The working memory model

Question 1

What does the WMM suggest?

Answer 1

That STM is made up of different parts which communicate and pass information through one another

Question 2

What does the WMM contain?

Answer 2

The central executive, the phonological loop, the visuospatial sketchpad and the episodic buffer

Question 3

what does the central executive do?

Answer 3

its described as the ‘attentional process’ with a limited processing capacitym its role is to allocate tasks to the three slave systems

Question 4

What does the phonological loop do?

Answer 4

it processes auditory information and allows for maintenence rehersal by being made up of the articulary process and phonological loop

Question 5

Whats the Visio-spatial sketchpad?

Answer 5

combines visio and spatial information processed by other stores, giving us a complete picture, its around 4-5 chunks

Question 6

whats the episodic buffer?

Answer 6

intergrates all types of data processed by other stores and is described as the storage component of the central executive, crucial for linking STM and LTM

Question 7

whats a downside of the WMM?

Answer 7

The term ‘process’ is vague, the central executive may be made up of sub-components or part of a larger component itself. This lack of comprehensive explanation for each component draws doubt about the accuracy.

Question 8

What did Shallice and Warringtons study of KF show?

Answer 8

Their findings show that KF had very poor STM recall for auditory stimuli, and increased STM recall for visual stimuli. Suggests components of memory which process auditory and visual stimuli are separate in the WMM

Question 9

What did the studies of dual task performance show?

Answer 9

each participant must undertake visual amd verbal taksks simultaneously, shows a decreased performance for such tasks and so supports the idea that the Central Executive has limited processing capacity and slave systems are in competition for these tasks

Question 10

what did the neuroscanning evidence show?

Answer 10

Braver et al. positive correlation between increasing cognitive load processed by central executive and increasing action of the prefrontel cortex. supports idea of central executive allocates tasks to slave systems and limited processing capapcity , shown through increase brain activiation levels.