An assessment of visuo-spatial and phonological components of working memory

Date

1997-12

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Publisher

Texas Tech University

Abstract

In 1974, Baddeley and Hitch proposed a model of working memory that consisted of a central executive and two slave systems: the phonological loop and the visuo-spatial scratchpad. Since that time, much research(e.g., Baddeley, Lewis, & Vallar, 1984; Kyllonen, 1993) has been completed to provide evidence for the existence of these three components. However, one area that has not been investigated is the role that each of the slave systems contributes to span measures of working memory. Therefore, four studies were conducted to determine the effects of manipulating the contribution of the slave system that was not apparently activated by the task under investigation. The primary hypothesis was that as the contribution of the slave system not under investigation increases, span measures increase as well. A number of secondary hypotheses conceming gender and the relationship between span measures and standardized test scores also were investigated.

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