Memory: WMM Flashcards
What is the working memory model?
The working memory model represents how STM is organised and how it functions. It is focused on the ‘mental space’ that is active when we are temporarily storing information.
How many different components is the WMM made up of and what are they?
4
- central executive
- phonological loop
- visuo-spatial sketchpad
- episodic buffer
What is the role of the central executive?
The CE is the component of the WMM that monitors incoming data, coordinates the activities of the three subsystems in memory and allocates processing resources (slave systems) to those tasks.
What is the capacity of the CE?
The CE has a very limited processing capacity and does not store information.
What is the role of the phonological loop?
The PL is the first slave system and it processes auditory information (including both written and spoken material) and preserves the order in which the information arrives.
What is the PL subdivided into?
- the phonological store, which stores the words you hear
- the articulatory process, which allows maintenance rehearsal (repeating sounds/words in a ‘loop’ to keep them in the working memory while they are needed) The capacity of the ‘loop’ is 2 seconds worth of what you say
What is the role of the visuo-spatial sketchpad?
The VSS is the second slave system and it processes/stores visual and spatial information in a mental space known as our ‘inner eye’.
What is the capacity of the VSS?
The VSS has a limited capacity which, according to Baddeley, is abou 3-4 objects.
What is the VSS subdivided into and who by?
Robert Logie (1995) subdivided the VSS into:
- the visual cache, which stores visual data
- the inner scribe, which records the arrangement of objects in the visual field
What is the role of the episodic buffer?
The episodic buffer is the third slave system and was added to the model by Baddeley in 2000. It is a temporary store which brings together material from the other subsystems into a single memory as well as maintains a sense of time-sequencing. It also links STM and LTM.
What is the capacity of the episodic buffer?
The episodic buffer can be seen as the storage component of the CE and has a limited capacity of about 4 chunks.
What are the strengths of the WMM?
- clinical evidence - one strength is the support from Tim Shallice and Elizabeth Warrington’s case study of patient KF. After his brain injury, KF had poor STM ability for auditory information but could process visual information normally. For example, his immediate recall of letters and digits was better when he read them (visual) than when they were read to him (acoustic). KF’s phonological loop was damaged but his visuo-spatial sketchpad was still intact. This finding strongly supports the existence of separate visual and acoustic STM stores.
- dual task performance - another strength is that studies of dual-task performance support the existence of the VSS. When Baddeley’s participants carried out a visual and a verbal task at the same time, their performance on each was very similar to when the tasks were carried out separately. However when both tasks were visual/verbal, performance on both was significantly worse. This is because both visual tasks competed for the same slave system (the VSS), whereas there is no competition when performing a verbal and visual task together as both types of information are processed by different slave stores. This shows that there must be separate slave systems for processing visual and verbal info.
What are the limitations of the WMM?
- Firstly, it is unclear whether KF had other cognitive impairments which may have affected his performance on memory tasks, on top of his brain injury. This challenges any evidence that comes from clinical studies of people with brain injuries of there being separate slave systems.
- Another limitation is that there is a lack of clarity over the nature of the CE. Baddeley himself stated that “the CE is the most important but least understood component of the working memory”. This lack of understanding of the CE challenges the integrity of the WMM.
