7 - Evaluation of the Working Memory Model

Question 1

What neurobiological evidence supports the working memory model?

Answer 1

KF, who, as a result of a motorbike accident, had poor short - term memory for words that were presented verbally, but not for words that were presented visually.

This suggests there is more than one type of STM, in particular one for verbal tasks ( phonological loop ) and another for visual tasks ( visuo-spatial sketchpad ).

Question 2

What lab experiments support the working memory model?

Answer 2

1:
Baddeley and Hitch gave participants a dual task. They had to do a reasoning task ( using the central executive ) at the same time as a reading aloud task ( using the phonological loop).

Both tasks were done simultaneously very well, which supports the idea of separate components in STM.

2:
He also gave participants brief visual presentations of lists of words. These words were either made up of short words or long words.

They were then asked to recall the list immediately in the correct order.

It was found they could recall more short words than long ones. This is the world length effect and it supports the idea that the phinolgivsl loop can hold as many items as can be said in 1.5-2 seconds, rather than 7(+/-2) items as the MSM argues.

Question 3

Give the general evaluation points of the WMM

Answer 3

+ It has practical applications : it has improved understanding of how people learn to read and so helped psychologists to assist those with dyslexia

• it doesn’t explain how we deal with information from the smell and touch senses
• the idea of a central executive is too simplistic and vague

EVE had a cerebral tumour removed. He had good reasoning skills, which suggested his central executive was intact, but he couldn’t make decisions, which suggests his central executive was damage. This suggests that the central executive is more complicated than the WMM suggests.