Working Memory

1. The working memory does have a significant role in top-down perceptual processing. Top-down perceptual processing is perception that is guided by higher-level knowledge, experience, expectations and motivations. (Essentials of Understanding Psychology, Chapter 3, pg. 124). Working memory is a set of temporary memory stores that actively manipulate and rehearse information. It is thought to contain a central executive processor that is involved in reasoning and decision making. It coordinates three distinct storage and rehearsal systems being visual, verbal and episodic buffers. The visual storage specializes in visual and spatial information. The verbal storage holds and manipulates material relating to speech, words and numbers. The episodic storage contains info that represents episodes or events. Working memory allows us to be able to keep information in an active state for a short amount of time so that we are able to do something with the information. (Essentials of Understanding Psychology, Chapter 6, pg. 215-216). The role of working memory in top-down processing is that it receives the information on what the person may be looking at, or hearing, and stores it into the memory so that it is available to be used in the future. To fill in the cracks of information the top-down processing comes in. It does this with higher-level knowledge, experience, expectations and motivations. An example of this would be a video that was shown in class. Students were exposed to a crime scene where very quickly, someone was shot in a group of people at a bank. We were able to realize immediately that someone had been shot, without there being any sound at all. This is because of our prior knowledge and experience of seeing something similar in a past movie or show we have seen. Students didn’t have to necessarily see a gun and a man or women pointing it to know what happened since we have top down processing to fill in the blanks of what had occurred and a working memory