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Is short‐term memory involved in decision making? Evidence from a short‐term memory patient
Author(s) -
Gozzi Marta,
Papagno Costanza
Publication year - 2007
Publication title -
journal of neuropsychology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.85
H-Index - 37
eISSN - 1748-6653
pISSN - 1748-6645
DOI - 10.1348/174866407x180855
Subject(s) - baddeley's model of working memory , working memory , task (project management) , psychology , cognitive psychology , short term memory , term (time) , control (management) , interference theory , cognition , computer science , neuroscience , artificial intelligence , physics , management , quantum mechanics , economics
It is reasonable to suggest that working memory (WM; Baddeley & Hitch, 1974) is involved in decision making, as decision making is dependent on the ability to remember and update past choices and outcomes. However, contradictory results have been reported in the literature concerning the role of two of its components, namely the central executive and the phonological loop. In order to investigate the role of these components in the decision‐making process, we tested a patient with intact central executive but impaired phonological loop on a laboratory decision‐making task involving hypothetical gambles (gambling task, GT). When tested in a no‐load condition (simple keypress task), her performance was not significantly different from that of matched controls. We also verified whether her performance would be affected differently by memory‐load when compared with control subjects. The memory task (holding a string of letters in memory) loaded WM without incurring number‐number interference. When the memory‐load was imposed during the GT, both the patient and the controls showed a decline in performance, but the strategy they adopted differed. Possible explanations are discussed. In conclusion, our results suggest that the phonological loop is not directly involved in decision making.