Working Memory and Success

Behavior is the big, broad term for everything we do.  It’s just a fancy word for action.  And, for most adults, action equals work.  Most people aren’t paid to just think.  They are paid to do.  To act.  So the mental processes we use to control our behaviors or actions are key to the work we produce.  And we control our behaviors in large part through eight major cognitive processes collectively known as Executive Functions.

We use Executive Functions to regulate our own behavior in a multitude of ways.  Make snap decisions.  Ruthlessly prioritize tasks to make better use of time.  Work late on a project even when hungry and tired.  Color-code or organize items in a particular way in a work area.  Stay focused on a task for several hours.  Handle a major setback calmly.  Saving money toward retirement.  These are all examples of people exercising their Executive Functions in controlling their actions.

Executive Functions are what make it possible for leaders to pivot in difficult situations and find a better way forward – such as what many business owners did in March 2020 when Covid began.  Rather than close their doors, companies started taking orders online, invited employees to work remotely and implemented social distancing protections in order to keep working.  That’s an example of shifting, which is an Executive Function.

Executive Functions also enable us to effectively manage our attention.  Efficient management of attention facilitates performance.  When we must think and act quickly and adaptively, or when job demands are novel and time is constrained, we must rely not only on our intellect and experience, but also on our individual cognitive skills to perform our roles and further the organization’s goals.  In that way, Executive Functions are essential in business.

Core Executive Functions — such as inhibition / self-control, working memory, and shifting — have a big impact on leadership outcomes by influencing routine management tasks such as decision-making, planning and monitoring, problem solving, negotiating, and innovating.  However, research about organizational behavior has largely neglected how Executive Functions affect leadership.

Last week, we looked at the first of these cognitive processes:  inhibition / self-control.  This week, let’s dive into the critically important (yet not well understood) function of working memory and its effect on success.

Three Types of Memory

People have three types of memory:  working memory, short-term memory and long-term memory.  While we refer to them collectively as “memory,” they actually function very differently.

When people refer to “memory,” what they’re usually referencing is long-term memory.  If you are able to read this article, then your long-term memory is recalling the process of reading in order for you to understand the words.  If you remember a childhood event, your long-term memory is retrieving that event from your long-term mental archives.  If you run into someone you know from the past, your long-term memory will recall the person’s face, and then information related to that person.

Then there is short-term memory — also referred to as active memory – which allows you to store a small amount of information in your mind and keep it readily available for a short period of time.  Short-term memory is brief and limited; hence the name.  It is stored generally for about 20-30 seconds; sometimes up to a minute.  However, most information spontaneously decays pretty quickly unless rehearsal or active maintenance strategies are used (such as saying the information aloud or mentally repeating it).   Short-term memory is also limited… commonly thought to hold only seven items (plus or minus 2) at once.  But, the information in short-term memory is highly susceptible to interference. Any new information that enters short-term memory quickly displaces old information. Similar items in the environment can also interfere with short-term memory.  That’s why it is harder to remember someone’s name at a networking event or if someone else walks up and starts speaking.

How Working Memory Works

Then there is working memory.  Working memory is what allows you to hold information in your head and manipulate it mentally for a period of time.  This is how you temporarily store and manage information in order to do complex cognitive tasks.  It is what we use most at school (as kids) and at work (as adults).

For example, working memory allows you to recall a set of instructions while you complete a task.  It is the mental workspace used when adding up two numbers spoken by someone else without using a pen and paper or a calculator.  The difference between short term memory and working memory is like remembering the ingredients that go into a soufflé (short term memory) vs. remembering the ingredients and how to combine them in the right order in order to make a feather-light soufflé (working memory).

Working memory itself is comprised of three parts:  a place where you store visual and spatial information (visuospatial scratchpad), a place where you record auditory information (phonological loop) and a place (central executive) that controls and mediates the other two parts as well as processes information, directs attention, sets goals, and makes decisions.  To understand how this works, try to count the number of windows in your house or apartment.  How do you go about this?  Most likely you’ll create a visual image of your home in your mind and take a mental tour around it counting windows to yourself as you go.  The central executive part of your memory devises the strategy.  The visuo-spatial sketchpad provides the images or floorplan.  And the phonological loop mentally counts the windows as you move through the space in your mind.  That is working memory at work.

Thus, working memory is essential for logic, reasoning, reading, and IQ. The skills and abilities we use to read and understand – such as you’re doing right now — depends on working memory.  It also plays a crucial role in learning new things, mastering new skills, and generally following directions.  In fact, one study of children found that working memory is a more powerful predictor of academic success than IQ. Students were tested for their IQ and working memory at age 5 and again at age 11. They were also tested on their academic attainments in reading, spelling and math.  Findings revealed that a child’s success in all aspects of learning boiled down to how well their working memory worked regardless of IQ score.  In another study by the U.S. Department of Education’s Early Childhood Longitudinal Study in 2010-2011, 8,330 kindergartners were assessed.  It was found that those with deficits in cognitive flexibility, inhibitory control and working memory experienced greater academic difficulties in math, reading and science than those without those challenges.

Working memory is a big part of learning.  It’s also a big part of work life.  So much hinges on our working memory because it is what allows us to:

• Focus our attention
• Conduct mental math and problem solving
• Follow a series of directives
• Encode and retrieve information into and out of our own long term memory
• Maintain stamina during complex tasks
• Take notes while listening to a presentation or at a meeting

Clearly this is an essential cognitive skill for most types of professional work.  But not everyone has a strong working memory.  Now, everyone experiences some issues with memory from time to time.  But that’s not necessarily a problem and it is not always an issue related to “working memory.”  For example, the tip-of-the-tongue effect (when you can’t remember something but it is on the tip of your tongue) is related to long-term memory. Walking to the kitchen and then forgetting what you went there to get is not related to working memory.  That is a phenomena called the Doorway effect.   Psychologists believe that walking through a doorway and entering another room creates a “mental blockage” in the brain that causes memory to reset to make room for a new episode to emerge.  That’s normal and it happens to most people.  It is not a sign of poor working memory.  But some people do have trouble with their working memory.  So how do you know if you need to strengthen your working memory?  You may need to strengthen your working memory if:

…you want to join a conversation, but you forget what you want to say by the time the other person stops talking;

…you consistently lose your keys, cell phone, or wallet;

…you easily get lost, even when you were just given directions;

…you have a lot of unfinished projects because you become distracted and forget what you were working on before;

…you plan to do some work at home but you forget to bring the work home with you;

…you have to reread a contract or email several times to retain the information; or

…you miss deadlines at work because of disorganization and inability to follow through on projects.

Stay tuned to next week when we will look at what impairs working memory and strategies for how to improve your working memory 1000%!  Don’t miss it!

Quote of the Week

“Anything that occupies your working memory reduces your ability to think.” Daniel Kahneman

© 2022, Keren Peters-Atkinson. All rights reserved.