Undergraduate Course: Working Memory (PSYL10117)

Course Outline
School	School of Philosophy, Psychology and Language Sciences	College	College of Humanities and Social Science
Credit level (Normal year taken)	SCQF Level 10 (Year 4 Undergraduate)	Availability	Available to all students
SCQF Credits	10	ECTS Credits	5
Summary	Working memory refers to the cluster of processes engaged while thinking: retrieving information already learned, attending to information in the environment, and using this information in the service of some goal. Theories of working memory describing how these functions relate to each other will be covered, drawing upon empirical evidence from cognitive experiments, typical and abnormal neural functioning, and development from childhood to adulthood.
Course description	This course provides in-depth consideration of working memory, including basic research and theories.

Entry Requirements (not applicable to Visiting Students)
Pre-requisites	Students MUST have passed: Psychology Methodology 1 (PSYL10034) AND Psychology Methodology 2 (PSYL10035)	Co-requisites
Prohibited Combinations		Other requirements	None

Information for Visiting Students
Pre-requisites	Visiting students should have at least 3 Psychology courses at grade B or above (or be predicted to obtain this). We will only consider University/College level courses. Students are advised to enrol only if they have passed an introductory cognitive psychology course.
High Demand Course?	Yes

Course Delivery Information

Academic year 2015/16, Available to all students (SV1)		Quota: None
Course Start	Block 1 (Sem 1)
Timetable	Timetable
Learning and Teaching activities (Further Info)	Total Hours: 100 ( Lecture Hours 10, Programme Level Learning and Teaching Hours 2, Directed Learning and Independent Learning Hours 88 )
Assessment (Further Info)	Written Exam 80 %, Coursework 20 %, Practical Exam 0 %
Additional Information (Assessment)	Course work (20%) Complete one written essay (maximum length 1000 words) based on a choice of prompts that will be made available by the end of week 2. Feedback will be provided to help students better prepare for their examination. Exam 80%
Feedback	Not entered
Exam Information
Exam Diet	Paper Name		Hours & Minutes
Main Exam Diet S2 (April/May)	Working Memory		1:30

Academic year 2015/16, Part-year visiting students only (VV1)		Quota: None
Course Start	Block 1 (Sem 1)
Timetable	Timetable
Learning and Teaching activities (Further Info)	Total Hours: 100 ( Lecture Hours 10, Programme Level Learning and Teaching Hours 2, Directed Learning and Independent Learning Hours 88 )
Assessment (Further Info)	Written Exam 0 %, Coursework 100 %, Practical Exam 0 %
Additional Information (Assessment)	Course work (20%) Complete one written essay (maximum length 1000 words) based on a choice of prompts that will be made available by the end of week 2. Feedback will be provided to help students better prepare for their examination. Exam 80%
Feedback	Not entered
No Exam Information

Learning Outcomes
After the course, students will be able to - Demonstrate knowledge of current working memory theory, including the ability to critically evaluate evidence favouring various theories - Demonstrate understanding of the methods used to measure working memory - Reason about how working memory theory can predict everyday cognitive functioning

Reading List
Awh, E., Barton, B., & Vogel, E. K. (2007). Visual working memory represents a fixed number of items regardless of complexity. Psychological Science, 18, 622-628. Baddeley, A. (2012). Working memory: Theories, models, and controversies. Annual Review of Psychology, 63, 1-29. Baddeley, A., Allen, R., & Vargha-Khadem, F. (2010). Is the hippocampus necessary for visual and verbal binding in working memory? Neuropsychologia, 48, 1089�1095. Barrouillet, P., Portrat, S., & Camos, V. (2011). On the law relating processing to storage in working memory. Psychological Review, 118, 175�192. Chein, J. M., & Fiez, J. A. (2010). Evaluating models of working memory through the effects of concurrent irrelevant information. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 139, 117-137. Cowan, N. (2001). The magical number 4 in short-term memory: A reconsideration of mental storage capacity. Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 24, 87-185. Cowan, N., Keller, T., Hulme, C., Roodenrys, S., McDougall, S., & Rack, J. (1994). Verbal memory span in children: Speech timing clues to the mechanisms underlying age and word length effects. Journal of Memory and Language, 33, 234-250. Cowan, N., Morey, C. C., AuBuchon, A. M., Zwilling, C. E., & Gilchrist, A. L. (2010). Seven-year-olds allocate attention like adults unless working memory is overloaded. Developmental Science, 13, 120-133. Dewar, M., Brown, G. D. A., & Della Sala, S. (2011). Restoring primacy in amnesic free recall: Evidence for the recency theory of primacy. Cognitive Neuropsychology, 28, 386-396. Fukuda, K., & Vogel, E. K. (2009). Human variation in overriding attentional capture. Journal of Neuroscience, 29, 8726-8733. Grenfell-Essam, R., Ward, G., & Tan, L. (2013). The role of rehearsal on the output order of immediate free recall of short and long lists. Journal of Experimental Psychology, 39, 317-347. Jalbert, A., Neath, I., Bireta, T. J., & Surprenant, A. M. (2011). When does length cause the word length effect? Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition, 37, 338-353. Jarrold, C., Tam, H., Baddeley, A. D., & Harvey, C. E. (2010). The nature and position of processing determines why forgetting occurs in working memory tasks. Psychonomic Bulletin & Review, 17, 772-777. Johnson, W., Logie, R. H., & Brockmole, J. R. (2010). Working memory tasks differ in factor structure across age cohorts: Implications for dedifferentiation. Intelligence, 38, 513-528. Logie, R. H. (2011). The functional organization and capacity limits of working memory. Current Directions in Psychological Science, 20, 240-245. Matsukura, M., & Hollingworth, A. (2011). Does visual short-term memory have a high-capacity stage? Psychonomic Bulletin & Review, 18, 1098-1104. Morey, C., Morey, R., van der Reijden, M., & Holweg, M. (2013). Asymmetric cross-domain interference between two working memory tasks: Implications for models of working memory. Journal of Memory and Language, 69, 324-348. Nee, D. E., & Jonides, J. (2011). Dissociable contributions of prefrontal cortex and the hippocampus to short-term memory: Evidence for a 3-state model of memory. Neuroimage, 54, 1540-1548. Parra, M. A., Abrahams, S., Logie, R. H., M�ndez, L. G., Lopera, F., & Della Sala, S. (2010). Visual short-term memory binding deficits in familial Alzheimer's disease. Brain: A Journal of Neurology, 133, 2702�2713. Unsworth, N., & Engle, R. W. (2007). The nature of individual differences in working memory capacity: Active maintenance in primary memory and controlled search from secondary memory. Psychological Review, 114, 104-132. Zhang, W., & Luck, S. J. (2009). Sudden death and gradual decay in visual working memory. Psychological Science, 20, 423-428.

Additional Information
Course URL	http://www.psy.ed.ac.uk/
Graduate Attributes and Skills	Not entered
Keywords	Not entered

Contacts
Course organiser	Dr Candice Morey Tel: Email: cmorey@exseed.ed.ac.uk	Course secretary	Ms Fiona Graham Tel: (0131 6)50 3440 Email: F.Graham@ed.ac.uk