start with the same letter as the letter in the triangle?
3. Remember the triangle where the letter appears.
4. Does the picture start with the same letter as the letter in the triangle?
5. Remember the triangle where the letter appears.
6. Does the picture start with the same letter as the letter in the triangle?
7. Remember the triangle where the letter appears.
8. Does the picture start with the same letter as the letter in the triangle?
9. Now draw arrows to the triangles where the letters appeared, in the correct order.
Scoring
The number of letters you can remember in the correct order gives you an indication of the strength of your working memory. If you are like most adults, you were probably able to complete levels 1 and 2 of this test correctly. Data from thousands of people confirm that the average five-year-old can remember and process two things. Most adults are able to remember four or five items in the correct order.
If you didn’t fare so well on these tests, don’t get frustrated. You can always make an improvement. If you aced these assessments, don’t get too smug. You need to continually challenge your working memory to keep it in tiptop shape. Doing brain training exercises, such as the ones in this book, can help optimize your working memory.
Why Working Memory Is Crucial to Success
WE HAVE SPENT a lot of time studying what happens when our working memory Conductor fails to keep control—from kids struggling to keep up in the classroom to bad habits such as gambling and overeating and failing to meet deadlines at work. An overtaxed working memory may even be behind your feeling like a grump all the time, or an inability to control your wandering eye even though you’ve found “the one.” At the heart of why working memory is so important in endeavors from work to school, to sports, to dieting is a core set of skills that a strong working memory enables us to exercise. To dig deeper into how working memory operates and how it enhances our lives, in this chapter we focus on this essential skill set, starting with perhaps the most distinctive feature of human life: our will—that is, the ability to choose for ourselves, to act, to carry out plans, to take responsibility for what we do.
Working Memory and Will
Your will affords you the wherewithal to go after the things you want in life: choosing a university, selecting a subject, chasing after a romantic partner, and vigorously pursuing a career. Why is working memory central to our ability to exercise will? Because exercising will requires evaluating, planning, and executing plans; keeping long-term goals in mind; controlling impulses; and overcoming obstacles—all of which rely on working memory skills.
We had an intense experience of the relationship between the working memory and will when we taught in El Salvador, a country known for danger. During our time there, grocery stores had guards armed with shotguns positioned by the milk and an area for you to check your guns and coats before you shopped. We quickly learned to deal with everyone in an exceedingly polite manner.
On our very last day in the country, we were driving on a well-traveled road when a car swerved and cut us off. Ross, who was driving, saw that one of many men in the car had a shotgun. He zipped his lips. Because of her line of sight, Tracy, in the passenger seat, didn’t see the gun, and the red mist descended, and she used unmistakable, universal sign language to express her dissatisfaction. Fortunately, the men didn’t notice the gesture or didn’t care, and we continued on our way unharmed.
The way our two minds reacted so differently to the same incident is a prime example of how the will works. Joaquin Fuster, a professor of psychiatry and biobehavioral sciences at UCLA, once described the process by saying that the will must take into account a barrage of three kinds of information:
Internal information—hormonal levels, mood, emotions, information from organs
External information—the constant stream of information transmitted by the senses
System of Principles—information—language, memory, values, culture, civics, and laws we are bound to
Our working memory Conductor takes all this information in, categorizes it, decides a course of action, and executes that plan. So let’s see how Fuster’s model may have played out in our driving mishap.
After slamming on the brakes to avoid the accident, Ross’s Conductor rapidly processed the three kinds of information:
Internal information: His amygdala was pretty pissed off and sent that information to his working memory.
External information: Before he could hurl an insult, his working memory also brought to bear the sight of the gun and the number of men in the car.
System of principles information: Cultural awareness that an expletive may provoke violence (as well as the painful awareness that he would be showing up to a gunfight with halting Spanish as a weapon).
His working memory weighed all this information, decided that there was no advantage to responding, and, in an expression of will, took the action of zipping his lip.
Now let’s look at what happened in Tracy’s mind. Her Conductor was also busy handling information:
Internal information: Like Ross’s, Tracy’s amygdala fired off a message of anger to her PFC.
External Information: Crucially, she didn’t have the same external information—she saw only the car cut us off. Unlike Ross, she did not see the gun nor did she count the number of men in the car.
System of principles information: Including an unmerited confidence in Ross’s limited bilingualism to deal with any consequences. Also, the ethical sense that we had been wronged and deserved justice.
After
