Evaluation Of Working Memory Model Flashcards
How has brain scans provided a strength to the working memory model?
When under brain scans participants were asked to do a visual task and this made the occipital lobe active which suggests that this is where the Visio-spatial scratchpad is. When doing an auditory task the Wernickes area and Broca’s area (associated with speach) were active suggesting that this is where the phonological loop is.
What study did Gathercole and Baddeley do?
They got half the participants to do two visual tasks- tracking a moving dot across a scream and describing the angles of a hollow letter F. The other participants had to track a moving dot across a screen and do an auditory task (counting back from a three digit number). The participants doing both visual tasks performed worse than the participants doing the visual and auditory task. This supports the model when it says the two slave systems have a limited capacity, because the Visio-spatial scratchpad got overloaded with the people doing both visual tasks, but the participants doing one visual task and one auditory task could share the tasks equally between the two Slavs systems and perform better
Does the research of KF provide a strength or weakness to the working memory model?
KF is a strength because he could get new information into LTM when his STM was damaged (could only remember 1 or 2 items in a miller task). The working memory model states that there is more than one part to STM and could show that only one part of his STM was damaged, but the rest were functioning normally
What are the practical applications of the working memory model?
It could help children with special needs whose phonological loop doesn’t function normally and could be developed with the knowledge of the working memory model
What is the weakness of the central executive?
The central executive is seen as being too descriptive, because not enough research has been done to actually discover it’s characteristics like it’s precise capacity
Are the individual differences between people’s working memory models a strength or weakness to the model?
It’s a weakness, because the model doesn’t explain why some people have a better working memory than others
