Failure of Working Memory
That’s how I feel as I go further and further back to simpler and simpler levels in the two working memory exercises, “Sound Replay” and “Listen and Do”. Last session, as I finished the Fishing Story, the program congratulated me on having completed the narrative component, a memory exercise that has many semantic and other supports to aid accurate recall and/or recognition .
But try me on a list of unrelated phonemes/words in auditory memory (recalled in sequence), or sequential auditory/visual instructions with little sequential meaning, e.g. “put the yellow dog….., then put the tall doctor to the left of…..etc.”…….
Can’t do it after three items!
My Working Memory Discrepancy in the BFP
So back I go to the simplest instruction, “Click on Java Cafe, click on the Library…”
Look at the Summary statistics! I simply can’t move up the steps in the two working memory exercises.
And the “Steps” histogram and “Total Score” chart seems misleading. As the “Points by Session” score (below right) shows I am going nowhere quickly.
Steps Histogram
Going backwards!
What is this working memory bottleneck that I seemingly can’t open up?
I have emailed Posit Science for an interpretation of my statistics because there is clearly a huge discrepancy between my performances on the various exercises. Is it the aging brain? Or is it the nature of the exercise?
It is not lack of focus or motivation as I continually think of different ways to rehearse and recall. All to no avail. I must investigate working memory…..
