Memory- The working memory model

Question 1

Explain why Baddely and Hitch wanted to improve on the MSMM

Answer 1

-they wanted to give a better understanding of short-term memory
-rather than seeing STM as just a single store that information passes through it emphasises the active processes that happen in the STM
-they felt that STM must have a separate verbal and visual store because they notices:
1.) If you did visual things at the same time it is harder than separately
2,) If you do a visual and verbal task it is no harder than if you did them separately

Question 2

Why is it called the ‘working memory’ model?

Answer 2

Because it is what you use when ‘working’ on a task that requires you to store information as you go along

Question 3

Explain the role of the central executive

Answer 3

• acts as a supervisor, it maintains all incoming information from the senses and the LTM
• it plays a critical role in attention, planning and coordination
• it has a limited capacity (it cannot do too much at once) and it cannot store data
• it directs attention to a particular task determining how best to use the brains resources allocating each to different tasks , these resources are the ‘slave systems’ allocating those to tasks helps free up some of its own capacity to deal with more demanding tasks

Question 4

Explain the role of the visa spatial sketch pad

Answer 4

• deals with visual information and spatial information

- it can access LTM to retrieve information such as if asked to imagine something to sit on e.g a chair

Question 5

What is anything ‘visual’?

Answer 5

Anything seen (e.g planning a route)

Question 6

What is spatial information?

Answer 6

How we estimate the spaces between objects (e.g driving)

Question 7

What two stores is the visuo-spatial sketch pad divided into?

Answer 7

1. )Visual cache

2. )Inner scribe

Question 8

What is the role of the visual cache?

Answer 8

Stores visual data (form and colour)

Question 9

What is the role of the inner scribe?

Answer 9

Records the arrangement of objects in the visual field

Question 10

What is the role of the phonological loop?

Answer 10

• has a limited capacity and deals with verbal and acoustic information (acoustically encoded)
• acoustic=anything with words
• if we receive 2 types of verbal acoustic information together we struggle as we have overloaded the phonological loop
• it can access LTM to retrieve information (e.g language sounds of grammar when trying to learn a new language)

Question 11

Baddely further divided the phonological loop into two stores, what are these?

Answer 11

1. )The phonological store

2. )An articulatory process

Question 12

What does the phonological store hold?

Answer 12

The words you hear, like an inner ear

Question 13

What is an articulatory process used for?

Answer 13

Words that are heard or seen. These words are silently repeated (looped) like an inner voice. This is a form of maintenance rehearsal

Question 14

Explain the role of the episodic buffer

Answer 14

Baddely added the episodic buffer because he realised the model needed a general store. The phonological loop and visuo-spatial sketch pad deal with processing and temporary storage of specific kinds of information

• The central executive has no storage capacity, so there was nowhere to hold information that relates to both visual and acoustic information.
• The episodic buffer if an extra storage system that has in common with all working memory units, limited capacity
• the episodic buffer integrates information from the central executive, the phonological loop and visuo spatial sketch pad.
• It also maintains a sense of time sequencing-basically recording events (episodes) that are happening
• the episodic buffer sends information to the LTM

Question 15

Evaluation of the working memory model: Further support from the model being correct is that there are separate verbal and visual stores backed up by the case studying into KF

Answer 15

He had amnesia after a motor biking accident which caused him to suffer a brain trauma. His STM was very poor when information was read out loud but he was able to read information when it was written down and not hearing it. This suggests there is more than one STM store, one for verbal and one for visual.

Question 16

Evaluation of the working memory model: One weakness of the working memory model is that the description of the central executive is too vague

Answer 16

• The central executive is the one we know least about and any information on it is too vague as we don’t know a lot about it.
• the answer appears to be that it allocates resources and essentially is the same as attention
• Critics also feel the notion of a single central executive is wrong and that there are probably several components
• Eslingner and Damasio studied EVR who had a cerebral tumour removed. He performed well on tests requiring reasoning, which suggested that his CE was intact, however he had poor decision making skills (spending hours deciding what to eat) which suggests his CE was not wholly intact
• CE is probably more complex than currently represented

Question 17

Additionally there is support for two STM stores from dual processing studies. Baddely et al

Answer 17

• The main reason for developing the WWM was to account for dual task performance
• HItch and Baddely supported the existence of the central executive in one study
• Task 1 occupied the central executive (e.g paps given statement ‘B’ followed by ‘A’ and shown two letters ‘AB’ and asked to sat true false
• Task 2 either involved the articulatory loop (e.g asked to say ‘the the the’ repeatedly) or involved both the