Showing papers by "Alan D. Baddeley published in 1979"

Working Memory and Reading

Abstract: The possible role of short-term or working memory in reading is discussed. A distinction is drawn between two hypothetical components of working memory — a central executive that is responsible for information processing and decision taking, and an articulatory loop which acts as a slave system, enabling verbal material to be maintained sub-vocally. On the basis of existing evidence, it is argued that the articulatory loop plays an important role in learning to read, but is less essential for fluent reading. Experiments are presented which show that objects may read and comprehend statements without utilisation of the articulatory loop. Conditions under which the loop will be utilised are discussed. It is suggested that these include situations where 1) judgments of phonological similarity are required; 2) retention of the surface structure of the passage is required; 3) strict word order is crucial to comprehension, and possibly 4) the rate of input of material exceeds the rate of semantic processing. My primary research interest is in human memory, and my interest in reading stems from this. A few years ago Graham Hitch and I began a series of experiments aimed at exploring the role of short-term memory in a number of information-processing tasks. This resulted in a substantial change in our concept of the nature of short-term memory, and the resulting hypothetical system, which we term working memory, seemed to suggest some interesting hypotheses about the nature of reading. In the present chapter, I want to discuss these hypotheses and describe some experiments stemming from them.

On Training People to Recognize Faces

Abstract: Experiments were carried out in an attempt to validate the facial recognition element of a three-day training course in person recognition. In one experiment the subjects had to rely on memory. In two other experiments they were provided with an array of full-face photographs to match against different poses and expressions of the same faces. The performance of subjects who had received training was never reliably better than that of untrained subjects, and in one experiment was significantly worse. Ii is suggested that the emphasis on isolated facial features in the training course may be responsible for its lack of success, and that processing independent features is not a good basts for a model of facial recognition