Latest Issue of the MindBrainEd Think Tank + (ISSN 2434-1002) 3 MindBrained Bulletin Think Tank Work Mem Mar 1 2 | Page 11

Think Tank:
Working Memory
Curtis Kelly
Starting with working memory and jumping on
to something else
I am contributing to the discussion this month, but really as a way to go on to
another topic that I consider more important. But first, Working Memory:
As teachers, there is one thing about working memory we need to know. It is the
answer to a very important question: Can working memory capacity be increased?
In our learners? In ourselves?
An important question I say, as important as: “How can I be more appreciated by my
peers?” “How can I get a better job?” “How can I be happy in life?” because my
question is almost the same question. Working memory has a huge role in
everything we do in life, from the more obvious aspects – learning, error prevention,
reading – to those less obvious – reasoning, communicative prowess, social aptitude.
Adele Diamond says working memory is one of the three critical executive functions
(EFs) that work together to shape success in life. To paraphrase:
There is general agreement that there are three core EFs: inhibition (including self-control and
interference control), working memory, and cognitive flexibility (closely linked to creativity).
From these, higher-order EFs are built such as reasoning, problem solving, and planning. EFs are
skills essential for mental and physical health; success in school and in life; and cognitive, social,
and psychological development.
Note she also distinguishes working memory from short-term memory. Short-term
memory is just the ability to hold things in memory; working memory involves
manipulating those things as well.
So, can working memory capacity be increased? Can we become smarter as a result?
I asked that question at the CT-BRAIN SIG Conference in Tokyo last year and got a
frown from our resident expert: Mike Kelland. He did not exactly say “no,” but rather,
that researchers are split on the issue. Indeed, that seems to be the case. According
to an Association of Psychological Science (APS) article, “For over 100 years,
psychologists have argued that general memory ability cannot be improved, that
there is little or no generalization of ‘trained’ tasks to ‘untrained’ tasks,” while the
same article reports a study that did improve working memory for both trained and
untrained tasks. That is good news since working memory capacity is also highly
correlated with fluid intelligence. The APS article defines these two abilities as:
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