About the Book
Working memory refers to how we keep track of what we are doing moment to moment throughout our waking lives. It allows us to remember what we have just done, focus on what we are doing now, to solve problems, be creative, think about what we will be doing in the next few seconds, and continually to update in our mind changes around us throughout the day.
This book brings together in one volume, state-of-the-science chapters written by the most productive and well known working memory researchers worldwide. Chapters cover different approaches to understanding how working memory works, using behavioural experimental techniques, neuroimaging, computational modelling, how it changes from childhood through to healthy old age, how it is affected by dementia and brain damage, and how it is used in everyday life.
A unique feature of the book is that each chapter starts with answers to a set of common questions for all authors. This allows readers very rapidly to compare key differences in theoretical assumptions and approaches to working memory across chapters, and to understand the theoretical context before going on to read each chapter in detail. Uniquely, all authors consider evidence that is not consistent with their theoretical assumptions, whereas it is common for authors to ignore contradictory evidence. This approach leads to new interpretations and new hypotheses to test in future research and greatly enhances our understanding of this crucial human ability.
Written and edited by the leading researchers in the field, the book will be an important and influential addition to the memory literature.
Table of Contents:
Priti Shah and Akira Miyake: Foreword
1: Robert H. Logie, Valérie Camos, and Nelson Cowan: The State of the Science of Working Memory: An introduction
2: Alan Baddeley, Graham Hitch, and Richard Allen: A Multicomponent Model of Working Memory
3: Nelson Cowan, Candice C. Morey, and Moshe Naveh-Benjamin: An Embedded-Processes Approach to Working Memory: How is it distinct from other approaches, and to what ends?
4: Pierre Barrouillet and Valérie Camos: The time-based resource-sharing model of working memory
5: Klaus Oberauer: Towards a Theory of Working Memory: From metaphors to mechanisms
6: André Vandierendonck: Multi-component Working Memory System with distributed executive
7: Cody A. Mashburn, Jason S. Tsukahara, and Randall W. Engle: Individual differences in attention control: Implications for the relationship between working memory capacity and fluid intelligence
8: David Z. Hambrick, Alexander P. Burgoyne, & Duarte Araujo: Working Memory and Expertise: An ecological perspective
9: Randi C. Martin, Brenda Rapp, & Jeremy Purcell: Domain-Specific Working Memory: Perspectives from cognitive neuropsychology
10: Patricia A. Reuter-Lorenz and Alexandru D. Iordan: Remembering Over the Short and Long Term: Empirical continuities and theoretical implications
11: Nicole Hakim, Edward Awh, and Edward K. Vogel: Manifold visual working memory
12: Bradley R. Postle: Cognitive Neuroscience of Visual Working Memory
13: Sobanawartiny Wijeakumar and John Spencer: A Dynamic Field Theory of visual working memory
14: Robert H Logie, Clément Belletier, and Jason M Doherty: Integrating theories of working memory
About the Author :
Robert H Logie (PhD 1981, University College London, UK) is Professor of Human Cognitive Neuroscience, University of Edinburgh, UK. His research has focused on human memory, especially working memory, across the adult lifespan in the healthy and damaged brain. He has published over 180 journal articles, 54 book chapters, and has authored or edited 19 books and special journal issues including the current volume. He is a former editor of Quarterly Journal of
Experimental Psychology, elected member (2012-2017) and chair (2015) of the Psychonomic Society, member (2009-2015) and chair (2015) of a European Research Council Advance Grants Panel, and currently is an
Associate Editor for Journal of Experimental Psychology: General. He is a Fellow of the Royal Society of the Edinburgh, the Royal Society of Arts, the British Psychological Society, and an Honorary Member of the European Society for Cognitive Psychology.
Valérie Camos is professor of developmental psychology at the Université of Fribourg (Switzerland) where she created the Fribourg Center for Cognition, a multidisciplinary research centre. She was previously professor at the Université de Bourgogne (France), junior member of the Institut Universitaire de France, and Chevalier de l'Ordre du Mérite (French honorific order for distinguished achievement). She authored 100 journal papers and 30 book chapters on working
memory and mathematical cognition. She is associate editor of L'Année Psychologique, was associate editor of the Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology and European Journal of Cognitive Psychology, and on the board of Current
Directions in Psychological Science. She was on the governing board of the European Society for Cognitive Psychology, and heads EWOMS (European Working Memory Symposium). Nelson Cowan (Ph.D. 1980, University of Wisconsin) is Curators' Distinguished Professor at the University of Missouri, where he has taught since 1985. He authored Attention and memory: An integrated framework (1995, Oxford University Press), Working memory capacity (2016, Psychology Press and Routledge Classic Edition), and
over 240 journal articles and 60 book chapters on working memory, its relation to attention, and their childhood development. He has done collaborative work on amnesia, schizophrenia, dyslexia, and
language impairment. His work has been funded by the National Institutes of Health since 1984. Dr. Cowan was President of Division 3 of the American Psychological Association (Experimental Psychology, 2008-2009) and an elected member of the Governing Board of the Psychonomic Society (2006-2011). He has been awarded honorary doctorates from the University of Helsinki, Finland (2003) and the University of Liège, Belgium (2015).
Review :
This collection will be of great interest to advanced undergraduates and above in cognitive psychology, cognitive science, behavioral neuroscience, artificial intelligence, developmental psychology, and linguistics. Recommended. Upper-division undergraduates. Graduate students, faculty, and professionals.
This volume provides state-of-the-science essays by a who's who of researchers in working memory. Major theories are covered, as well as chapters covering (for example) interesting implications for individual differences in attentional control and how working memory contributes to expertise. Everyone in the field will want to own a copy of this book.
This excellent book sets out the very latest findings and theoretical ideas on working memory. One of its great strengths is that contributors were asked to organise their chapters using a common framework, making it easy (and interesting) for readers to compare and evaluate the various points of view. The stellar contributors comprise the top international researchers in the area, and their many cross-references highlight both differences and commonalities in their theoretical perspectives. I highly recommend the book; it is an important stepping-stone to a full understanding of this central construct in cognitive psychology and cognitive neuroscience.
What is working memory? Answering this question is vital yet can be challenging given the numerous theoretical perspectives and the tsunami of relevant data that do not unanimously converge on one. In Working Memory: State of the Science, world-class experts rise to the challenge by discussing cutting-edge perspectives and how they have succeeded (and why they have failed) to explain the prevailing evidence. This volume is essential reading and promises to shape the field for decades to come.
