Memory: The Working Memory Model Flashcards
What is the working memory?
Refers to that bit of memory you are using when working on a complex task
What is the central executive (the start of the model)?
- has overall control
- has responsibility for a range of important control processes: setting task goals; monitoring and correcting errors; starting rehearsal process; switching attention between tasks, etc.
- it is a key component and determines how resources (slave systems) are allocated
- has a limited capacity.
What do the slave systems do?
The 2 slave systems (phonological loop and visuospatial sketch pad) support the central executive - used as storage systems
- frees up capacity of central executive so it can deal with more demanding info processing tasks
- systems have separate responsibilities and work independently of one another.
What is the Phonological loop?
- ‘the inner voice’
- limited capacity
- deals with auditory info and perseveres word order
- Baddeley subdivided it into:
—> Phonological store (inner ear - holds words heard)
—> Articulatory process (holds words heard/seen and silently repeated like an inner voice)
What is the visuospatial sketch pad?
- used when planning a spatial task (getting from one room to another, or counting the windows in your house)
- Visual and/or spatial info stored here.
Visual = what things look like
Spatial = relationships between things - limited capacity
Logie also subdivided this:
—> visual cache - passive visual store
—> inner scribe - rehearsal mechanism
What is the episodic buffer?
Baddeley (2000) added the episodic buffer as he realised the model needed a more general store.
- slave systems deal with specific types of info
- central executive has no storage capacity
- this buffer has limited capacity
- integrates info from all other areas
How does KF support the WMM?
He could process visual info normally (visuospatial sketch pad was intact) but poor STM ability for auditory info (phonological loop was damaged)
-e.g. immediate recall of letters and digits was better when he read them than read to him
— However, unclear whether KF had other cognitive impairments that may impacted memory performance (e.g. trauma from the accident). Also it is a unique study so lacks population validity and generalisability.
What is other evidence to support the existence of more than one store in the STM?
Baddeley tested ptps and found they found it harder completing 2 visual tasks but not visual and verbal tasks.
- this suggests that the STM stores separately as performing dual tasks would allow both stores to complete the task without trouble, whereas using visual store for 2 tasks was harder because its all from the same store in STM.
What’s a weakness of the WMM?
It may not be seen as very detailed - some psychologists feel the central executive is too vague and doesn’t really explain anything. Critics also feel that a single central executive is wrong and that there are probably several components (Shah and Miyake, 1996)
- also lacks ecological validity
What’s another weakness of the WMM considering the LTM?
The WMM doesn’t describe the link between the working memory and the LTM.
- Cowan has suggested that in order to explain abilities like text comprehension, working memory should also encompass some kind of LTM activation.
