>Baddeley has taken STM and created a working memory system comprised of a
>Central Executive and various "slave systems" - the visual-spacial sketch
>pad and the rehearsal loop system (itself composed of two systems: the
>articulatory loop and the phonological store) being the two that have been
>explored experimentally. Thus, the "traditional" idea of the STM structure
>is now instantiated as a complex of separate processing structures.
>>>>
Braddeley's model of working memory is historically important. While it is true
the brain may act as if it has a Central Executive and slave systems for various
functions, I would suggest that functional magnetic resonance imaging would not
support this position.
fMRI shows that as learning proceeds that neuro firing patterns become
correlated with lower rates of firing over widely dispersed areas in the brain.
This illustrates the formation of wavelet filters for a behavior. This is
similar to a slave system for a particular behavior. The formation of a global
Central Executive structure can in principle be created from the above
procedure. The actual location would be at different positions for different
people.
Ron Blue
