The working memory model

Question 1

What is the working memory model?

Answer 1

Baddeley and Hitch (1974) developed this and it focuses specifically on the workings of short-term memory (STM). It is made up of: 
Central executive
Phonological loop
Visuospatial sketchpad
Episodic buffer

Question 2

What is the central executive?

Answer 2

• Supervisory role
• Monitors incoming data
• Focuses and divides our limited attention
• Allocates subsystems to tasks
• Limited processing capacity and doesn’t store information.

Question 3

What is phonological loop?

Answer 3

• First subsystem
• Deals with auditory information and preserves the order it arrives.
• PL divided into:
  Phonological store
  Articulatory process

Question 4

What does the phonological store do?

Answer 4

Stores the words you hear.

Question 5

What does the articulatory process do?

Answer 5

Allows maintenance rehearsal the capacity of this ‘loop’ is believed to be two seconds worth of what you can say.

Question 6

What is the visuo-spatial sketchpad?

Answer 6

• Second subsystem
• Stores visual and/or spatial information when required
• Limited capacity according to Baddeley (2003) is 3 or 4 objects
• Logie (1995) subdivided into:
  Visual cache
  Inner scribe

Question 7

What does the visual cache do?

Answer 7

Stores visual data.

Question 8

What does the inner scribe do?

Answer 8

Records the arrangement of objects in the visual field.

Question 9

What is the episodic buffer?

Answer 9

• Third subsystem
• Added to model by Baddeley in 2000
• Temporary store for information, integrating the visual, spatial and verbal information processed by other stores.
• Maintains a sense of time sequencing - records events that are happening.
• Storage component of central executive
• Limited capacity of about 4 chunks
• Links working memory model to long-term memory and wider cognitive processes such as perception.

Question 10

Define the term maintenance rehearsal.

Answer 10

Repeating sounds or words in a ‘loop’ to keep them in working memory while they are needed.

Question 11

What are the strengths of the working memory model?

Answer 11

Clinical evidence - Shallice and Warrington’s (1970) case study of patient KF.
Dual-task performance - Baddeley et al. (1975)

Question 12

Explain Shallice and Warrington’s (1970) experiment.

Answer 12

They studied a client they referred to as KF who had amnesia. KF had poor STM ability for auditory information but could process visual information normally.
Immediate recall of letters and digits was better when he read them than when they were read to him. KF’s phonological loop was damaged but his visuo-spatial sketchpad was intact.

Question 13

Explain the counterpoint for clinical evidence.

Answer 13

It’s unclear if KF had other cognitive impairments which might have affected his performance on memory tasks. For example, his injury caused by a motorcycle accident. The trauma involved may have affected his cognitive performance apart from brain injury.

Question 14

Explain Baddeley’s dual-task performance experiment.

Answer 14

Participants carried out a visual and verbal task at the same time, their performance on each was similar to when they carried out the tasks separately.
When both tasks were visual performance declined. This is because visual tasks compete for the same subsystem (VSS) whereas there’s no competition when performing a verbal and visual task together.

Question 15

What are the limitations of the working memory model?

Answer 15

Lack of clarity over the nature of the central executive.

Lack of validity.

Question 16

How does the central executive lack clarity?

Answer 16

Baddeley (2003) recognised himself that it’s the least understood component of WMM.
It needs to be more specified than just ‘attention’.

Question 17

How does WMM lack validity?

Answer 17

Dual-task studies are laboratory-based and highly-controlled. They use artificial materials that do not reflect how we use our memories in real life