Human Behavior Research: Evaluating the Influence of Working Memory and Emotion on Human Cognition and Performance

Introduction to Working Memory

Memory allows humans to access their past to aid in learning and planning for the future. It is made of two distinct, but deeply intertwined parts, forming the complex human cognition process: working memory (an expanded and revised concept originally referred to as short-term memory), and long-term memory (LTM). As Baddeley (1992) explains, “working memory stands at the crossroads between memory, attention, and perception” (pg. 559). Working memory permits humans to understand and visualize their environment, draw from prior knowledge, set goals, and solve problems (Baddeley & Logie, 1999). It allows humans to process tasks that require multiple steps of thinking, leading to the need for information to be temporarily remembered to ultimately make a decision (Miyake & Shah, 1999). Reasoning, comprehension, and learning also rely on working memory (Baddeley, 1992). For example, working memory helps humans compare and choose a car, learn a new language, or visualize how a home remodel could look. As the center of cognition and “the most significant achievement of human mental evolution,” working memory is powerful (Goldman-Rakic, 1992, as cited in Miyake & Shaw, 1999, p. 1).

Unlike LTM, working memory is extremely limited in capacity and includes both a storage and processing function, though retrieval from LTM is a vital function (Coolidge & Wynn, 2005). Working memory is the link between bottom-up and top-down processing. Because of the limited capacity, limited duration, and high volatility, the information in working memory can become easily overloaded if the information is not accommodated or assimilated into schemata in LTM. All information from the world that makes it through the pre-processing stages has to pass through working memory before it can be committed to memory; therefore, it is crucial for experience designers to understand the limitations to maximize human performance. When designers understand how to leverage the abilities of working memory, they can design products and services to be easier to learn and adopt. By evaluating prominent theories, this review discusses the importance of working memory and the management of cognitive load on human processing. It then evaluates the role emotion plays alongside working memory in human cognition. The remainder of the review will assess Trello, an online visual organization tool, and its alignment with the capabilities of working memory.