memory: working memory

Question 1

who proposed working memory model?

Answer 1

Baddeley + Hitch 1974

Question 2

why was the working memory model created?

Answer 2

they noted problems with the msm as it was overly simplistic + emphasised role of rehearsal as being critical to learning. Baddeley + Hitch tried to understand stm as complex and active working model

Question 3

what is central executive? what is its role?

Answer 3

• can be described as attention
• monitor overall memory system rather than acting as storage system.
• allocates cognitive memory tasks to appropriate sub-systems
• seen as having limited capacity but with ability to deal with different types of sensory information
• modality free: able to process different forms of info acoustic or visual.
• attention controller
• needs to be able to pick what needs to be attended to, switch attention and connect working memory to ltm

Question 4

what is the phonological loop? what is its role?

Answer 4

• slave system and holds speech based info for about 2 seconds before decay.
• deals with temporary storage of verbal information
• two components: articularly loop (inner voice, rehearses info by repeating and primary acoustic (inner ear)

Question 5

what is the primary acoustic store?

Answer 5

• inner ear
• sound info goes directly into primary acoustic store and remembers sound in order
• only able to hold limited amount of verbal info for few seconds, but could be extended if info was refreshed using articulatory loop
• can explain phonological similarity effect, more difficult to remember similar sounding words and letters. however this effect is not true of remembering words that has semantic similarity or semantically unrelated
• shows that primary acoustic store store relies on acoustic encoding for storage

Question 6

what is the articulatory loop?

Answer 6

• inner voice
• info repeated to maintain trace
• used to explain word length effect, short monosyllabic words recalled more successfully than longer polysyllabic words.
• longer words fill up limited capacity of articulatory loop resulting in decay of words positioned earlier in list
• longer word, more capacity used up and forgetting more likely

Question 7

what is the visuospatial sketchpad? what is its role?

Answer 7

• slave system that can temporarily hold and manipulate visual and spatial info
• anything to do with spatial awareness, e.g. finding your way through building uses vssp
• can deal with visuospatial info either directly through observing images or retrieving from ltm.
• maintain and integrate visual and spatial info from different channels using visual code
• rehearses info and transfers to central executive

Question 8

strengths of wmm

Answer 8

• expands on msm. model explains in detail how stm works, with ideas of vssp, inner voice and inner ear
• evidence to support model: case study of KF (Shallice + Warrington 1974). KF suffered impairment after motorbike accident. his problem was with immediate recall of words being presented verbally, (had digit span of one) but not with visual info. suggests KF had impaired articulatory loop but intact vssp.
• high is validity, model seems credible as it fits with everyday experience of manipulating info when solving problems, with stm as dynamic process rather than static store, e.g. if you have to encode something in one particular way, then remove competing info.

Question 9

weaknesses of wmm

Answer 9

• research that supports wmm have been mostly lab experiments using artificial tasks. reduces ecological validity of evidence, as highly controlled studies might not be representative of what happens in real world
• ideas of central executive is simplistic and vague. doesn’t really explain what it is, apart from being involved in attention. e.g. Baddeley claims central executive has limited capacity but it is difficult to design tasks to test central executive
• only explains how info is dealt with in stm. doesn’t explain how info is transferred to ltm
• different theories of memory e.g. Reconstructive Theory by Bartlett explains memory is reconstruction of events based on past experience and stereotypes. better explains differences in people’s recall of same event than wmm