Explorations into working memory : Functional architecture, relationships with personality, and training mechanisms
Waris, Otto (2018-06-04)
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Waris, Otto
Åbo Akademi - Åbo Akademi University
04.06.2018
Julkaisu on tekijänoikeussäännösten alainen. Teosta voi lukea ja tulostaa henkilökohtaista käyttöä varten. Käyttö kaupallisiin tarkoituksiin on kielletty.
Julkaisun pysyvä osoite on
https://urn.fi/URN:ISBN:978-952-12-3712-6
https://urn.fi/URN:ISBN:978-952-12-3712-6
Tiivistelmä
Working memory (WM) is defined as a short-term memory system that handles the storage and processing of information that is currently active in the mind. It is thus crucial for conscious planning and predicts several real-world outcomes. Due to the central role that WM has in human behavior, it has attracted considerable research interest. Several theoretical models have aimed to describe its functional building blocks, and studies have examined different factors such as personality and alertness that could influence WM performance. Moreover, its trainability with the help of computerized tasks has evoked great interest during the last decade. The present thesis examined all these three topics related to WM: its functional structure, relationships with personality, as well WM training and its mechanisms.
Study I investigated the functional structure of WM through factor analytic means. It focused on the distinctions between different processes (maintenance, updating) and content (verbal, visuospatial) in WM. The results confirmed that a fundamental division in WM goes along its verbal and visuospatial contents, while the often proposed maintenance vs. updating processes were not clearly discernible. A general factor nevertheless emerged, which all WM task performances loaded on. This factor could represent content-general control processes, effective and fast adaptation to novel tasks and situations, or some other aspect of processing that is more strongly related to a certain WM task paradigm (n-back) that loaded strongly on this factor.
Study II examined whether the Big Five personality traits were associated with WM performance. Both a review of the earlier literature and an empirical study showed a lack of robust direct associations.
Studies III-V investigated the effects of WM training, focusing on near transfer effects, that is, performance improvements on untrained WM tasks. Studies III and IV indicated that the magnitude of transfer was related to the similarity between the trained and transfer tasks. Study V showed that just a single session of n-back WM training with an externally provided effective strategy could produce similar near transfer effects as longer-lasting ordinary WM training, and that self-generated strategies for a WM task were related to performance on the same task. Taken together, limited transfer patterns and strong strategy-related effects suggest that WM training effects are mainly mediated by the development of task-specific strategies, rather than an increase in the actual capacity of WM.
Study I investigated the functional structure of WM through factor analytic means. It focused on the distinctions between different processes (maintenance, updating) and content (verbal, visuospatial) in WM. The results confirmed that a fundamental division in WM goes along its verbal and visuospatial contents, while the often proposed maintenance vs. updating processes were not clearly discernible. A general factor nevertheless emerged, which all WM task performances loaded on. This factor could represent content-general control processes, effective and fast adaptation to novel tasks and situations, or some other aspect of processing that is more strongly related to a certain WM task paradigm (n-back) that loaded strongly on this factor.
Study II examined whether the Big Five personality traits were associated with WM performance. Both a review of the earlier literature and an empirical study showed a lack of robust direct associations.
Studies III-V investigated the effects of WM training, focusing on near transfer effects, that is, performance improvements on untrained WM tasks. Studies III and IV indicated that the magnitude of transfer was related to the similarity between the trained and transfer tasks. Study V showed that just a single session of n-back WM training with an externally provided effective strategy could produce similar near transfer effects as longer-lasting ordinary WM training, and that self-generated strategies for a WM task were related to performance on the same task. Taken together, limited transfer patterns and strong strategy-related effects suggest that WM training effects are mainly mediated by the development of task-specific strategies, rather than an increase in the actual capacity of WM.
Kokoelmat
- 515 Psykologia [49]