Working Memory

This chapter presents a body of new experimental evidence, which provides a firm basis for the working memory hypothesis. The chapter presents a series of experiments on the role of memory in reasoning, language comprehension, and learning. An attempt is made to apply the comparable techniques in all three cases to allow a common pattern to emerge, if the same working memory system is operative in all three instances. The chapter makes a case for postulating the working memory-LTS system as a modification of the current STS-LTS view. Working memory represents a control system with limits on both its storage and processing capabilities, and has access to phonemically coded information (possibly by controlling a rehearsal buffer), that it is responsible for the limited memory span, but does not underlie the recency effect in free recall. The experiments presented in the chapter suggest that the phonemic rehearsal buffer plays a limited role in this process, but is by no means essential. These experiments also suggest that working memory plays a part in verbal reasoning and in prose comprehension. Understanding the detailed role of working memory in these tasks, however, must proceed hand-in-hand with an understanding of the tasks themselves.