psychology working memory model

Question 1

what is the working memory model

Answer 1

developed by baddeley and hitch
explanation to how one aspect of memory is organised and how it functions
concerned with the mental space that is active when we are temporarily storing and manipulating info

Question 2

what is the central executive

Answer 2

has a supervisory role
monitors incoming data
focuses and divides our attention
allocates subsystems to tasks
very limited processing capacity
doesnt store info

Question 3

what is the phonological loop

Answer 3

deals with auditory info
preserves order in which info arrives
subdivided into phonological store (stores words hear)
articulatory process (allows maintenance rehearsal capacity is two words worth of what you can say)

Question 4

what is the visuo spatial sketchpad

Answer 4

stores visual and or spatial info
limited capacity of 3 or 4 objects
visual cache- stores visual data
inner scribe- records arrangement of objects in visual field

Question 5

what is the episodic buffer

Answer 5

temporary store for info
integrates visual spatial and verbal info processed by other stores
maintains sense of time sequencing
limited capcity 4 chunks
links working memory to ltm and wider cog processes

Question 6

what are the clinical evidence evaluation

Answer 6

strengths
-support from kf, poor stm ability for auditory info but could process visual info normally
- phonological loop was damaged but visuo spatial sketchpad was intact
- strongly supports existence of seperate stores
weakness
- unclear whether kf had other cog impairments which might have affected performance on memory tasks
-challenges evidence from clinical studies of people with brain injuries- may have affected different systems

Question 7

what are the dual task performacne points

Answer 7

strenghts
- support separate existence of visuo spatial sketchpad
- baddeley carried out tasks of visual and verbal, visual and verbal can be performed together but visual and visual or verbal and verbal couldnt
- both visual and both verbal tasks competed for subsystems
- must be separate subsystems that processes visual and verbal input

Question 8

what is the nature of the central executive points

Answer 8

weakness
- lack of clarity over nature of central executive
- least understood component
- needs to be more clearly specified than just being attention
- challenges integrity of wmm