Working memory in L2 character processing: The Case of Learning to Read Chinese

Working memory (WM) is ‘a dedicated system to maintain and store information in the short term’ (Baddeley, 2003: 829). According to the best-known view of WM (Baddeley & Hitch, 1974), WM comprises three components: a higher-level control system with limited capacity of attention called the central executive, and two storage subsystems called the phonological loop and the visuospatial sketchpad. The central executive plays a role in coordinating and supervising information taken in through the phonological loop and the visuospatial sketchpad. The phonological loop temporarily maintains verbal information including sound and language, while the visuospatial sketchpad temporarily holds visual and spatial information. In other words, the WM system has two memory components in the verbal and the visuospatial domains and one attentioncontrol component, which coordinates and regulates these two memory domains.