Journal ArticleDOI
Exploring the Central Executive
TLDR
The central executive component of working memory is a poorly specified and very powerful system that could be criticized as little more than a homunculus as discussed by the authors and a research strategy is outlined that attempts to specify and analyse its component functions and is illustrated with four lines of research.Abstract:
The central executive component of working memory is a poorly specified and very powerful system that could be criticized as little more than a homunculus. A research strategy is outlined that attempts to specify and analyse its component functions and is illustrated with four lines of research. The first concerns the study of the capacity to coordinate performance on two separate tasks. A second involves the capacity to switch retrieval strategies as reflected in random generation. The capacity to attend selectively to one stimulus and inhibit the disrupting effect of others comprises the third line of research, and the fourth involves the capacity to hold and manipulate information in long-term memory, as reflected in measures of working memory span. It is suggested that this multifaceted approach is a fruitful one that leaves open the question of whether it will ultimately prove more appropriate to regard the executive as a unified system with multiple functions, or simply as an agglomeration of indepe...read more
Citations
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Journal ArticleDOI
The unity and diversity of executive functions and their contributions to complex "Frontal Lobe" tasks: a latent variable analysis.
Akira Miyake,Naomi P. Friedman,Michael J. Emerson,Alexander H. Witzki,Amy Howerter,Tor D. Wager +5 more
TL;DR: The results suggest that it is important to recognize both the unity and diversity ofExecutive functions and that latent variable analysis is a useful approach to studying the organization and roles of executive functions.
Journal ArticleDOI
The magical number 4 in short-term memory: a reconsideration of mental storage capacity.
TL;DR: A wide variety of data on capacity limits suggesting that the smaller capacity limit in short-term memory tasks is real is brought together and a capacity limit for the focus of attention is proposed.
Journal ArticleDOI
Working memory: looking back and looking forward
TL;DR: The concept of working memory proposes that a dedicated system maintains and stores information in the short term, and that this system underlies human thought processes.
Journal ArticleDOI
Anxiety and cognitive performance: Attentional control theory.
TL;DR: Attentional control theory is an approach to anxiety and cognition representing a major development of Eysenck and Calvo's (1992) processing efficiency theory and may not impair performance effectiveness when it leads to the use of compensatory strategies (e.g., enhanced effort; increased use of processing resources).
Journal ArticleDOI
Dissociating the role of the dorsolateral prefrontal and anterior cingulate cortex in cognitive control.
TL;DR: Event-related functional magnetic resonance imaging and a task-switching version of the Stroop task were used to examine whether these components of cognitive control have distinct neural bases in the human brain and a double dissociation was found.
References
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Individual differences in working memory and reading
TL;DR: The reading span, the number of final words recalled, varied from two to five for 20 college students and was correlated with three reading comprehension measures, including verbal SAT and tests involving fact retrieval and pronominal reference.
Book ChapterDOI
Attention to action: willed and automatic control of behavior
Donald A. Norman,Tim Shallice +1 more
TL;DR: This chapter proposes a theoretical framework structured around the notion of a set of active schemas, organized according to the particular action sequences of which they are a part, awaiting the appropriate set of conditions so that they can become selected to control action.
Journal ArticleDOI
Specific impairments of planning
TL;DR: An information-processing model is outlined that predicts that performance on non-routine tasks can be impaired independently of performance on routine tasks, related to views on frontal lobe functions, particularly those of Luria.