The Working Memory Model Flashcards
Who created the Working Memory Model and why?
Baddeley and Hitch questioned the existence of a single STM store arguing that it was more complex than just being a temporary store for transferring information to LTM. They saw STM as an active store, holding several pieces of information while they were being worked on.
What are the features of the WMM?
- The central executive (boss)
- Phonological Loop ( slave system)
- Visuo Spatial Sketchpad (slave system)
- Episodic buffer
What is the central executive?
This acts as a filter to determine which information received by the sense organs is or isn’t attended to and directs attention to tasks and allocates them to the slave systems.
Capacity is limited - one strand of information at a time
Coding - modality free
What is the Phonological loop?
The PL deals with auditory information and is divided into two sub parts. The phonological store deals with words recently heard and the articulatory loop deals with the inner voice and sub vocals.
Capacity is limited - information spoken out loud for around 2s
Coding - acoustic
What is the Visuo - Spatial Sketchpad?
The VSS deals with visual information and planning spatial tasks. It is divided into two sub parts. The visual cache stores information about visual items like colour and the inner scribe stores the arrangement of items.
Capacity is limited - 3 to 4 chunks
Coding - visual
What is the Episodic buffer?
Added to the model in 2000 and is the general store that holds stores and combines information from CE VSS and PL.
Capacity is limited - 4 chunks
Coding - modality free
KEY STUDY - Supporting dual processing of WMM - Gathercole and Baddeley
Condition 1 - 2 visual tasks - track a light and describe angles in a letter
Condition 2 - 1 visual and 1 verbal task
Ppts found condition 1 was more difficult than condition 2 as c1 caused an overload of information in the VSS but c2 used both the VSS and PL.
CASE STUDY - Supporting WMM
Shallice and Warrington studied a patient known as KF who suffered brain damage due to a motorbike accident. KF had poor STM ability for sounds suggesting his phonological loop was damaged but could process visual information and and could recall numbers and digits suggesting that his visuo-spatial sketchpad was still intact proving that they are two distinct stores.
STUDY - Supporting WMM by use of brain scans - Braver et al
Gave ppts tasks that involved the central executive while they were having a brain scan and researchers found greater activity in the prefrontal cortex and activity increased when the task became harder which proves its existence and limited capacity.
STUDY - Research support for articulatory loop - Braver et al
Demonstrated that people find it harder to remember a list of long words than a list of short words - word length effect. Due to there being a finite space for rehearsal in the articulatory process so you can rehearse short words more than the long words. Supports the WMM as if a phonological loop with a limited capacity did exist then it would make sense that it could store more single-syllabic words than multi-syllabic words as it can,t cope with storing that much information.
EVALUATION - Is the WMM an accurate explanation of memory?
STRENGTHS
- research support for articulatory loop
- can explain why information is forgotten in STM
- case study evidence
- evidence in brain scans
Differences and Similarities between WMM and MSM
DIFFERENCES
- WMM says coding in STM is visual and acoustic whereas MSM is just acoustic
- WMM is just a model of STM
SIMILARITIES
- both have case study evidence ( HM and KF )
- both un-observable models - you can’t physically see that they exist
