• Educational Technology International
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• v.10 no.2
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• pp.145-166
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• 2009

The purpose of this study was to investigate why advance organizers (AO) are effective in promoting comprehension and mental model formation in terms of cognitive load. Two experimental groups: a concept-map AO group and a key-word AO group and one control group were used. This study considered cognitive load in view of Baddeley's working memory model: central executive (CE), phonological loop (PL), and visuo-spatial sketch pad (VSSP). The present experiment directly examined cognitive load using dual task methodology. The results were as follows: central executive (CE) suppression task achievement for the concept map AO group was higher than the key word AO group and control group. Comprehension and mental model construction for the concept map AO group were higher than the other groups. These results indicated that the superiority of concept map AO owing to CE load decrement occurred with comprehension and mental model construction in learning. Thus, the available resources produced by CE load reduction may have been invested for comprehension and mental model construction of learning contents.

• Korean Journal of Cognitive Science
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• v.22 no.2
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• pp.193-215
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• 2011

The purpose of this study was to examine the working memory that is related with reading. For this purpose, the third and fourth grade children with reading difficulty were compared with normal children. The gender comparison and the correlations among the three components of working memory were also examined. The results indicated that the reading difficulty group were outperformed by the normal group in every test. Gender difference was found only in visuospatial capacity. There was an interaction between reading and gender in the memory of dynamic mazes. In the whole group, every correlation among all components was significant. When the correlations were examined separately in each group, however, only one correlation was significant in both groups. When the influence of the central executive was controlled, the interrelationship between phonological working memory and visuospatial working memory was mitigated. This study suggests that when teaching children with reading difficulty instructional material should be succinct and visuospatial information needs to be used for boys if possible.

• Science of Emotion and Sensibility
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• v.6 no.3
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• pp.21-28
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• 2003

This study investigated the differences in processing type of working memory between experts and novices when they read music scores. Two experiments were conducted with the articulatory suppression condition. In Experiment 1, eight half notes were shown on the screen for a brief period of time, participants were then requested to write the notes on a music sheet. the stimuli were divided into two: melodious and unmelodious. In similar fashion, Experiment 2 consisted of four-chord sequences, which contained three notes each. The stimuli were also divided into two: harmonious and disharmonious. As an analysis of the results in Experiment 1 & 2, novices commonly showed better performances in the non-articulatory suppression condition than the articulatory suppression condition with both stimuli types. However, experts were relatively affected little by the articulatory suppression with harmonious stimuli. These findings support that while novices entirely depend on the articulatory loop, experts may encode the notes through the visuo-spatial sketchpad before they transfer the information to the phonological store when they are familiar with material.

• Korean Journal of Cognitive Science
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• v.17 no.1
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• pp.15-27
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• 2006

The effects of the number of Hangul syllable, the nunber/location of batchim in a Hangul word, and compound/noncompound Hangul word on memory span were examined. The results were that (1) the more syllables a word had, the lower us memory span was, (2) the more batchims a two-syllable word had, the lower its memory span was (Korean batchim effect on memory span), (3) noncompound word had higher memory span than compound word. The reading speed of above mentioned words was measured and the results were that (1) the more syllables a word had, the slower its reading speed was, (2) but the reading speed of a two-syllable word was forest when it had a batchim on second syllable than when it had no batchim or had a batchim on first syllable or batchims on both syllables (Korean ending batchim effect on reading speed), (3) noncompound word was read faster thu compound word. Korean ending batchim effect on reading speed was not compatible with the explanation by articulatory loop bur compatible with the explanation by visual cache where the orthographic information was represented. The results suggest that memory span was influenced nor only by phonological information but also by orthographic information.

• Korean Journal of Radiology
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• v.1 no.1
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• pp.19-24
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• 2000

Objective: In order to investigate the functional brain anatomy associated with verbal and visual working memory, functional magnetic resonance imaging was performed. Materials and Methods: In ten normal right handed subjects, functional MR images were obtained using a 1.5-T MR scanner and the EPI BOLD technique. An item recognition task was used for stimulation, and during the activation period of the verbal working memory task, consonant letters were used. During the activation period of the visual working memory task, symbols or diagrams were employed instead of letters. For the post-processing of images, the SPM program was used, with the threshold of significance set at p < .001. We assessed activated brain areas during the two stimulation tasks and compared the activated regions between the two tasks. Results: The prefrontal cortex and secondary visual cortex were activated bilaterally by both verbal and visual working memory tasks, and the patterns of activated signals were similar in both tasks. The superior parietal cortex was also activated by both tasks, with lateralization to the left in the verbal task, and bilaterally without lateralization in the visual task. The inferior frontal cortex, inferior parietal cortex and temporal gyrus were activated exclusively by the verbal working memory task, predominantly in the left hemisphere. Conclusion: The prefrontal cortex is activated by two stimulation tasks, and this is related to the function of the central executive. The language areas activated by the verbal working memory task may be a function of the phonological loop. Bilateral prefrontal and superior parietal cortices activated by the visual working memory task may be related to the visual maintenance of objects, representing visual working memory.

• Korean Journal of Cognitive Science
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• v.23 no.4
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• pp.487-515
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• 2012

The purpose of this study was to investigate the effect of the individual differences in cognitive processes on paragraph comprehension. To do so, the lexical decision task and the pattern comparison task were used to measure the low-level cognitive processes. Digit span task was used to test the phonological loop capacity. The individual differences of the central executive processing capacity were measured by operational span task. Reading span task was used to test the working memory capacity related with the sentence processing. Reading times and accuracies of the logically valid inferences and logically void inferences were tested to measure the high-level cognitive processes. Reading times and accuracies for the target sentences with and without prior explicit causal sentence were measured to test individuals' paragraph comprehension abilities. The results showed that the speed of the low-level cognitive processes was related with the speed of the high-level cognitive processes. Also, the accuracy of the low-level cognitive processes was related with the accuracy of the high-level cognitive processes while there was no significant correlation between the speed and the accuracy in any measures of the cognitive processes. Working memory capacity was related with the accuracy of the cognitive processes while it was not significantly correlated with the speed of the cognitive processes. Most importantly, the speed of low-level cognitive processes significantly affected the speed of the paragraph comprehension while the working memory capacity and the high-level cognitive processes had influences on the accuracies of the paragraph comprehension. The speed of the paragraph comprehension had no influence on the accuracies of the paragraph comprehension.

• Korean Journal of Cognitive Science
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• v.21 no.4
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• pp.559-602
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• 2010

This study examines the concepts and functional characteristics of consciousness in comparison of memory and attention from the perspective of information processing. It also provides an understanding of the relationships between the three as hypothetical constructs. Consciousness is regarded as too ambiguous a concept to be understood and accepted as a mental construct without the inclusion of memory and attention in any conceptualization. We need one criterion to count satisfactorily as an explanation of consciousness in information processing. Consciousness would be a subjective awareness of momentary experience and also have the characteristic of an operating system performing control and consolidation in information processing. This could be called cognitive consciousness which refers to a subjective awareness and an executive control system, even though those are not equivalent concepts. Consciousness, memory and attention, three mental constructs could operate dependently or independently depending on the specific tasks conditioned in many information processing levels whose modules with three mental constructs could operate in hierarchy. In this premise, working memory could not be a unitary system, contrary to those of Baddeley and Hitch(1974) and Baddeley(1992, 2000), just being a mental workplace consisting of two components: the phonological loop, and the visual-spatial sketchpad without the episodic buffer and a central executive which are the characteristics of consciousness. In the continuum of information processing, the conscious processes and the unconscious processes seem not to be totally different and contrasting processes.