International Conference on Working Memory

III Международная конференция «Русская и белорусская литературы... 343

ISSN 2083-5485

© Copyright by Institute of Modern Languages of the Pomeranian University in Słupsk

INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE ON WORKING MEMORY

The third International Conference on Working Memory took place in Cam-bridge, Great Britain, on 9-11 July 2014. It was organized by MRC Cognition and Brain Science Unit of Cambridge University to mark 40 years since the publication of 1974 Baddeley and Hitch’s groundbreaking article presenting the multicompo-nent model of working memory, which has forever changed the field of memory re-search.

The conference was divided into three separate poster sessions and a series of presentations by the invited speakers. 90 posters were presented altogether and they covered virtually all the fields of cognitive science with topics ranging from neurol-ogy and psychiatry to education and pedagneurol-ogy. They concentrated on different as-pects of WM, such as the separate components of the model, their interdependence on each other, and the influence of WM on cognitive functioning of different age groups, starting from children through adolescence and adulthood to old age.

10 out of 90 posters concentrated on aspects of WM in language acquisition, 5 of which presented research concerning second language. Biedroń and Zychowicz demonstrated results of a study investigating the role of WM as a predictor of lin-guistic giftedness in adult second language learners. The results of the study indi-cated that gifted L2 learners, whose WM capacity was higher for verbal material, had more resources for noticing, selecting and inhibiting information. Wen proposed a theoretical framework for incorporating WM research into second language acqui-sition research. In his poster he suggested the most reliable ways of measuring the capacity of separate components of WM and postulated analyzing the measures in terms of specific domains and areas of second language acquisition. Xiaoli ha, Zhifeng Sun and Juang Qi investigated the influence of specific components of WM on Chinese as L1 and English as L2 proficiency in different age groups of primary school students. Their results revealed that the influences of separate components of WM gradually change from domain specific to domain general. Masoura, Andreou, Tsimpi and Agathopoulou presented results of a study of bilingual children, in which they suggested that children with high WM capacity develop equally in both the languages while children with poor WM capacity tend to leave one language be-hind. Bablekou et al. compared bilingual and monolingual children, aiming at ana-lysing the connection between cognitive and linguistic development in the context of bilingualism.

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Katarzyna Zychowicz, Adriana Biedroń 344

The 30 speakers invited to the conference were the most prominent researchers in the field of psychology, psychiatry and neurology concerned with memory research worldwide. The presentations started with Alan Baddeley himself presenting the his-tory of WM research as well as suggesting new directions of development and con-cluding with his view of the multicomponent model in relation to other, alternative, approaches to the very concept of WM. The alternative approaches were discussed in the presentations that followed.

Conway proposed his Process Overlap Theory, which accounts for positive cor-relations between WM and intelligence. Presentations by Cowan, Lewandowsky, Farrell and Oberauer analysed research data viewing WM as focus of attention.

The question of the functions of WM components was also discussed by several speakers. Frankish, Majerus, Norris, Jones and Page elaborated on the phonological loop and its role in verbal memory and development, emphasizing its serial order characteristic. Verbal memory was also the topic of the presentations by Jarrold and Saito. Allen, Vogel and Logie concentrated on visuo-spatial sketchpad and its func-tioning. Hitch explored the latest addition to the WM model, that is the episodic buffer. Most speakers related components discussed to the executive component, thus presenting a wider perspective on the interrelations between the separate com-ponents of WM.

What happens to information on different stages was yet another area of investi-gation. Lavie focused on the perception and maintenance of information, Camos discussed the process of its reconstruction, Bayliss presented its effective encoding, Jarrold examined its rehearsal, while Barrouillet concentrated on its loss, which of-fered participants an idea on how information is processed.

The presentations by Awh, Postle, Vogel, D’Esposito and Duncan concerned dif-ferent aspects of WM model and its components as well as their interpretations in view of current medical and technological developments, such as brain imaging (EEG, fMRI) or multivariate pattern analysis (MVPA).

Last but not least, the idea of WM training was discussed by Gathercole and Holmes, offering a neat conclusion to the presented research findings as well as in-valuable pedagogical implications for further work.

In conclusion it may be stated that the conference was an immense success, of-fering its participants an insight into the latest research in their particular field on the one hand, and a possibility to consolidate the separate elements and create a wider perspective on their field on the other.

Katarzyna Zychowicz Adriana Biedroń