Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums General Discussion Working memory - why is it deemphasized here?

Just another thought about working memory; maybe somebody who is more knowledgeable about these tests can fill in the blanks, but our DD was tested on SBV several years ago and got a non-verbal WM subtest score of 10 but a verbal WM score of 18. Her overall WMI ended up at ~120. She was retested this year with WISC-IV and the subtest scores in the WM category were 16 and 17, so her overall WMI was over 130, which in my opinion is a pretty big difference as well. I asked the psychologist about it and she said one of the tests used a verbal measure and the other used a non-verbal (must have been WISC-IV is more verbal? while SB-V includes non-verbal? whatever that means...). Which adds to the continuing questions I have about how these tests purport to measure things. But anyway, especially if you have a 2e-ish kid, it might be worth looking into different tests and asking about what they're actually measuring.

I'm interested in the idea that WM could be improved. I'd really like to improve my spatial working memory. It's truly a handicap. Like Dude, I can navigate from maps, although I am not fantastic at it. (I'm average at it, I think.) But I literally can get turned around in an instant--my brain just doesn't seem to retain spatial information. I also have mild face blindness, which must be memory-based as well. Both these things are socially awkward and embarrassing. I've wondered if I could get any better at this stuff using the various brain training programs that are out there. My husband, who has a very even profile and is very globally gifted, did not use to believe me when I admitted total ignorance of where places were and didn't recognize people. I don't know why he thought I would fake it, but he just could not believe I would be this clueless. (OTOH, he is astonished by how fast I read and write.) My brain is really all over the place. Fortunately for them, my kids seem to have none of my scatter, although DD is maybe a little poor at face recognition.

The article

http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2011/02/20/magazine/mind-secrets.html
Secrets of a Mind-Gamer: How I trained my brain and became a world-class memory athlete
by Joshua Foer
New York Times
February 15, 2011

may interest you.

Actually not really, as far as current understanding goes, I think. (I have moderate prospagnosia, or face blindness.) See e.g. http://www.ninds.nih.gov/disorders/prosopagnosia/Prosopagnosia.htm:
(my emphasis)

ETA: Ha, someone has just done the experiment that I have long wished for someone to do:
http://brain.oxfordjournals.org/content/135/2/542.short
Full text free, and lots else, from this search.

As I wrote that, I thought it might be wrong. It FEELS like a memory hole--like I just can't remember faces. I have a migraine...what does that study say, in English? Do I recognize faces but am just not making the link to the name?

Lots of people do that, but that isn't prosopagnosia. Suppose you're walking down the street and someone you know walks by, and you look at them. Do you (a) become aware that this is someone you know (regardless of whether you recall their name, or anything about them) or (b) not feel anything different from how you'd feel if you'd never seen them before, so that you walk past oblivious unless they stop you? (b) is prosopagnosia. (a), which seems to be much more common, is "finding it hard to connect names with faces" or some such.

I think the short version of that paper is that they have evidence that (I don't get the impression they'd put it any stronger) developmental prosopagnosics (i.e. people with prosopagnosia they've always had, not as a result of head injury or something) correctly store and retrieve visual memories of faces, and even react differently to familiar than unfamiliar faces indicating that their brains must be somehow connecting the memory with the perception, but don't correctly ring the "aha!" bell that would make them consciously aware that a face should be familiar, and would start the process of trying to retrieve a name, etc.

I think that often times working memory doesn't have the wow factor. It makes academics and even tasks of daily living a breeze, but doesn't enable those flashes of brilliance that we associate with genius or lesser giftedness.

I have given the matter some thought and am actually in the camp that values working memory and thinks that it is as valid a measure of giftedness as perceptual reasoning and verbal comprehension. However, I have to say that I was surprised that DD's working memory abililities were higher than those of DS just because he is my more advanced child; but on reflection, it did make sense as everything is always so easy for DD. Of course, I am comparing high versus very high and there may be a threshold beyond average where it's not an issue.

About a decade later... a new report on a study regarding prosopagnosia (face blindness) - https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2023/02/230227132443.htm