Abstract

VILA-CHAVES, J Óscar; GUTIERREZ-MARTINEZ, Francisco  and  GARCIA-MADRUGA, J Antonio. Is the Episodic Buffer of Baddeley's model independent of the central executive? A measure of the Episodic Buffer. Anal. Psicol. [online]. 2021, vol.37, n.2, pp.378-392.  Epub June 21, 2021. ISSN 1695-2294.  https://dx.doi.org/10.6018/analesps.37.2.344391.

The Episodic Buffer (EB) is taking a growing central role in explanations regarding the functioning of working memory. In fact, in the most recent studies by Baddeley and his collaborators, the EB has situated itself at the core of this memory system. Recently, the discussion also concerns whether this component of working memory seems to demonstrate an independent nature with respect to central executive resourcing. Some studies show that in automatic tasks the creation and maintenance of elements stored in the episodic buffer do not require resources from the central executive.

The current work attempts to evaluate this assumption for what different variables are taken and a new test has been developed to measure the EB. In this double task test, the processing task consists of reading short simple texts that contain missing words. The results show that further processing due to increasing the length of the texts does not correspond to higher load demands made on the central executive, nor in the creation of chunks or their maintenance. Thus, we think that the EB is under certain circumstances independent of the central executive.

Keywords : Working Memory; Episodic Buffer; Central Executive; Reading; Long-term memory.

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