What makes our everyday life very simple? What helps us to know what is happening now, what we are thinking now and what we are doing now? We are aware of the present moment or any changes in this moment, and this ability helps us in functioning effectively to face immediate environmental changes in our everyday life. This ability is called the Working Memory. The term working memory was coined by Miller, Galanter, and Pribram in 1960 (Baddeley, 2003). It refers to the temporary storage in the brain for manipulation of necessary information to execute cognitive tasks. According to Baddeley and Hitch’s study (1974), working memory comprises three main components, a control system, the central executive and two storage systems, the visuospatial sketchpad and the phonological loop (as cited in Baddeley, 2003). The phonological loop stores and processes the auditory inputs while visuospatial sketchpad stores and processes visual inputs in working memory. The visuospatial sketchpad can be divided into visual subsystems and spatial subsystems. It constructs and manipulates visual images and it represents Visual Working Memory (VWM).
Many recent studies focused to study neural correlation and functional organization of working memory encoding through different tasks. They were able to locate the activities in the specific parts of the brain during visual working memory task in sighted participants using Electrophysiological recording. They observed activation of brain areas associated with the processing of visual stimuli and it fascinated many researchers to observe the brain activation for the different modality tasks in blind participants. During their studies they reported crossmodal activation of occipital brain structures in blin...
... middle of paper ...
...l MRI
In addition to the MEG data, T1-weighted structural MRIs were obtained for all the participants. The data were acquired on a 3 Tesla system (Siemens Magnetom Trio). For source reconstruction, individual single-shell models were derived from the segmentation of these structural MRIs.
Source Reconstruction:
All kinds of data were analyzed using Matlab with custom scripts and the open source Matlab-toolboxes Field Trip and SPM2. A linear beamforming approach was applied to estimate the spectral amplitude and phase of neural population signals at the cortical source level (Gross, Kujala, Hamalainen, Timmermann, Schnitzler and Salmelin, 2001; Siegel et al, 2008). This source reconstruction technique used an adaptive spatial filter, which passed activity from one specific location of interest with unit gain and maximally suppresses activity from other locations.
According to Baddeley and Hitch (1974) what constitutes as working memory can be divided into four distinct components which contribute to the processes of memory. They are the phonological loop, the visual spatial sketchpad, the episodic buffer and the central executive (in Passer, Smith, Holt, Bremner, Vliek, 2009).
First, let us look at the electroencephalogram (EEG), which is based on recordings of electrical brain activity with millisecond temporal resolution and it provides “the most direct measure correlate of ongoing brain processing that can be obtained non-invasively (Johnsrude and Hauk, 2010, p. 28). The ba...
The Effects of Levels of Processing on Memory PB1: Identify the aim of the research and state the experimental/alternative hypothesis/es. (credited in the report mark scheme) To show how different levels of processing affects the memory. “People who process information deeply (i.e. semantic processing) tend to remember more than those who process information shallowly (i.e. visual processing). ” PB2: Explain why a directional or non-directional experimental/alternative hypothesis/es has been selected. (I mark) I have used a directional experimental hypothesis because past research, such as that by Craik and Tulving (1975) has proved this. PB3:
How does memory affect the way in which history is viewed? Memory is based on a series of decisions on what is worth remembering and what should be forgotten. It is a process of suppressing history that is unbearable or difficult, yet it is also about reflecting on what is misunderstood. Memory is formed through several influencing factors and elements; Memory can be formed by the study of pop culture and icons, which often propose a reexamination of difficult and repressed memories. Memory is also influenced through exclusions and biases. These can be racially or politically motivated, but they could also derive from personal or cultural trauma. Recorded history such as textbooks, novels,
Memory is a group of related mental processes that are involved in acquiring, storing, and retrieving information (Hockenberry and Hocenberry page 232). I will be addressing two specific types of memory: short-term memory and long-term memory. Short-term memory holds temporary information transferred from sensory memory or long-term memory. Sensory memory is the first stage of memory and obtains information for a brief amount of time. Short-term memory is also called active memory and is stored in the prefrontal cortex which is the most active part of the brain during an activity. Short-term memory can hold information for roughly twenty seconds, but sensory memory holds information for a shorter amount of time. We usually store things such
Cognitive activities, such as reasoning and learning need a mental space to control and operate. Working memory model raised by Baddely and Hitch (1974) firstly gave the idea that a central executive in the brain coordinates the activities of two slave systems which are phonological loop and visuospatial sketchpad, to manipulate cognitive information. Based on that, a huge number of researchers were then trying to explore how cognitive activities are manipulated mentally in terms of information storage and their production. Phonological loop, or in other words, verbal working memory, was intensely investigated throughout the years. In this essay, I would indicate two main functions of phonological loop in everyday lives, one is mental arithmetic
Making and storing memories is a complex process involving many regions of the brain. (3). Most experts agree that we have two stages of memories - short-term memory and long-term memory. Short-term memory is the immediate memory we have when we first hear or perceive someth...
As previously stated, neuroimaging science and study began in the early 1900s. The “great granddaddy” of functional brain viewing is electroencephalography, or EEG, and was invented by a German researcher by the name of Hans Berger. This exceptional neurologist discovered that the electrical activity of the brain is detectable outside the head. Following Berger’s steps, a group of scientists came up with ...
The recent advances in non-invasive brain imaging, increased computational power, and advances in signal processing methods have heightened the research in this area. As we make progress in interpreting noninvasive brain signals in time we will begin to explore applications that go beyond treatment. But for now these noninvasive methods of estimating brain activity is still something to be cautious about since it only measures the brain’s blood, oxygen consumption, glucose utilization, and more. These measurements may not be accurate enough to figure out one person’s problem. The problem again might be internal and measuring only the obvious would not aid in figuring it all out.
This essay will firstly briefly describe the theories and important facts about the original multi-store model of memory (MSM) and the working memory model (WMM).
S.A. Clark, T. A. (1988). Receptive fields in the body-surface map in adult cortex defined by temporally correlated inputs. Nature, 332.
The technologies used by the researchers range from functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) that measures the changes in the different parts of the brain, to Steady state topography (SST) an...
Another mental process that is constantly working in your brain is called the working memory system. This system is responsible for holding information temporarily or holding onto information that you are currently working with. The working memory system helps your brain piece sentences together. As well as recalling any phone numbers that you have memorized, so that that information is available to you right when you need it to
Long-term memory is how humans process in the present, recall information from the past, or think about the future. Without long-term memory one cannot remember past memories, today, or what we may plan to do in the future. On top of that, there is no learning without long-term memory and the progress that we see today in our fast pace driven world would not exist. This is why the study and understanding of long-term memory is important for further knowledge of human nature. The long-term memory itself takes in many different forms of information including images, sounds, and meaning. The orientation of memory encompasses three important stages and the first is encoding. Encoding takes places in different locations inside the brain and this
Learning to tie shoes and ride a bike requires the encoding, storing, and retrieving of past observations of the procedure. With a lot of practice, children master these skills so well that they are able to remember them the rest of their lives. Memory is the storing of information over time. It is one of the most important concepts in learning; if things are not remembered, no learning can take place. As a process, memory refers to the "dynamic mechanism associated with the retention and retrieval of information about past experiences" (Sternberg 260). We use our memory about the past to help us understand the present. The study or memory in psychology is used in different ways, as well as there are many different ways to study how memory works in humans. In psychology there are many tasks used to measure memory, and different types of memory storages that human's use, such as sensory storing, or short term storing. There are also a lot of techniques that humans use to improve their memory, which they can use to learn, such as mnemonic devices. All these things can be classified as important issues in the study of human memory and ways of learning.