6.3 Updating: refreshing and manipulating working memory contents

Objectives:

A. Understand that the core component of executive function known as “Updating” is a higher-order aspect of working memory.

B. Appreciate that Updating refers to the monitoring and flexible refreshing of goal-oriented information in working memory, as well as the purposeful manipulation of that information.

C. Identify common classroom behaviours that reflect Updating and school readiness.

Earlier in this chapter, we defined Updating as the ability to monitor, replace, and manipulate task-relevant information. To fully appreciate its executive role, however, we must also understand a little context. Updating is sometimes loosely equated with the well-known construct of working memory (WM; introduced in Section 5.6), but that is somewhat misleading. WM is a larger system of capabilities that includes Updating and draws on networks that are both within and beyond the frontal lobes. For a clarifying illustration, consider the different ways information is temporarily stored in WM. Sometimes information is passively stored in cortical regions toward the back of the brain near sensory areas. This form of storage is an example of how WM can involve a slave network some distance away from the frontal lobes. On other occasions, information is actively rehearsed to purposefully maintain it over a longer delay. This second form of storage involves Broca’s area, a cortical region related to speech production now considered to sit within the frontal lobe. Each of these storage capabilities factor in WM operations to provide information access. Each establishes in the first year of life, and each plays a role in the development and consolidation of Updating skills in the second and third year. However, the term Updating is reserved to describe only those WM capabilities that are a distinctly active and purposeful (voluntary) and confined to the frontal lobes.

Updating allows us to replace automatic or inappropriate responses with flexible, self-regulated plans that can factor new information. It has two core capacities. The first, as its name suggests, is to monitor and replace information in WM. In a goal-oriented situation that is in some way novel or nonroutine, all available information from both memory and sensory sources is potentially valuable but subject to WM capacity limits. The Updating component functions in a gating role, continually monitoring and replacing information to ensure that only the most relevant receives (or continues to receive) access to WM. These processes illustrate one aspect of “cognitive control,” that is, our capacity to be sensitive to relevance and yet robustly resistant to irrelevance. Some evidence suggests that WM content updating first appears in WM as early as 9–12 months of age (Diamond, 2016), and such estimates of early capacities tend to be conservative, which is to say we may someday discover it appears even earlier.

The second core capacity of Updating is the ability to mentally manipulate information in WM. For example, we often need to reorder or compare information items, or group or combine them in some way to allow convenient processing or recall. The ability to voluntarily operate on selected contents of WM in this way requires the coordination of early attentional abilities and is the essence of Updating according to Miyake and colleagues (2000). This key capability has been suggested to appear by 15 months of age and slowly develop through the preschool years (Garon, 2008).

A youngster’s ability to monitor, replace, and manipulate WM contents can often be inferred by observing behaviour. For example, when stacking blocks and surrounded by blocks of various shapes, sizes, and colours, a typical preschooler can be clearly seen to make choices, assign priorities, and revise the course of a plan. Each of these behaviours is an indication of Updating. Table 6.1 lists a range of behaviours that reflect Updating in young children and support the transition to school, but readers will also recognize that these look-fors link to success throughout one’s school career.