Strengths And Weaknesses Of Working Memory Model

Question 1

Strengths - baddeley, Thomson, Buchanan (1975)

Answer 1

-found that word length influence recall of five words
-Recall was higher and shorter words were used
-Illustrates the phonological loop can only hold two seconds worth of speech , shorter words easier to process

Question 2

Strengths - neuroimaging studies

Answer 2

-Demonstrates that different regions of the brain were activated and undertaking tasks that employed this phonological store
-using a pet scan they found the brocas area was activated during subvocal rehearsal tasks
-Provide evidence for the phonological loop and it’s separate components
-the exact location of the central executive has been difficult to find as it is largely diffused across the cortex

Question 3

Strengths -patients with Alzheimer’s

Answer 3

-decreased central executive function as disease progresses
-Badly at al conducted a series of dual task experiments on people with Alzheimer’s using verbal and visual tasks
-Alzheimer’s group did not differ significantly from other groups when performing visual or verbal tasks
-Did show impairment when trying to do them together, impairment demonstrate significant problems with executive functioning of central executive

Question 4

Strengths - mcclelland et al (2006)

Answer 4

-investigated working memory base technique for reducing food cravings
-50 female asked to imagine their favourite foods
-Visual spatial techniques such as forehead tracking as performed at the same time as imagining food
-Forehead tracking involves the participant tapping and imagining line across their forehead, this task reduced a vividness of the images and the degree of craving because it used up the resources of the sketchpad , leaving less opportunity for food visualisation

Question 5

Weakness- central executive is unclear

Answer 5

-The nature and role of the central executive is unclear as there is little known about this
-alloort Questioned whether it was necessary at all ,as all research findings can be explained by looking at the workings of individual components
-Eysenck all that such a system would be chaotic and a central executive would be necessary

Question 6

weakness - reductionist

Answer 6

-model only explains components of the short-term memory
-reductionist-only focus on one factor and ignore other factors
-No detail on how long-term memory works and ignores other parts

Question 7

Weakness-episodic buffer added in 2000

Answer 7

-Weakness as model was incomplete originally
-Something was missing in 1974, May reduce reliability of the model