Working memory and SLA

Abstract

The term working memory (WM) refers to a temporary storage system that lies at the core of complex cognition. Everyday tasks such as remembering a phone number, mental arithmetic, or playing chess, place varying levels of demand on the WM system. Remembering an unfamiliar phone number long enough to dial it involves storing the number in short-term memory, and perhaps repeating it silently to oneself. Multiplying 26 by 7 in your head involves storing the digits produced by multiplying 6 and 7 (4 and 2) while multiplying 2 and 7, adding the carried 4 and retrieving the stored 2 to give the final answer of 182. Skilled chess playing involves strategic planning of a sequence of moves whilst retaining multiple piece configurations in short-term memory. These tasks not only require short term storage of information, but also a high degree of control of that information in order to maintain partial results whilst carrying out further processing, or to resist interference between similar items of information. Thus, WM can be regarded as a system that is used for the temporary maintenance of task-relevant information whilst performing cognitive tasks. As one would expect, individuals vary a good deal in their ability to carry out such complex cognitive tasks, or even, as it turns out, relatively simple ones like remembering sequences of digits. This gives rise to the notion of working memory capacity as an important dimension of individual difference (see Skehan, this volume). The question that will concern us here is whether variation inWM capacity (WMC) is related to variation in first and second language processing and learning ability. The answer to this question could not only prove useful in using tests ofWM as a predictor of language abilities, but also could illuminate the nature of the processing and learning mechanisms themselves.