00:01
Okay, let’s talk
about cognition,
more specifically how we process the
information once it actually enters our mind.
00:08
So we’re going to go
through a couple of models
and take a look at
what that looks like.
00:12
So, we’re going to look at some
information processing models
and this is what happens when
a stimulus enters the brain.
00:18
So, we know when we engage with
the environment and our world,
information is coming in through
the somatosensory process.
00:24
That’s covered in another module, but
the point is information is coming in.
00:28
Once it comes in, we need to
go through a couple of steps.
00:31
So, the first step
is the attention.
00:34
We have to draw attention to the
fact that something is coming in.
00:37
And then we have the perception
of what is going on.
00:39
And then ultimately, we’re going
to have storage into memory.
00:42
So, going through
each of those steps,
there’s a lot that needs
to be done in order to
understand what it is that
we’ve just engaged with.
00:50
So our minds can be compared
to computers and that they
change, store, use and
retrieve information, right?
So we’ve used that analogy before
because it makes a lot of sense.
00:59
So, the Alan Baddeley model
attempted to better define
short-term memory, renaming
it to working memory.
01:04
And so, that’s not to say
that it replaces short-term
memory, but we have something
called working memory.
01:10
So, in the memory section that
we’ve done prior to this,
we have talked about the
fact that working memory
is something that gets input from both
short-term memory and long-term memory,
and is used in terms of
accomplishing or achieving a task.
01:25
So, included in working memory we have
the phonological loop, which is where we
repeat verbal information -- phone numbers,
a list, an address, an email address.
01:35
We have visuospatial
sketchpad, where we use
mental images and redraw
what we though we saw.
01:40
We have episodic buffer, where the working
memory interacts with the long-term memory
and it’s basically drawing from episodic
experiences that we’ve had previously.
01:52
Then we have the central executive,
which is basically the conductor
and it oversees the process,
mediates attention,
and decides where is that we’re
going to focus our attention.
02:01
So this was Alan Baddeley’s
Working Memory Model.
02:07
So we have all the different components
that we basically talked about.
02:11
So there’s language.
02:11
So you can see here on the
bottom, we have language,
visual semantics, and
short-term episodic memory,
and that feeds into or is
run by things like the
phonological loop, the
visuospatial sketchpad,
episodic buffer, and all these
things feed into our central
executive, which manages what it
is that we’re actually doing.
02:29
The end result of all of
this stuff is that we’re
drawing on information that
we have in our memory,
we use some of the tools
that we have at our disposal
in a bin called working memory
to answer or achieve a task
run by the central executive.