Working Memory Capacity

by Cowan,Nelson

• ISBN13: 9781841690971
• ISBN10: 184169097X
• Edition: 1st
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 9/16/2005
• Publisher: Psychology Pres

Summary

The idea of one's memory "filling up" is a humorous misconception of how memory in general is thought to work; it is actually has no capacity limit. However, the idea of a "full brain" makes more sense with reference to working memory, which is the limited amount of information a person can hold temporarily in an especially accessible form for use in the completion of almost any challenging cognitive task. This groundbreaking book explains the evidence supporting Cowan's theoretical proposal about working memory capacity, and compares it to competing perspectives. Cognitive psychologists profoundly disagree on how working memory is limited: whether by the number of units that can be retained (and, if so, what kind of units and how many?), the types of interfering material, the time that has elapsed, some combination of these mechanisms, or none of them. The book assesses these hypotheses and examines explanations of why capacity limits occur, including vivid biological, cognitive, and evolutionaryaccounts. The book concludes with a discussion of the practical importance of capacity limits in daily life. Incorporating the latest from the recent surge in research into working memory capacity limits and the remarkable new insights provided by neuroimaging techniques, this book serves as an invaluable resource for all memory researchers and is accessible to a wide range of readers.

Table of Contents

Preface	vii
The Problem of Capacity Limits	1	(38)
Working Memory Capacity and the Full Brain	1	(2)
Broad and Narrow Definitions of Capacity	3	(2)
In Search of Capacity Measures	5	(5)
Three Attitudes: Naive Constancy, Relativity, and Refined Constancy	10	(2)
History of Working Memory Research: Alternative Terms and Concepts	12	(9)
History of Research on Immediate-Memory Capacity	21	(18)
The Present Theoretical Approach	39	(36)
A More General Level of Analysis	39	(5)
Embedded Processes	44	(2)
Formation of New Links in Working Memory	46	(2)
Capacity Limit of the Attentional Focus	48	(4)
Resource Sharing between Storage and Processing	52	(14)
Flexibility in the Scope of Attention	66	(5)
Some Unresolved Issues of the Present Approach	71	(4)
Capacity Limits and the Measurement of Chunking	75	(30)
Past Approaches to the Measurement of Chunking	75	(5)
Chunks, Associations, Templates, and Retrieval Structures	80	(6)
Demonstrations of a Constant Capacity in Verbal Recall	86	(15)
The Domains of Capacity and of Time	101	(4)
Capacity Limits for Unstructured Materials	105	(34)
The Review by Broadbent (1975)	106	(4)
The Review by Cowan (2001)	110	(20)
Continuing Evidence	130	(3)
Chunk Limits and Feature-Content Limits	133	(6)
Other Views of Capacity Limits	139	(26)
The Seven-Item View	140	(2)
The One-Memory View	142	(2)
The Unlimited-Memory View	144	(2)
The Multiple-Capacities View	146	(1)
The View of Separate Storage and Processing Limits	147	(2)
The Task-Specific Capacity View	149	(3)
The One-Chunk View	152	(7)
The One-Chunk Center, Four-Chunk Surround View	159	(2)
The Two-Chunk View	161	(2)
The Binding-Limit View	163	(2)
Why the Capacity Limit?	165	(42)
Efficient Causes (Determiners) of Capacity Limits	166	(20)
Formal Causes (Models) of Capacity Limits	186	(1)
Material Causes (Mechanisms) of Capacity Limits	187	(9)
Final Causes (Functions) of Capacity Limits	196	(7)
Reconciliation between Types of Causation	203	(4)
Epilogue: Working Memory Capacity, Life, Death, and Cars	207	(6)
References	213	(20)
Author Index	233	(8)
Subject Index	241