you pronounced them aloud you should have noticed that
the syllables in Set 1 take longer to say than those in Set 2. Pronouncing the syllables in Set
1 exceeds the roughly 2 seconds for the articulatory control process. As a result, most people
remember more words from Set 2 than from Set 1.

To study the relationship between word length and the time to rehearse, Baddeley
et al. (1975) created word sets that had the same number of syllables and letters, but
took different amounts of time to pronounce in English, as is the case with the words in
Demonstration 5.6. Participants were better at pronouncing and remembering words
with short sounds (e.g., PICKET) than words with long sounds (e.g., PARLOR).
A rule of thumb for estimating a persons memory span is: If the articulatory control
process can rehearse an item within 2 seconds, it will be retained in the phonological loop.
It is this time-based limitation imposed by the articulatory control process that sets
the limit for the capacity of short-term memory. The typical memory capacity of 7
items, mentioned earlier in the chapter, is really the consequence of how long it takes
to say the names of the items (e.g., Avons, Wright, & Pammer, 1994). For example,

144 Chapter 5 Short-Term Memory and Working Memory

Mandarin-speaking adults show a greater memory

span for digits than do English-speaking adults (9.9
vs. 6.6 items). This perfectly coincides with how rapidly the two groups can articulate numbers. Mandarin
speakers are faster at repeating numbers than English
speakers (265 vs. 321 ms/digit; Ellis & Hennelly, 1980;
Hoosain & Salili, 2005). Working memory shows that
the speed of articulation is the key to the capacity of
short-term memory.

Irrelevant Speech Effect

A background conversation may
reduce what you are able to recall
after studying. This irrelevant
speech effect happens only when
the background sounds are the
same as the sounds you are trying
to remember: Speech interferes
with reading but music does not.

Suppose you are intensely studying a text and two

people are having a conversation nearby. Although
this background conversation is irrelevant to what you need to learn, it may reduce
what you are able to recall in comparison to a situation when you are able to study
in silence (Neath, 2000). The ability of inconsequential background speech to interfere with silent verbal rehearsal is called the irrelevant speech effect (Colle & Welsh,
1976). It can occur even when the language being spoken is different from the
language of the text you are reading. This is because the speech sounds from the
irrelevant speech enter the phonological loop and are added to the sounds associated with the words that you are trying to remember. Just like the word-length
effect, sometimes the phonological loop holds so many speech sounds that the
articulatory control process cant rehearse them in under 2 seconds.
Fortunately for people who like to listen to music when they study or balance
their checkbook, the irrelevant speech effect occurs only when the irrelevant sounds
are in the same category as those sounds that people are trying to remember: Speech
will interfere with reading, but musical notes will not interfere with reading unless
lyrics are embedded in the music (Salame & Baddeley, 1989). There are differences
between men and women in the effect of lyrics and music: Women are more
sensitive to the meaning of lyrics when they are embedded in music than men.
The opposite is true when lyrics are presented in written form (Iverson, Reed,
& Revlin, 1989).
SECTION SUMMARY n n n n n n n n n n n n n n n n n n n n n n n
Phenomena Explained by Working Memory
Baddeleys model of working memory is able to explain many of the unusual
phenomena associated with short-term memory: phonological confusion, wordlength effect, and irrelevant speech effect. All of these effects are related to
how WM codes what we see and hear and how the visuospatial sketchpad, the
phonological loop, and the central executive retain information. All of these
STM effects are connected to the way the articulatory control process of the
phonological loop is able to maintain the viability of the information.
n

Working Memory and Emotion 145

Working Memory and Emotion

Everyone experiences stressful events, but some life stressors are so extreme that
they intrude unexpectedly into everyday thoughts and compete for working
memory resources (Klein & Boals, 2001b). Efforts to suppress negative or stressful thoughts compete with WM resources to deal with ordinary tasks such as
reasoning, remembering, and problem solving (e.g., Baradell & Klein, 1993).
One reason for this is that emotional stimuli capture our attention and tell us
they are important in ways that nonemotional stimuli often do not. This is
called the attentional capture hypothesis (Yantis, 1993). These emotional stimuli
could be anything from seeing a threatening face, reading a taboo word, or
something that signals danger (e.g., Holmes, Vuilleumier, & Eimer, 2003;
Mackay, Shafto, & Taylor, 2004; Taylor & Fragopanagos, 2005). Emotional
events in our lives can be relentless in dominating our thoughts and consuming
our WM resources (e.g., Mikels, Reuter-Lorenz, Beyer, & Frederickson, 2008).
The relationship between emotional events, life stress, and WM capacity was
examined in an experiment designed by Sarason, Johnson, and Siegel (1979).
College students were asked to complete the Life Experiences Scale (Sarason
et. al., 1979), which lists 47 significant life events (death of a family member,
obtaining a new job, etc.). The students were also asked to take a WM test. On
the test, students read a simple equation and marked the answer true or false.
Each equation was followed by a different word that the student was expected
to remember (e.g., 4 3 2 5 6, back). After reviewing sets of two to seven
problems, students were asked to write down all the words paired with the
equations that they could remember. The people with the greatest life event
stress performed the poorest on this task. The higher the number of stressful
events in ones life, the greater the demands on WM and the poorer the performance on WM-relevant tasks.
In a related study, Klein and Boals (2001a) asked college undergraduates
to write either an essay about a negative event they had unwanted thoughts
about, or an essay about a positive event in their lives. A control group of students was asked to write an essay about the day they were having. Students
wrote for 20 minutes a total of three times over a 2-week period. At the end
of the study, the students WM capacity was measured and compared to their
WM score when the study began. Students who had been asked to write about
a negative event showed an 11% increase in WM capacity. Those who had
written about a positive experience and those in the control group showed
less than a 4% improvement in their WM score. This finding suggests that
images of negative or traumatic experiences often intrude on our thoughts
and tax WMs ability to inhibit the negative event so that we can focus on the
tasks before us.
Writing the essay allowed the students to understand the negative emotional
events and organize their thoughts about them. The negative thoughts were
then less likely, in Kleins (2011) words: to come unbidden to our conscious
minds. This allowed the central executive to operate more efficiently on the

146 Chapter 5 Short-Term Memory and Working Memory

WM tasks, resulting in an improved score. Klein and Boals (2001b) further

showed that this has a lasting effect. Those students who showed the greatest
improvement in WM score also had the highest college grades a semester after
the study was completed. These findings support the belief that emotions can
tax the resources of the central executive and also underscore the possible value
of keeping a diary.
The influence of emotion on the central executive can help explain cognitive
impairments that are often attributed to neurological deficits. Cognitive impairments related to multiple sclerosis (MS) are a case in point. MS is a disorder of
the central nervous system that results in the destruction of the white matter
(in particular, the myelin) in the brain. More than a million people worldwide
suffer from MS. In advanced stages of the disease, individuals with MS experience difficulty in processing information (Archibald & Fisk, 2000; Lengenfelder,
Chiaravalloti, Ricker, & DeLuca, 2003). DEsposito et al. (1996) asked participants with MS and a control group of healthy participants to perform concurrent
tasks like judging the angle of lines while humming, tapping, or reciting the
alphabet. The more difficult the concurrent task, the more impaired the participants with MS were in comparison with the control group.
Some of these findings may be the result of the negative emotions that
individuals with MS experience as a result of their unpredictable and often
debilitating condition, rather than neurological deficits resulting from the
disease. In an independent test of depression and WM capacity, researchers
found that depressed individuals with MS had a lower WM capacity than
nondepressed individuals with MS or nondepressed individuals without MS
(Arnett et al., 1999). This suggests that some of the effect of neurological
diseases on WM may be a result of the emotional reaction and psychological
state of the individual with MS, rather than a direct effect of the neurological
damage.
Positive emotions should have a beneficial effect on WM because we know
that happy moods are related to the flow of the neurotransmitter dopamine to
the frontal lobes (Ashby, Isen, & Turken, 1999; Berk et al., 1989), which results
in improved problem-solving abilities. However, positive moods do not seem
to have as consistent an effect as negative moods. In one study, participants
watched a comedy film or ate candy. As a result, they showed improvement
in creative problem solving (Isen, Daubman, & Nowicki, 1987). However, the
opposite results were shown in another study in which students, who watched
a comedy film and experienced a positive mood as a result, showed poorer
performance on tasks that required central executive functioning (Oaksford,
Morris, Grainger, & Williams, 1996). Although positive moods have different
effects on working memory, we know that negative moods diminish working memory. This may be because negative mood has a direct influence on
blood flow to various regions of the brain having to do with memory and learning (e.g., Bush, Luu, & Posner, 2000; Liotti, Mayberg, McGinnis, Brannan, &
Jerabek, 2002).

Chapter Summary 147

SECTION SUMMARY n n n n n n n n n n n n n n n n n n n n n n n
Working Memory and Emotion
Our emotions interrupt the continuous flow of cognitive processes and affect the
efficiency of working memory. In particular, negative thoughts compete for WM
resources. The more stress in ones life, the lower the efficiency of WM in performing simple cognitive tasks. Students who performed exercises that reduced
the intrusion of negative thoughts showed an increase in their WM capacity. The
decline in WM capacity shown by some people with multiple sclerosis may be
a result of their depression in reaction to having the disease, rather than to the
direct effect of the neurological damage associated with the disease. Mood states
(positive or negative) can have an influence on the neurotransmitter dopamine,
which in turn can affect problem solving.
n

CHAP TER SUMMAR Y

Memory, broadly speaking, refers to our ability to retain
information. Short-term memory (STM) is a memory
system that allows us to retain items for a short period
of time and may form the basis of our long-term memory and knowledge. STM is a limited-capacity system
that increases from childhood to adulthood. The typical
adults STM span is between 5 and 9 unrelated items,
called chunks. The amount of information that can be
grouped as a chunk depends on whether a person is
able to find a way of relating the items to one another
and to what is already stored in long-term memory.
People are able to retain information in STM for about
18 seconds without paying attention to it. Rehearsal
(paying attention) helps to keep items in STM. There
are two major types of rehearsal: maintenance and elaborative. Only elaborative rehearsal makes it easier to
store new information in long-term memory. A major
source of forgetting in STM is the interference among
the items to be retained. The basis of interference is
determined by the coding of the items. The major code
in STM is sound based. People are able to verify the
contents of their STM by using an exhaustive search
procedure. The Sternberg task, which measures STM
search, allows researchers to assess the effects of drugs
and other treatments on memory.
Long-term memory and short-term memory interact when we try to remember a list of things in the
precise order in which the list was presented. In this
case, the proportion of the information we are able to

recall tends to be related to the position of the items on

the list. This phenomenon is called the serial position
effect. According to the serial position effect, items at
the beginning and end of a list are recalled more easily
and accurately than items in the middle of the list. One
way to overcome the power of the serial position effect
is to make the information in the middle of a list more
distinctive or to find a way to relate the items.
Short-term memory is a global term that describes
a host of memory mechanisms that are called upon
to help us interact with the world. An entire system of cognitive processes exists below the surface,
which works to make STM visible and allows us to
solve problems, make decisions, and remember and
retrieve facts. This system is called working memory
(WM). It is a multicomponent system composed of
three limited-capacity subsystems: a phonological
loop, a visuospatial sketchpad, and an episodic buffer.
In addition, there is an attentional system calledthe
central executive that coordinates the activities of
theother subsystems. The coordination of these subsystems contributes to our smooth performance in
reciting a poem or playing a sport, and explains selective impairments to memory that result from damage to various parts of the human brain, especially the
frontal and parietal lobes.
WM components are able to explain three basic phenomena associated with STM. Phonological confusions
result from similar sounding words being rehearsed

148 Chapter 5 Short-Term Memory and Working Memory

by the articulatory control process in the phonological loop, as well as visually presented words in the
visuospatial sketchpad. The word-length effect results
from some words requiring more time to rehearse,
which exceeds the refresh rate of the articulatory control process. The irrelevant speech effect occurs when
unfiltered speech sounds enter into the phonological
loop and therefore add more items to be rehearsed.

Nonspeech sounds like a melody do not contribute to

the irrelevant speech effect.
Human emotion can influence the flow of blood and
neurotransmitters to brain areas that are critical for the
optimal functioning of WM. Negative affect and depression can reduce WM capacity and interfere with cognitive performance. Positive mood has, in some cases, been
shown to increase problem-solving effectiveness.

KEY TERMS
learning, p. 119
memory, p. 119
short-term memory
(STM), p. 119
working memory (WM),
p. 119
chunks, p. 122
chunking, p. 122
retroactive interference,
p. 125

proactive interference,
p.125
rehearsal, p. 126
maintenance rehearsal,
p. 126
elaborative rehearsal,
p.126
serial exhaustive search,
p. 127
serial position effect, p. 130

primacy effect, p. 130

recency effect, p. 130
negative recency, p. 132
modality effect, p. 132
phonological loop, p. 135
phonological store, p. 135
articulatory control
process, p. 135
visuospatial sketchpad,
p. 136

visual cache, p. 137

inner scribe, p. 137
episodic buffer, p. 139
central executive, p. 140
phonological confusion,
p. 142
word-length effect, p. 143
irrelevant speech effect,
p. 144

Q UESTIONS FOR RE VIEW

Check Your Knowledge

1. What is the definition of learning?

2. What is the relationship between learning and
memory?
3. State the three questions that scientists ask
regarding short-term/working memory.
4. What are the answers to these questions with
regard to STM?
5. Do children have the same STM capacity as
young adults or older adults?
6. What is the memory span test?
7. What is a chunk and how is it related to STM
capacity?
8. How is chunking helped by long-term memory?
9. What are the two categories of interference? Give
an example of each one.

10. What are the two categories of rehearsal? Which

one improves storage in LTM?
11. What search procedure do we use when we
search our STM for a particular item?
12. If you graph the time to scan STM, what does the
slope of the curve tell you?
13. If you are given a drug that doesnt affect the
slope of the curve but only affects where the curve
intercepts the vertical axis, what has the drug
done?
14. When you read a paragraph and are tested on
your recall of it right away, which part of the
paragraph will you recall best: the beginning,
middle, or end? What is this pattern called?
15. How can you improve your recall for the
different parts of a paragraph?

Questions for Review 149

16. What are the four main components of working

memory?
17. In which portion of WM do we rehearse the
sounds of words? What is the typical rehearsal
rate for this part of WM?
18. How does the rehearsal rate affect STM capacity?
19. What are the two parts of the visuospatial
sketchpad and what are their main functions?
20. Why does a concussion affect a persons ability to
pay attention? What part of WM is affected by
concussions?
21. What system is responsible for keeping track of
steps in problem solving and where you are in a
conversation?
22. What are phonological confusions?
23. What is the word-length effect?
24. What is the irrelevant speech effect?
25. How do our emotions affect our STM capacity?
Apply Your Knowledge

1. Using Baddeley and Hitchs theory of working

memory, how can you account for the claim that
adult STM capacity is 7 plus or minus 2?
2. The serial position effect is seen even when people
are trying to remember the main points discussed
in a paragraph. Design an instructional method to
help students avoid falling prey to the effect when
they are reading a textbook.
3. Some people are able to read with the radio
or TV on in the background. This fact seems
to conflict with the irrelevant speech effect
predictions discussed in this chapter. Using
what you have learned about the subsystems of
working memory, explain how some people are
able to avoid the effect.
4. As discussed in the text, some people with MS
have difficulty with central executive functioning.
This may be the result of an emotional reaction
to a neurological problem rather than a direct
physical effect of that problem. How might it
be possible for a clinician to determine when
memory difficulties result from emotional rather
than physical causes?