The working memory model

Question 1

Why was the MSM criticised?

Answer 1

For describing memory as linear with unitary stores

–> presented a very simplistic view of memory

Question 2

What did the WMM suggest?

Answer 2

suggested STM has different components and so is an explanation of how short
term memory is an active processor, how it is
organised and how it functions.

Question 3

What are the 4 main components of the WMM?

Answer 3

Central Executive, Phonological Loop, Visuospatial Sketchpad and Episodic Buffer

Question 4

What is the central executive?

Answer 4

The central executive (CE) is a supervisory component i.e. has overall control.
It is modality free - it processes all different types of information from any sense

Question 5

What is the central executive responsible for?

Answer 5

responsible for a range of important control processes; monitoring incoming information, making
decisions, retrieving information from LTM and allocating slave systems to tasks.

Question 6

Describe the capacity of the central executive

Answer 6

It has limited capacity and does not store much information

Question 7

What is the phonological loop?

Answer 7

a slave system.

Question 8

Describe the capacity of the PL

Answer 8

it has limited capacity

Question 9

How is information coded in the PL?

Answer 9

Acoustically - it deals with auditory information

Question 10

What are the 2 subdivisions of the PL?

Answer 10

The phonological store and the articulatory process

Question 11

Describe the Phonological store

Answer 11

The Phonological Store is a temporary storage system for holding auditory information. It is Concerned with speech perception (sounds of items) and has limited capacity

Question 12

Describe the Articulatory process

Answer 12

The Articulatory Process focusses on words maintained by vocal repetition. It is concerned with speech production. It has limited capacity and is a temporary storage system.

Question 13

What is the Visuospatial sketchpad?

Answer 13

Another slave system. It stores visual and/or spatial information when required. Visual/spatial information i temporarily stored here.

Question 14

What is visual information?

Answer 14

What things look like

Question 15

What is spatial information?

Answer 15

The physical relationship between things

Question 16

What is the capacity of the VSS?

Answer 16

3 or 4 items

Question 17

What is the VSS composed of?

Answer 17

Visual cache

Inner scribe

Question 18

What is the visual cache?

Answer 18

Stores visual data

Question 19

What is the inner scribe?

Answer 19

records the arrangement of objects in the visual field (spatial)

Question 20

What is the Episodic Buffer?

Answer 20

The third slave system added by Baddeley. The EB is a
temporary store for information which integrates the visual, spatial and verbal information processed by other stores and maintaining a sense of time sequencing – basically recording events that are happening.

The EB links working memory to LTM and wider cognitive processes such as perception.

Question 21

Why did Baddeley add the Episodic Buffer?

Answer 21

because he realised that the model needed a general store. The PL and VSS deal with processing and temporary storage of specific kinds of information. The CE has no storage capacity, so there was nowhere to hold information.

Question 22

What is the capacity of the EB?

Answer 22

4 items

Question 23

Who talks about dual task performance?

Answer 23

Baddeley

Question 24

What did Baddeley’s study show?

Answer 24

When both tasks were verbal (or both visual) performance on both declined. However when one task was verbal and the other was visual, performance was better. This is because there is no competition when performing a verbal and visual task together whereas visual tasks compete for the same slave sub-system (VSS)