The Role Of The Central Executive System Of Working Memory Update Task

Central executive system is one of the components in the working memory model, which plays an important role in many higher cognitive performance. The aim of this study is to identify the roles of central executive and slavery systems in the verbal and visuo-spatial working memory updating task, by changing the number of items updated at one time to control the load on central executive. Experiment 1 used verbal working memory updating task and controlled the number of updating items at one time. The result implied that the way of increasing the load on central executive was success. Experiment 2 repeated the Morris's experiment (1990) under the condition of high load on central executive system. The result indicated that the central executive system played an important role in the updating component of verbal working memory task, while the phonological loop was responsible for the serial recall component. Experiment 3 used the visuo-spatial working memory updating task, with spatial tapping task to interfere the visuo-spatial sketchpad. The result suggested that the visuo-spatial sketchpad and the central executive dealt with the updating component together, while the visuo-spatial sketchpad was responsible for the serial recall component separately. Experiment 4 used the visuo-spatial working memory updating task, and controlled the load on central executive more efficiently. It produced the similar pattern of result in Experiment 3, which further supported the result of Experiment 3 and implied the way of controlling central executive system is efficient. These results can be interpreted in terms of the working memory model outlined by Baddeley (2000). It is concluded that the updating of working memory needs episodic buffer, and the control ability of central executive is limited.