Article Paper One.
C’aira Vasquez
Texas Woman’s University

Most people don’t often think about it, but without working memory, we wouldn’t be able to perform most of our daily tasks. In fact, most people has the faintest idea of what working memory truly is. What most aren’t aware of is that our working memory is what allows us to store and manage information that is needed in order to carry out daily complex cognitive tasks. Amongst these tasks are things such as learning, comprehending, and reasoning. Think of it this way, working memory is our most recent memories, which is closely related to short term memories. Without these working memories, we would never be able to complete daily tasks or execute challenges due to the fact that we wouldn’t be able to keep the information we are using in order to complete those things, and we would simply forget what we were doing in the first place. Along with many other important things our brain does, in order to keep us up and running, working memory has many sections that have major roles that allow us to complete our daily tasks. In working memory we have what is known as Verbal (auditory) working memory, and Visual-spatial working memory. Often there are some people that can struggle in one of the two areas, which can be improved with the help of many strategies. In the article “Does working memory training promote the use of strategies on untrained working memory tasks?” Darren Dunning and Joni Holmes, do variety of tests in order to come to a conclusion of what strategy is the best for which type of people. Research by Dunning and Holmes (2014) supports that “Adaptive computerized training has been associated with significant enhancements in untrained working memory tasks, but the nature of the cognitive changes that underpin these improvements are fully not understood.”(p.854) Using a random selected control trial, the participants were asked to complete four types of tests of working memory before receiving any adaptive training, nonadaptive working memory training with very low memory loads, or no training whatsoever. Each of the groups preformed the very same tasks and were teste equally. Although tested the same, the results from each group slowly increased and decreased at their own pace. Like many things in this world, working memory can be greatly influence and improved with the help of technology. Dunning and Holmes (2104) agreed that computerized training is a “...Great potential benefit to individuals with poor working memory skills who struggle to maintain attention and are at risk of educational difficulties.”(p.854) One concern I would have with this concept, is that not everyone bases their life off of using technology. While some use computers daily, there are also some who rarely or don’t even use computers at all. Therefore I would say basing these results of computerized training would limit those who don’t use technology daily. For the untrained group, which are people who performed the tasks to test their visual-spatial and verbal working memory without the help of technology, Dunning feels they had no choice but to use their “existing memory capacities optimally on untrained tests of working memory that share similar task features with the trained tasks.”(p.854) If they had no choice but to use their previous strategies’, why would anyone ever expect an increase in their results? Going into the research, Dunning and Holmes, discovered that there could be two possible outcomes that might lead to changes on the untrained memory tasks. The first outcome being, that training increases working memory capacity, allowing the brain to store more information than before. As Holmes (2014) found that second possible outcome being that intensive training “encourages more efficient use of existing working memory resources through promoting the development of compensatory strategies to either overcome areas of weakness or capitalize on existing strengths.”(p.855)