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psych - [2] memory > the working memory model > Flashcards

the working memory model Flashcards

1
Q

what is the WMM? (baddeley and hitch, 1974)

A
  • an explanation of how STM is organised and how it functions
  • about the mental space active when we are temporarily storing and manipulating information
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2
Q

what are the four main components of the WMM?

A
  1. central executive
  2. phonological loop
  3. visuo-spatial sketchpad
  4. episodic buffer
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3
Q

what is the central executive and what does it do? (CE)

A
  • supervisory role
  • monitors incoming data
  • focuses and divides our limited attention
  • allocates subsystems to tasks
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4
Q

what is the capacity of the CE?

A
  • very limited processing capacity
  • does not store information
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5
Q

what is the role of the phonological loop? (PL)

A
  • deals with auditory information
  • preserves the order in which the information arrives
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6
Q

what type of coding does the PL have?

A

acoustic

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7
Q

what are the subdivisions of the PL?

A
  • phonological store: stores the words you hear
  • articulatory process: allows maintenance rehearsal
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8
Q

what is maintenance rehearsal in the PL?

A

repeating sounds or words in a loop to keep them in working memory while they are needed

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9
Q

what is the capacity of maintenance rehearsal believed to be? (PL)

A

two seconds worth of what you can say

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10
Q

what is the role of the visuo-spatial sketchpad? (VSS)

A

to store visual and / or spatial information when required

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11
Q

what is the capacity of the VSS?

A
  • limited capacity
  • 3 to 4 objects (baddeley 2003)
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12
Q

what did robert logie (1995) subdivide the VSS into?

A
  • visual cache: stores visual data
  • inner scribe: records the arrangement of objects in the visual field
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13
Q

what is the episodic buffer? (EB)

A
  • added by baddeley (2000)
  • temporary store for information
  • can be seen as the storage component of the CE
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14
Q

what is the role of the EB?

A
  • to maintain a sense of time sequencing ie. recording events that are happening
  • to integrate the visual, spatial and verbal information processed by other stores
  • to link WM to LTM and wider cognitive processes eg. perception
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15
Q

what is the capacity of the EB?

A
  • limited capacity
  • about 4 chunks (baddeley 2012)
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16
Q

evaluation: clinical evidence (shallice and warrington 1970)

A
  • case study of patient KF
  • after brain injury, KF had poor STM ability for auditory info but could process visual info normally
  • eg. immediate recall of letters & digits was better when he read them (visual) than when they were read to him (acoustic)
  • ie. KF’s PL was damaged but his VSS was intact
  • this strongly supports the existence of separate visual and acoustic memory stores
17
Q

evaluation: lack of controlled variables in case studies (KF)

A
  • unclear if KF had cognitive impairments other than damage to PL which affected performance on memory tasks
  • eg. injury was caused by a motorcycle accident; trauma involved may have affected his cognitive performance apart from any brain injury
  • this challenges evidence from clinical studies of people with brain injuries that may have affected many different systems
18
Q

evaluation: dual-task performance supports the existence of the VSS (baddeley et al. 1975)

A
  • ps carried out a visual and verbal task at the same time (dual task)
  • performance on each was similar to when they carried out the tasks separately
  • when both tasks were visual or both were verbal, performance on both declined substantially
  • this is because both visual tasks compete for the same subsystem (VSS), but there is no competition when performing a verbal and a visual task together
  • therfore, there must be a separate subsystem (VSS) that processes visual input, and another one for verbal processing (PL)
19
Q

evaluation: lack of clarity of the nature of the CE

A
  • baddeley (2003): ‘the CE is the most important but the least understood component of WM
  • CE needs to be more clearly specified than just simply being ‘attention’
  • eg. some psychologists believe the CE may consist of separate subcomponents
  • this means the CE is an unsatisfactory component, which challenges the integrity of the WMM
20
Q

evaluation: validity issues of dual-task studies

A
  • they use tasks that are unlike the tasks we perform in our everyday lives (eg. identifying the correct orders of letters such as A and B, recalling random sequences of letters)
  • carried out in highly-controlled lab conditions (eg. where presentation of stimuli is precisely timed)
  • therefore, stimuli have low mundane realism
  • ps may be subject to demand characteristics

psych - [2] memory (9 decks)

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