The portion of working memory that is in charge of verbal and auditory information. Made up of:
- the phonological store
- articulatory rehearsal process

Responsible for effects such as:
- the phonological similarity effect
- the word length effect
- articulatory suppression 

Phonological loop

Holds visual and spatial information (representations). When imagining a scene, solving a puzzle or navigating through familiar territory, the sketch pad is being used.
It controls processes such as:
- visual imagery
- mental rotation

Visuospatial sketch pad

The central executive is the control center of working memory that supervises or controls the flow of information to and from the three short-term systems (the visuospatial sketchpad, the episodic buffer, and the phonological loop). It coordinates activities, decides where to direct attention, and is responsible for moving information into long-term memory.

Central executive

Provides extra storage and can send things to long term memory. It helps explain how people can combine their long term memory with recently processed stimuli to remember more complex things (often associated with chunking).

Episodic buffer

- The phonological loop
- Visuospatial sketch pad
- The central executive 
- Episodic buffer

University of Michigan - Ann Arbor

Working memory is a cognitive system with a limited capacity that can hold information temporarily. Working memory is important for reasoning, learning and comprehension. Some of the manipulation of information takes place in working memory

Working Memory

Goldstein, E. B. (2014). Cognitive psychology: Connecting mind, research and everyday experience. Nelson Education.


Cognitive psychology: Connecting mind, research and everyday experience

Parts of working memory (Baddeley's model)

A curve that displays how well respondents recall words depending on how long ago they were displayed.

Serial position curve 

Taking information from long term memory and transferring it to working memory.

Retrieval

In order to increase effectiveness, cognitive load theory should be considered during instructional design for online learning including MOOCs. Cognitive load refers to the amount of working memory an individual is using while learning information. Intrinsic cognitive load is the natural complexity of the material that is being learned. Extrinsic load is complexity of learning caused by ineffective instructional design. The goal of cognitive load theory is to reduce extrinsic load experienced by students. 

Cognitive Load Theory

The process of acquiring information and sending it to long term memory (WM to LTM).

Encoding

Working memory capacity is a psychological characteristic that refers to an individual's ability to simultaneously hold and process multiple pieces of information in their mind. In cognitive psychology, this capacity can be quantified using systematic measurement procedures.

Working Memory Capacity

There is converging functional neuroimaging evidence for the involvement of the sustained activity in the prefrontal cortex underlying the process of working memory during the delay period in a working memory task. And due to the fact that the PFC has a lot of cortico-cortico connections and coritco-subcortico connections, it might be the case that these different connections probably mediate different component processes of working memory. It has been believed for example the the cortical network might mediate the maintenance of goals, while the subcortical networks mediates response selection and motor control

The Neural Basis of Working Memory

Neuromodulatory brainstem projections affects our working memory cognition

Working Memory & Neuromodulatory Systems

The left hemisphere deals with working memory, concentration, executive planning, and positive emotions. 

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