Working Memory From the Psychological and Neurosciences Perspectives: A Review

Abstract

Since the concept of working memory was introduced over 50 years ago, different schools of thought have offered different definitions for working memory based on the various cognitive domains that it encompasses. The general consensus regarding working memory supports the idea that working memory is extensively involved in goal-directed behaviors in which information must be retained and manipulated to ensure successful task execution. Before the emergence of other competing models, the concept of working memory was described by the multicomponent working memory model proposed by Baddeley and Hitch. In the present article, the authors provide an overview of several working memory-relevant studies in order to harmonize the findings of working memory from the neurosciences and psychological standpoints, especially after citing evidence from past studies of healthy, aging, diseased, and/or lesioned brains. In particular, the theoretical framework behind working memory, in which the related domains that are considered to play a part in different frameworks (such as memory’s capacity limit and temporary storage) are presented and discussed. From the neuroscience perspective, it has been established that working memory activates the fronto-parietal brain regions, including the prefrontal, cingulate, and parietal cortices. Recent studies have subsequently implicated the roles of subcortical regions (such as the midbrain and cerebellum) in working memory. Aging also appears to have modulatory effects on working memory; age interactions with emotion, caffeine and hormones appear to affect working memory performances at the neurobiological level. Moreover, working memory deficits are apparent in older individuals, who are susceptible to cognitive deterioration. Another younger population with working memory impairment consists of those with mental, developmental, and/or neurological disorders such as major depressive disorder and others. A less coherent and organized neural pattern has been consistently reported in these disadvantaged groups. Working memory of patients with traumatic brain injury was similarly affected and shown to have unusual neural activity (hyper- or hypoactivation) as a general observation. Decoding the underlying neural mechanisms of working memory helps support the current theoretical understandings concerning working memory, and at the same time provides insights into rehabilitation programs that target working memory impairments from neurophysiological or psychological aspects.

Cognitive loading via mental arithmetic modulates effects of blink‐related oscillations on precuneus and ventral attention network regions

“…Results showed that MA led to increased activation of the right precuneus, dorsolateral prefrontal cortex, and angular gyrus regions (Supporting Information, Figure 3), which are consistent with mental arithmetic processing (Fehr et al, 2007;Klein et al, 2013). As challenging mental arithmetic tasks are also known to engage working memory resources (Menon, 2010), the activation of dorsolateral prefrontal cortex is also consistent with the engagement of working memory during the calculation task (Chai, Abd Hamid, & Abdullah, 2018). Together, these findings confirm the task-related effects in MA relative to PF, and suggest that there may be a functional separation between the pPC and aPC subregions in BRO processing under mental arithmetic-based cognitive loading.…”

Transcranial Near-Infrared Light: Dose-Dependent Effects on EEG Oscillations but not Cerebral Blood Flow

“…To perform this task, it is not enough to simply keep a representation of recently presented items in short-term memory; the working memory buffer also needs to be updated continuously to keep track of what the current stimulus must be compared to. In other words, the participant needs to both maintain and manipulate information in working memory (Chai, Abd Hamid, & Abdullah, 2018). Our primary interest was in whether we could detect differences in the task performance after any of the active tPBM sessions (c-tPBM and p-tPBM), relative to the performance after a sham (s-tPBM).…”

Combined fractional anisotropy and subcortical volumetric abnormalities in healthy immigrants to high altitude: A longitudinal study

“…For example, a previous study reported that the caudate was important for the manipulation of information in working memory (Chai, Abd Hamid, & Abdullah, 2018;Chen et al, 2016). Meanwhile, we also found that volume alterations in the left-putamen and right-thalamus were negatively correlated with the auditory recognition reaction time and with working memory and cognitive flexibility, was observed structural connectivity with attention and memory related brain regions (Starr et al, 2011).…”