The WMM of memory

Question 1

One strength of the WMM

Answer 1

P- clinical evidence from shallice and warrington(1970) case study of patient KF
E- after his brain injury , kf had poor stm ability for auditory information but could process visual information normally
E- eg. his immediate recall of digits/letters was better when he read them(visual) than when they were read to him (acoustic) .
E- kf’s phonological loop was damaged but his visa-spatial sketchpad was intact
T- findings strongly support the existence of operate visual and acoustic memory stores
CP- unclear whether kf had other cognitive impairments which might have affected his performance on memory tasks, eg, trauma may have affected his cognitive performance quite apart from the any brain injury
CPT- challenges evidence that comes from clinical studies of people with brain injuries that may have affected many different systems

Question 2

One strength of the WMM

Answer 2

P- studies of dual-task performance support the separate existence of the visa-spatial sketchpad
E- baddeleyparticipants carried out visual and verbal tasks at the same time
E- performance on each was similar to when carried out tasks separately
E- BUT when both tasks were visual vice versa performance both declined
E- because both visual / verbal compete for the same subsystem(vvs/ pl) whereas there is no competition when performing a verbal and visual task together
T- shows there must be separate subsystems that processes visual/auditory input

Question 3

One limitation of WMM

Answer 3

P- lack of clarity over the nature of the central executive
E- baddeley suggests CE is the most important but least understood
E- CE needs to be clearly specified than just being simply ‘attention’
E- eg. some psychologists believe CE has separate subcomponents
T- CE is an unsatisfactory component and this challenges the integrity of the WMM