THE WORKING MEMORY MODEL

Question 1

outline the wmm

Answer 1

• Information is detected by the Central Executive (CE) which makes-decisions and allocates this information to a slave system.
• The CE has limited capacity so some of this information flows to the episodic buffer which temporarily stores the information until information is allocated to a slave system.
• If the information is auditory, it then flows to the Phonological Loop.
• Whereas, if the information is visual/spatial information it then flows to the Visual Spatial System.
• This information flows back to the Episodic Buffer which flows the information to the
  LTM

Question 2

One strength of the WMM is that there is supporting research.

Answer 2

• For example, Shallice and Warrington studied patient KF who had brain damage.
• The brain damage caused KF to have poor STM for verbal informationbut he could process visual information normally.
• This shows that there are two separate stores one for auditory information and one for visual- which agrees with the WMM and shows they are not unitary like the MSM suggests.
• This is an advantage as it increases validity of the theory. Yet, as it was a case study this means it lacks population validity due to a small sample.
• Therefore, we are unable to make meaningful generalisations to a wider population

Question 3

One strength of the WMM is that dual task performance studies support the existence of a visuo-spatial sketchpad.

Answer 3

• For example, Baddley et al studied dual tasks performance, they found that participants had more difficulty doing 2 visual tasks than doing a visual task and a verbal task at the same time.
• This shows that both visual tasks compete for the same slave system, whereas when doing a verbal and visual task simultaneously, there is no competition.
• This means there must be a separate slave system that processes visual input (the VSS).
• This is an advantage as it proves that there are different slave systems which make up our STM and thus increases validity of the theory.

Question 4

One strength of the WMM is that it has practical applications.

Answer 4

• Being able to identify the different components of the STM is useful as it helps us put laws in place to keep society safer.
• For example, we nowhave laws in place for driving and using your phone at the same time- carrying out two tasks that use the same components of the working memory can lead to poor performance on one or both of them.
• This is an advantage as it has useful applications to real life and helps us understand the brain in further depth- so we can avoid danger within the roads and keep the roads more safe

Question 5

One limitation of the WMM is that it lacks clarity over the CE

Answer 5

• Critics of the WMM suggest that the CE is unsatisfactory and doesn’t really explain anything.
• The WMM describes the CE as just ‘attention’. This means that it’s vague and lacks depth into its actual purpose as there is a lot of different information coming in which are from all different senses so there must be more components.
• This is a disadvantage as it is an incomplete explanation of the STM and shows that it’s underdeveloped.