Memory - working memory model Flashcards
What is the working memory?
A limited capacity store for retaining information for a brief period while performing mental operations on that information
Who established the working memory model and why?
Baddeley & Hitch believed that STM was not a unitary store like the MSM suggests.
- they also argued it was an ‘active processes’ of information and not passive like the MSM.
What are the features of the WMM?
Central executive
Episodic buffer
Visual spatial sketch pad: visual cache and inner scribe.
Phonological loop: articulately control system and phonological store.
What is the central executive?
It has a supervisory role, does not store information and has a limited processing capacity.
- directs attention to tasks and makes decisions
- allocates tasks to the slave-systems
- data arrives from the senses or from the LTM.
What is the phonological loop?
Processes auditory information. It codes information acoustically and has a limited capacity of 2 seconds.
Phonological store : holds words heard.
Articulatory control process : inner voice (maintenance rehearsal).
What is the word length affect?
Immediate memory span is better with short words rather than with long words. This is explained by the fact that short words can be articulated faster, so that more words can be silently articulated before the decay.
What is the visual-spatial sketch pad?
The VSS processes visual and or spatial information. Visual refers to what thinks looks like and spatial refers to relationships between things. It has a limited capacity of 3-4 items.
What did Logie suggest about the visuospatial sketch pad?
Visual-cache : stores info about visual items e.g form and colour
Inner scribe : stores the arrangement of objects for spatial relations.
What was Baddeleley and Hitch experiment into memory/
To investigate if participants can use different parts of working memory at the same time.
An experiment in which participants were asked to perform two tasks at the same time - a digit span task which required them to repeat a list of numbers and a verbal reasoning task which required them to answer true or false to various questions.
What were the results of Baddely and Hitch’s experiment into working memory?
As the number of digits increased in the digit san tasks, participants took longer to answer the reasoning questions, but not much longer - only fractions of a second. Ppts did not make any more errors in the verbal reasoning tasks at the number of digits increased.
What was the conclusion of Baddeley and Hitch’s research into working memory?
The verbal reasoning task made use of the central executive and the digit span task made use of the phonological loop.
What is the dual task technique?
Dual-task techniques are ones in which performance is measured as participants perform two tasks simultaneously.
If the tasks are using the same parts of the same component processing will slow down.
What is the episodic buffer?
Temporary store which integrates information from other slave systems.
Give a strength of the working memory model?
It has supportive clinical evidence of case studies of patients suffering from brain damage – KF suffered brain damage from a motorcycle accident. He had issues with his STM. He couldn’t recall verbal information but still could process visual including faces suggesting his phonological had been damaged but were still intact – supporting the idea that there is separate stores visual spatial and acoustic processing – increasing the village but it’s also unknown that the patient could complete the task before their injury so therefore findings must be generalised with caution.
What is another strength of the working memory model?
There is empirical evidence from dual task performance studies – Baddeley and hitch showed participants had more difficulty doing two tasks that required the use of their phonological loop however one task was using the phonological loop and the other using the VSS performance was not impaired – suggesting the phonological loop can be overloaded – increasing the validity of the model.
