The unity and diversity of executive functions and their contributions to complex "Frontal Lobe" tasks: a latent variable analysis.

▪ Abstract The prefrontal cortex has long been suspected to play an important role in cognitive control, in the ability to orchestrate thought and action in accordance with internal goals. Its neural basis, however, has remained a mystery. Here, we propose that cognitive control stems from the active maintenance of patterns of activity in the prefrontal cortex that represent goals and the means to achieve them. They provide bias signals to other brain structures whose net effect is to guide the flow of activity along neural pathways that establish the proper mappings between inputs, internal states, and outputs needed to perform a given task. We review neurophysiological, neurobiological, neuroimaging, and computational studies that support this theory and discuss its implications as well as further issues to be addressed

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An integrative theory of prefrontal cortex function

Publisher Summary This chapter focuses on the modern notion of short-term memory, called working memory. Working memory refers to the temporary maintenance of information that was just experienced or just retrieved from long-term memory but no longer exists in the external environment. These internal representations are short-lived, but can be maintained for longer periods of time through active rehearsal strategies, and can be subjected to various operations that manipulate the information in such a way that makes it useful for goal-directed behavior. Working memory is a system that is critically important in cognition and seems necessary in the course of performing many other cognitive functions, such as reasoning, language comprehension, planning, and spatial processing. This chapter demonstrates the functional importance of dopamine to working memory function in several ways. Elucidation of the cognitive and neural mechanisms underlying human working memory is an important focus of cognitive neuroscience and neurology for much of the past decade. One conclusion that arises from research is that working memory, a faculty that enables temporary storage and manipulation of information in the service of behavioral goals, can be viewed as neither a unitary, nor a dedicated system. Data from numerous neuropsychological and neurophysiological studies in animals and humans demonstrates that a network of brain regions, including the prefrontal cortex, is critical for the active maintenance of internal representations.

Chapter 11 Working memory

Co-Planar Stereotaxic Atlas of the Human Brain—3-Dimensional Proportional System: An Approach to Cerebral Imaging, J. Talairach, P. Tournoux. Georg Thieme Verlag, New York (1988), 122 pp., 130 figs. DM 268

Attention and Effort

The coding system used in short-term paired-associate learning was investigated by studying the effects of acoustic and semantic similarity. Performance was affected by acoustic similarity (Expts. IV, V and VI), while semantic similarity had no reliable effect (Expts. II and III). Serial position curves suggested that the primary and secondary memory components of the task were equally affected by acoustic similarity. The implications of this for the relationship between acoustic similarity and short-term memory are discussed.

Effects of acoustic and semantic similarity on short-term paired-associate learning.

Control of attention in schizophrenia.

Immediate memory was tested for sequences of 7, 8, 9, or 10 auditorily presented letters which comprised either words or zero-, first-, second-, or third-order approximations to English words. At all lengths, recall probability correlated highly with letter sequence predictability (.58–.78) but was unrelated to acoustic confusability. It is suggested that coding was still phonemic but involved speech sounds comprising several letters rather than letter names.

https://link.springer.com/content/pdf/10.3758%2FBF03332525.pdf

Language habits, acoustic confusability, and immediate memory for redundant letter sequences

The Role of Phonological Memory in Normal and Disordered Language Development

Purpose Closing the eyes during recall can help witnesses remember more about a witnessed event. This study examined the effectiveness of eye-closure in a repeated recall paradigm with immediate free recall followed 1 week later by both free and cued recall. We examined whether eye-closure was more or less effective during the second free-recall attempt compared with the first, whether eye-closure during the first recall attempt had an impact on subsequent free- and cued-recall performance, and whether eye-closure during the second free recall could facilitate the recall of new, previously unreported, information (reminiscence). Method Participants witnessed a videotaped event and participated in a first free-recall attempt (with eyes open or closed) a few minutes later. After a week, they provided another free recall, followed by a cued-recall interview (with eyes open or closed). Results Eye-closure during the first free-recall attempt had no significant effect on performance during any of the recall attempts. However, eye-closure during the second session increased the amount of correct visual information reported in that session by 36.7% in free recall and by 35.3% in cued recall, without harming testimonial accuracy. Crucially, eye-closure also facilitated the recall of new, previously unreported visual information. Conclusions The findings extend previous research in showing that the eye-closure instruction can still be effective when witnesses are interviewed repeatedly, and that it can facilitate the elicitation of new information. Thus, the eye-closure instruction constitutes a simple and time-efficient interview tool for police interviewers. © 2013 The British Psychological Society.

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Alan D. Baddeley

Papers

Effects of acoustic and semantic similarity on short-term paired-associate learning.

Control of attention in schizophrenia.

Language habits, acoustic confusability, and immediate memory for redundant letter sequences

The Role of Phonological Memory in Normal and Disordered Language Development

The effectiveness of eye-closure in repeated interviews