June 1, 2002
View Full PaperIs working memory still working
Key Points
- The review examines the current understanding of the multicomponent working memory model and its subsystems.
- Analysis of existing literature on the phonological and visuospatial subsystems
- Review of challenges in interpreting central executive functions
- Discussion of the newly proposed episodic buffer.
- Extensive investigation of phonological and visuospatial systems has clarified their roles.
- The central executive is proposed to be a limited capacity attentional system.
- Integration of information from subsystems has been linked to long-term memory processes.
Abstract
The current state of A.D. Baddeley and G.J. Hitch's (1974) multicomponent working memory model is reviewed. The phonological and visuospatial subsystems have been extensively investigated, leading both to challenges over interpretation of individual phenomena and to more detailed attempts to model the processes underlying the subsystems. Analysis of the controlling central executive has proved more challenging, leading to a proposed clarification in which the executive is assumed to be a limited capacity attentional system, aided by a newly postulated fourth system, the episodic buffer. Current interest focuses most strongly on the link between working memory and long-term memory and on the processes allowing the integration of information from the component subsystems. The model has proved valuable in accounting for data from a wide range of participant groups under a rich array of task conditions. Working memory does still appear to be working.