Abstract
Working memory is the structure devoted to the maintenance of information at short term during concurrent processing activities. In this respect, the question regarding the nature of the mechanisms and systems fulfilling this maintenance function is of particular importance and has received various responses in the recent past. In the time-based resource-sharing (TBRS) model, we suggest that only two systems sustain the maintenance of information at the short term, counteracting the deleterious effect of temporal decay and interference. A non-attentional mechanism of verbal rehearsal, similar to the one described by Baddeley in the phonological loop model, uses language processes to reactivate phonological memory traces. Besides this domain-specific mechanism, an executive loop allows the reconstruction of memory traces through an attention-based mechanism of refreshing. The present paper reviews evidence of the involvement of these two independent systems in the maintenance of verbal memory items.
Highlights
Working memory is a system dedicated to the storage and maintenance of information
Several other studies replicated this finding with different types of memoranda, with various distracting activities, and in adults as well as in children and adolescents (Barrouillet and Camos, 2015, for a review). Such a finding strengthens the assumption made by the Time-Based Resource-Sharing (TBRS) model that memory items can be maintained by the executive loop through attentional refreshing, which competes for attention with other attention-demanding processes required by working memory span tasks
The effect of concurrent articulation was additive to the effect of the attentional demand resulting from the processing component of the complex span tasks (Figure 3). These results suggest that the phonological loop and the executive loop are two independent mechanisms involved in the maintenance of verbal information
Summary
Attentional and non-attentional systems in the maintenance of verbal information in working memory: the executive and phonological loops. Working memory is the structure devoted to the maintenance of information at short term during concurrent processing activities. In this respect, the question regarding the nature of the mechanisms and systems fulfilling this maintenance function is of particular importance and has received various responses in the recent past. A non-attentional mechanism of verbal rehearsal, similar to the one described by Baddeley in the phonological loop model, uses language processes to reactivate phonological memory traces. Besides this domain-specific mechanism, an executive loop allows the reconstruction of memory traces through an attention-based mechanism of refreshing.
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