Skip to main content Accessibility help

We use cookies to distinguish you from other users and to provide you with a better experience on our websites. Close this message to accept cookies or find out how to manage your cookie settings.

Close cookie message
×
Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-gbm5v Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-25T17:49:07.594Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

5 - The Embedded-Processes Model and Language Use

from Part II - Models and Measures

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  08 July 2022

By
Eryn J. Adams ,
Alicia Forsberg  and
Nelson Cowan
Edited by
John W. Schwieter  and
Zhisheng (Edward) Wen
John W. Schwieter
Affiliation:
Wilfrid Laurier University
Zhisheng (Edward) Wen
Affiliation:
Hong Kong Shue Yan University
Get access

Summary

We view working memory as a general resource in which attention can be allocated to any type of information and stimulus input. One vital skill that requires the use of working memory is the comprehension and production of language. In this chapter, we outline the basis of the embedded-processes model of working memory. We then discuss how the different parts of the model might be relevant to language use. Finally, we discuss how working memory is used in the acquisition of language as children develop or as individuals take on a second language. We wish to provide a basis for understanding the importance of attention and its interaction with long-term memory for the successful use of language, from understanding a simple sentence to producing a well-formed set of sentences for communication.

Keywords

attentionworking memorylanguage
Type
Chapter
Information
The Cambridge Handbook of Working Memory and Language , pp. 73 - 97
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2022

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Adams, A. M. (1996). Phonological working memory and spoken language development in young children. The Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology Section A, 49(1), 216–233.Google Scholar
Adams, E. J., & Cowan, N. (2021). The girl was watered by the flower: Effects of working memory loads on syntactic production in young children. Journal of Cognition and Development, 22(1), 125–148.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Adams, E. J., Nguyen, A. T., & Cowan, N. (2018). Theories of working memory: Differences in definition, degree of modularity, role of attention, and purpose. Language, Speech, and Hearing Services in Schools, 49(3), 340–355.Google Scholar
Atkinson, R. C., & Shiffrin, R. M. (1968). Human memory: A proposed system and its control processes. Psychology of learning and motivation, 2(4), 89–195.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Awh, E., Barton, B., & Vogel, E. K. (2007). Visual working memory represents a fixed number of items regardless of complexity. Psychological Science, 18(7), 622–628.Google Scholar
Baddeley, A. (2000). The episodic buffer: A new component of working memory? Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 4(11), 417–423.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Baddeley, A. D., & Hitch, G. (1974). Working memory. In Psychology of learning and motivation (Vol. 8, pp. 47–89). Academic Press.Google Scholar
Baddeley, A. D., Thomson, N., & Buchanan, M. (1975). Word length and the structure of short‑term memory. Journal of Verbal Learning and Verbal Behavior, 14, 575–589.Google Scholar
Balota, D. A., & Duchek, J. M. (1986). Voice‑specific information and the 20‑second delayed suffix effect. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition, 12, 509–516.Google Scholar
Balota, D. A. (1983). Automatic semantic activation and episodic memory encoding. Journal of Verbal Learning and Verbal Behavior, 22, 88–104.Google Scholar
Bergelson, E., & Swingley, D. (2012). At 6–9 months, human infants know the meanings of many common nouns. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 109(9), 3253–3258.Google Scholar
Bialystok, E. (1997). The structure of age: In search of barriers to second language acquisition. Second Language Research, 13(2), 116–137.Google Scholar
Blake, J., Austin, W., Cannon, M., Lisus, A., & Vaughan, A. (1994). The relationship between memory span and measures of imitative and spontaneous language complexity in preschool children. International Journal of Behavioral Development, 17(1), 91–107.Google Scholar
Bock, K., & Levelt, W. J. (1994). Language production: Grammatical encoding (pp. 945–984). Academic Press.Google Scholar
Broadbent, D. E. (1958). Perception and communication. Pergamon Press.Google Scholar
Burns, T. C., Yoshida, K. A., Hill, K., & Werker, J. F. (2007). The development of phonetic representation in bilingual and monolingual infants. Applied Psycholinguistics, 28(3), 455–474.Google Scholar
Chen, Z., & Cowan, N. (2005). Chunk limits and length limits in immediate recall: A reconciliation. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition, 31(6), 1235.Google Scholar
Chen, Z., & Cowan, N. (2009). Core verbal working memory capacity: The limit in words retained without covert articulation. Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology, 62, 1420–1429.Google Scholar
Cherry, E. C. (1953). Some experiments on the recognition of speech, with one and with two ears. The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, 25(5), 975–979.Google Scholar
Conway, A. R., Cowan, N., & Bunting, M. F. (2001). The cocktail party phenomenon revisited: The importance of working memory capacity. Psychonomic Bulletin & Review, 8(2), 331–335.Google Scholar
Cowan, N. (1988). Evolving conceptions of memory storage, selective attention, and their mutual constraints within the human information-processing system. Psychological Bulletin, 104(2), 163.Google Scholar
Cowan, N. (1999). An embedded-processes model of working memory. Models of Working Memory: Mechanisms of Active Maintenance and Executive Control, 20, 506.Google Scholar
Cowan, N. (2000). Processing limits of selective attention and working memory: Potential implications for interpreting. Interpreting, 5(2), 117–146.Google Scholar
Cowan, N. (2001). The magical number 4 in short-term memory: A reconsideration of mental storage capacity. Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 24(1), 87–114.Google Scholar
Cowan, N. (2008). What are the differences between long-term, short-term, and working memory? Progress in Brain Research, 169, 323–338.Google Scholar
Cowan, N. (2011). The focus of attention as observed in visual working memory tasks: Making sense of competing claims. Neuropsychologia, 49(6), 1401–1406.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Cowan, N. (2019). Short-term memory based on activated long-term memory: A review in response to Norris (2017). Psychological Bulletin, 145(8), 822–847.Google Scholar
Cowan, N., AuBuchon, A. M., Gilchrist, A. L., Blume, C. L., Boone, A. P., and Saults, J. S. (2021). Developmental change in the nature of attention allocation in a dual task. Developmental Psychology. 57(1), 33–46.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cowan, N., & Barron, A. (1987). Cross-modal, auditory-visual Stroop interference and possible implications for speech memory. Perception & Psychophysics, 41(5), 393–401.Google Scholar
Cowan, N., Li, Y., Glass, B., & Saults, J. S. (2018). Development of the ability to combine visual and acoustic information in working memory. Developmental Science, 21, e12635, 1–14.Google Scholar
Cowan, N., Lichty, W., & Grove, T. R. (1990). Properties of memory for unattended spoken syllables. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, & Cognition, 16, 258–269.Google Scholar
Cowan, N., Ricker, T. J., Clark, K. M., Hinrichs, G. A., & Glass, B. A. (2015). Knowledge cannot explain the developmental growth of working memory capacity. Developmental Science, 18(1), 132–145.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Cowan, N., Rouder, J. N., Blume, C. L., & Saults, J. S. (2012). Models of verbal working memory capacity: What does it take to make them work? Psychological Review, 119, 480–499.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Darcy, I., Park, H., & Yang, C. L. (2015). Individual differences in L2 acquisition of English phonology: The relation between cognitive abilities and phonological processing. Learning and Individual Differences, 40, 63–72.Google Scholar
Dell, G. S. (1986). A spreading-activation theory of retrieval in sentence production. Psychological Review, 93(3), 283–321.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Dell, G. S., Schwartz, M. F., Nozari, N., Faseyitan, O., & Coslett, H. B. (2013). Voxel-based lesion-parameter mapping: Identifying the neural correlates of a computational model of word production. Cognition, 128, 380–396.Google Scholar
Eich, E. (1984). Memory for unattended events: Remembering with and without awareness. Memory & Cognition, 12(2), 105–111.Google Scholar
Eichorn, N., Marton, K., Schwartz, R. G., Melara, R. D., & Pirutinsky, S. (2016). Does working memory enhance or interfere with speech fluency in adults who do and do not stutter? Evidence from a dual-task paradigm. Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research, 59(3), 415–429.Google Scholar
Elliott, E. M., Cowan, N., & Valle-Inclan, F. (1998). The nature of cross-modal color-word interference effects. Perception & Psychophysics, 60(5), 761–767.Google Scholar
Ellis, N. C., & Sinclair, S. G. (1996). Working memory in the acquisition of vocabulary and syntax: Putting language in good order. The Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology Section A, 49(1), 234–250.Google Scholar
Endress, A. D., & Potter, M. C. (2014). Large capacity temporary visual memory. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 143(2), 548.Google Scholar
Ferreira, F., Bailey, K. G., & Ferraro, V. (2002). Good-enough representations in language comprehension. Current Directions in Psychological Science, 11(1), 11–15.Google Scholar
Ferreira, V. S., Bock, K., Wilson, M. P., & Cohen, N. J. (2008). Memory for syntax despite amnesia. Psychological Science, 19(9), 940–946.Google Scholar
Forbes, P. B. R. (1933). Greek pioneers in philology and grammar. The Classical Review, 47(3), 105–112.Google Scholar
Fromkin, V. A. (1973). Slips of the tongue. Scientific American, 229(6), 110–117.Google Scholar
Gathercole, S. E., Pickering, S. J., Ambridge, B., & Wearing, H. (2004). The structure of working memory from 4 to 15 years of age. Developmental Psychology, 40(2), 177.Google Scholar
Gilchrist, A. L., Cowan, N., & Naveh-Benjamin, M. (2009). Investigating the childhood development of working memory using sentences: New evidence for the growth of chunk capacity. Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, 104(2), 252–265.Google Scholar
Gilchrist, A. L., Cowan, N., & Naveh-Benjamin, M. (2008). Working memory capacity for spoken sentences decreases with adult ageing: Recall of fewer, but not smaller chunks in older adults. Memory, 16, 773–787.Google Scholar
Gwilliams, L., Poeppel, D., Marantz, A., & Linzen, T. (2017). Phonological (un)certainty weights lexical activation. arXiv preprint arXiv:1711.06729.Google Scholar
Halford, G. S., Cowan, N., & Andrews, G. (2007). Separating cognitive capacity from knowledge: A new hypothesis. Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 11(6), 236–242.Google Scholar
Hambrick, D. Z., & Engle, R. W. (2002). Effects of domain knowledge, working memory capacity, and age on cognitive performance: An investigation of the knowledge-is-power hypothesis. Cognitive Psychology, 44(4), 339–387.Google Scholar
Hanulíková, A., Dediu, D., Fang, Z., Bašnaková, J., & Huettig, F. (2012). Individual differences in the acquisition of a complex L2 phonology: A training study. Language Learning, 62, 79–109.Google Scholar
Hartsuiker, R. J., & Barkhuysen, P. N. (2006). Language production and working memory: The case of subject-verb agreement. Language and Cognitive Processes, 21(1–3), 181–204.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Jalbert, A., Neath, I., & Surprenant, A. M. (2011). Does length or neighborhood size cause the word length effect? Memory & Cognition, 39(7), 1198–1210.Google Scholar
James, W. (1890). The principles of psychology. Henry Holt.Google Scholar
Jarvella, R. J. (1971). Syntactic processing of connected speech. Journal of Verbal Learning & Verbal Behavior, 10, 409–416.Google Scholar
Jarvella, R. J. & Collas, J. G. (1974). Memory for the intentions of sentences. Memory & Cognition, 2, 185–188.Google Scholar
Kemper, S., Herman, R. E., & Lian, C. H. (2003). The costs of doing two things at once for young and older adults: Talking while walking, finger tapping, and ignoring speech of noise. Psychology and Aging, 18(2), 181.Google Scholar
Kemtes, K. A., & Kemper, S. (1997). Younger and older adults’ on-line processing of syntactically ambiguous sentences. Psychology and Aging, 12(2), 362.Google Scholar
Kidd, E. (2012). Implicit statistical learning is directly associated with the acquisition of syntax. Developmental Psychology, 48(1), 171.Google Scholar
Kintsch, W. (1988). The role of knowledge in discourse comprehension: A construction-integration model. Psychological Review, 93, 163–182.Google Scholar
Kintsch, W., & van Dijk, T. A. (1978). Toward a model of text comprehension and production. Psychological Review, 85, 363–394.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Klingberg, T., Forssberg, H., & Westerberg, H. (2002). Increased brain activity in frontal and parietal cortex underlies the development of visuospatial working memory capacity during childhood. Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience, 14(1), 1–10.Google Scholar
Lewis-Peacock, J. A., & Postle, B. R. (2008). Temporary activation of long-term memory supports working memory. Journal of Neuroscience, 28(35), 8765–8771.Google Scholar
Linck, J. A., Osthus, P., Koeth, J. T., & Bunting, M. F. (2014). Working memory and second language comprehension and production: A meta-analysis. Psychonomic Bulletin & Review, 21(4), 861–883.Google Scholar
Logie, R. H. (2016). Retiring the central executive. Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology, 69, 2093–2109.Google Scholar
Luck, S. J., & Vogel, E. K. (1997). The capacity of visual working memory for features and conjunctions. Nature, 390(6657), 279–281.Google Scholar
Miller, G. A. (1956). The magical number seven, plus or minus two: Some limits on our capacity for processing information. Psychological Review, 63(2), 81.Google Scholar
Moray, N. (1959). Attention in dichotic listening: Affective cues and the influence of instructions. Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology, 11(1), 56–60.Google Scholar
Nairne, J. S. (2002). Remembering over the short-term: The case against the standard model. Annual Review of Psychology, 53(1), 53–81.Google Scholar
Norrman, G., & Bylund, E. (2016). The irreversibility of sensitive period effects in language development: Evidence from second language acquisition in international adoptees. Developmental Science, 19(3), 513–520.Google Scholar
Ouellette, G. P. (2006). What’s meaning got to do with it: The role of vocabulary in word reading and reading comprehension. Journal of Educational Psychology, 98(3), 554.Google Scholar
Perfetti, C. (2007). Reading ability: Lexical quality to comprehension. Scientific Studies of Reading, 11(4), 357–383.Google Scholar
Pitt, M. A., & Samuel, A. G. (2006). Word length and lexical activation: Longer is better. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance, 32(5), 1120.Google Scholar
Qian, D. (1999). Assessing the roles of depth and breadth of vocabulary knowledge in reading comprehension. Canadian Modern Language Review, 56(2), 282–308.Google Scholar
Rhodes, S., & Cowan, N. (2018). Attention in working memory: Attention is needed but it yearns to be free. Annals of the New York Academy of Science, 1424, 52–63.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Richardson, J. T. E., & Baddeley, A. D. (1975). The effect of articulatory suppression in free recall. Journal of Verbal Learning and Verbal Behavior, 14(6), 623–629.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ricker, T. J., & Cowan, N. (2014). Differences between presentation methods in working memory procedures: A matter of working memory consolidation. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition, 40(2), 417.Google Scholar
Sachs, J. S. (1967). Recognition memory for syntactic and semantic aspects of connected discourse. Perception & Psychophysics, 2, 437–442.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Saffran, J. R., Aslin, R. N., & Newport, E. L. (1996). Statistical learning by 8-month-old infants. Science, 274(5294), 1926–1928.Google Scholar
Schneider, W., & Shiffrin, R. M. (1977). Controlled and automatic human information processing: I. Detection, search, and attention. Psychological Review, 84, 1–66.Google Scholar
Sokolov, E. N. (1963). Perception and the conditioned reflex. Pergamon Press.Google Scholar
Soto, D., & Humphreys, G. W. (2008). Stressing the mind: The effect of cognitive load and articulatory suppression on attentional guidance from working memory. Perception & Psychophysics, 70(5), 924–934.Google Scholar
Swets, B., Desmet, T., Hambrick, D. Z., & Ferreira, F. (2007). The role of working memory in syntactic ambiguity resolution: A psychometric approach. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 136(1), 64.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Thalmann, M., Souza, A. S., & Oberauer, K. (2019). How does chunking help working memory? Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition, 45(1), 37.Google Scholar
Thomason, M. E., Race, E., Burrows, B., Whitfield-Gabrieli, S., Glover, G. H., & Gabrieli, J. D. (2009). Development of spatial and verbal working memory capacity in the human brain. Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience, 21(2), 316–332.Google Scholar
Thompson, S. P., & Newport, E. L. (2007). Statistical learning of syntax: The role of transitional probability. Language Learning and Development, 3(1), 1–42.Google Scholar
Underwood, B. J. (1957). Interference and forgetting. Psychological Review, 64(1), 49.Google Scholar
Van den Noort, M. W., Bosch, P., & Hugdahl, K. (2006). Foreign language proficiency and working memory capacity. European Psychologist, 11(4), 289–296.Google Scholar
Vandierendonck, A. (2016). A working memory system with distributed executive control. Perspectives on Psychological Science, 11, 74–100.Google Scholar
Vogel, E. K., McCollough, A. W., & Machizawa, M. G. (2005). Neural measures reveal individual differences in controlling access to working memory. Nature, 438(7067), 500–503.Google Scholar
Wood, N., & Cowan, N. (1995a). The cocktail party phenomenon revisited: Attention and memory in the classic selective listening procedure of Cherry (1953). Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 124, 243–262.Google Scholar
Wood, N., & Cowan, N. (1995b). The cocktail party phenomenon revisited: How frequent are attention shifts to one’s name in an irrelevant auditory channel? Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, & Cognition, 21, 255–260.Google Scholar
Wood, N. L., Stadler, M. A., & Cowan, N. (1997). Is there implicit memory without attention? A re-examination of task demands in Eich’s (1984) procedure. Memory & Cognition, 25, 772–779.Google Scholar
Yang, Y., Chen, M., He, W., & Merrill, E. C. (2020). The role of working memory in implicit memory: A developmental perspective. Cognitive Development, 55, 100929.Google Scholar

Save book to Kindle

To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure [email protected] is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

Available formats
×

Save book to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

Available formats
×