Memory - The Working Model Of Memory Flashcards
What is the working model of memory?
An explanation that sees STM as an active store holding several pieces of information simultaneously
What does the working model of memory do?
It’s active when we are temporarily storing & manipulating information e.g. playing chess
Who proposed the working model of memory?
Baddeley & Hitch
What are the four main components in the working model of memory?
The central executive
The phonological loop
The visuo-spatial sketchpad
The episodic buffer
What is the central executive?
An attentional process that that monitors incoming data, makes decisions and allocates slave systems to tasks
What is the capacity of the central executive?
limited
What is the coding of the central executive?
tbc
What is the phonological loop?
A slave system that deals with auditory information and preserves the order of which the information arrives
What are the 2 subdivisions of the phonological loop?
The phonological store
The articulatory process
What is the phonological store?
The store for the words that are heard
What is the articulatory process?
The process that allows maintenance rehearsal
What is the capacity of the phonological loop?
2 seconds worth of what you can say
What is the coding for the phonological loop?
Acoustic
What is the visuo-spatial sketchpad?
A slave system that stores visual/spatial information & the physical relationship of items when required
Give an example of using the visuo-spatial sketchpad?
Being asked to visualise how many windows are in your house
What are the two subdivisions of the visuo-spatial sketchpad & who created them?
Logie subdivided it into:
The visual cache
The inner scribe
What is the visual cache?
A store for visual data
What is the inner scribe?
A store for the information of objects in a visual field/physical relationship of items
What is the capacity of the visuo-spatial sketchpad?
3/4 objects
What is the coding of the visuo-spatial sketchpad?
visual
What is the episodic buffer?
The 3rd slave system & newest one (added in 2000)
A temporary store for visual, spatial & verbal information processed by other stores & maintains a sense of time sequencing (recording of events)
What is the capacity of the episodic buffer?
4 chunks
What is the coding of the episodic buffer?
TBC
What are some advantages of the WMM?
research support - Shallice & Warrington -> KF (had brain damage & had difficulty processing verbal info but not visual info suggesting damage to his phonological loop but the rest of his memory was intact) - supports the existence of a separate visual & acoustic store
dual task performance - Baddeley et al -> participants had more difficulty performing 2 visual tasks (tracking light & describing the letter F) than 1 visual & auditory as both visual compete for the same slave system whereas 1 v & 1 a don’t - supports existence of visuo-spatial sketchpad & explains how easy it is to complete these separate tasks
What are some disadvantages of the WMM?
counterpoint (KF) -> evidence from brain damaged patients may not be reliable (they’ve gone through trauma & cant be generalised)
Lack of clarity over the central executive -> Baddeley ‘the central executive is the most important but least understood component of the working memory’ - needs to be more specific than just an ‘attentional’ process so the WMM hasn’t been fully explained