phonological loop
in the model of working memory proposed in 1974 by British cognitive psychologists Alan D. Baddeley (1934– ) and Graham J. Hitch (1946– ), a component that holds and manipulates auditory information over short intervals of time. For example, if one tried to remember a telephone number by repeating it over and over in the few moments before dialing, this effort would take place in the phonological loop. It comprises a phonological
store or phonological buffer (or acoustic or articulatory store) within which memory traces fade after 2 seconds unless an articulatory control process (or articulatory rehearsal system) refreshes them by subvocal rehearsal. The phonological store thus acts as an “inner ear” by remembering speech sounds in their temporal order, whereas the articulatory control process acts as an “inner voice” by repeating the series of words on a loop to prevent them from decay. Additionally, it has been suggested that the phonological loop is important to reading comprehension and may in fact function primarily as a language learning device, rather than a mechanism for the memorization of familiar words. Other components of the Baddeley and Hitch working memory model include the visuospatial sketchpad, the central executive, and the more recently introduced episodic buffer.
Also called articulatory loop.