Working memory

And inside that short term memory, there's several kinds.

And one of those kinds is what we call working memory.

I'm sure you've heard of working memory because a lot of people in ADHD did.

But just to clarify, working memory is a type of memory that's manipulation information.

So let's say I ask you to give me change from $100.

I just paid for this lollipop.

That's manipulating information, that small activity.

If I tell you, make a choice between two things.

Where is this interrupting the process for somebody?

When you're neurodivergent, a lot of the times you have limited working memory.

And I can't remember if we've done an episode on working memory, like entirely on working memory.

I don't think we have talked.

The way memory works, it is a lot like the way computer memory works, right? So you have sort of working memory is what you can hold in your mind at one time.

So when you go in and you go through an ADHD or autism assessment, one of the things they do is test your working memory.

And the way they do that is absolute torture because they give you a list of numbers and you need to remember them and repeat them back.

And they do this in a series where you have to repeat back the numbers in the order they told you.

The ability to come up with creative ideas, to always feel like you're moving, to hyper fixate, you know, that kind of thing can be really, really helpful.

But we have the strong weaknesses, the executive functioning, the working memory, the time blindness.

These things don't go away when you start a business and when you lead a team.

In fact, they get worse.

So do the brain dump.

Yes, it's really helpful.

We have working memory struggles, so do the brain dump.

But once you've done that, you want to look at that list and you want to go, okay, what do I need to do today? Or there will be a negative external consequence, like a real consequence.

Yeah

... who's going to be your working memory.

Yeah.

I think that is good advice, but it's also difficult, and you need...

Like [laughs] 'cause that's actually what we're gonna talk about now, and was like, "This is ridiculous.

I want pen and paper.

That's how I've always done it." [laughs] There was research to back this up as well, which was the meta-analysis, Alderson and colleagues 2013, 38 studies of adults with ADHD versus healthy controls, and they found that- When you have ADHD, you are also more likely to have moderate working memory deficits, both chronological, verbal, and also visuospatial.

And what this really showed in this paper was that the working memory struggles that we found in younger people were persisting into adulthood with ADHD.

As someone, a behavioral neuroscientist who studies memory systems, You bring a really unique perspective to how, or a lens, I guess, for listeners and myself into how learning happens at neural and cognitive levels.

For someone who does not have your depth of expertise, can you walk us through what's actually happening in working memory when students have access to foundational knowledge versus when they have to constantly look for things or relearn basic terms on the spot? How does having built-in memory, these somethings to think with, serve as a scaffold for critical thinking or things like critical thinking rather than an obstacle to it?

Thank you so much for this thoughtful question, Amanda.

I think having that knowledge available really changes how much a student has to juggle all at once.

Working memory can be thought of as our mental workbench.

In other words, the information we can keep in mind and work with right now.

There's only so much room on it, about three to five meaningful pieces at a time.

Interestingly, you can watch the brain build that fluency.

Absolutely.

So we did, you had me on Parent Palooza a couple years ago, and the topic was, is your working memory working? And in that exercise-

Yeah

...

in that thing, I, uh, I, I think you and Linda were there, but I gave you six words and asked you to repeat it back to me in alphabetical order, and that's a simulated experience 'cause I wanted people to understand, like, what it is to juggle things in your mind towards a goal.

Right.

That's actually using working memory.

And yeah, I, I've defined, I've been in front of people and defined ex- working memory before, but then I put them in that experience, they go, "Oh my God, that's what that is." And people struggle with it.

He's an adult improver, visualization expert, chess coach.

He has many many talents and similar interests to me, and I will be talking about so many beautiful things today about working memory, visualization, blunder checks, and so many value will be given to especially adult improvers, but chess community overall.

Aidan, very well, welcome to the show, my friend.

Thank you, Jean.

You mean all I have to do is remember the bishop's here and the pawn's here? Heck yeah.

and says that that's a kind of like the stretching experience and that can um as long as other people the rest of their chess skills and spots are quite a few people where this is like their anchor skills i think it's holding them down but the rest of their game is better a lot of those people will find a jump of a couple hundred points very quickly um just by that kind of stretching element that's not the most common experience and the most common experience is a slower build as with anything in chess but um for some people this is kind of the Yeah,

I guess we'll come back to it because chunking is also a crucial aspect of, let's say, chess expertise and reducing working memory overload, right? Because people chunk certain informations.

So my also guess will be the same.