the working memory model Flashcards
who created the working memory model
baddeley and hitch
central executive
Supervisory role
Monitors incoming data, focuses and divide our limited attention
Allocate subsystems to tasks
Limited processing capacity & does not store information
phonological loop
Deals with auditory information
Coding is acoustic
Preserves the order in which the information arrives
Divide into phonological store(stores what you hear) and articulatory process(allows maintenance rehearsal; capacity:2 seconds)
visuo-spatial sketchpad
Stores visual/spatial information
Robert logie (1995) divided vss into inner scribe and visual cache
episodic buffer added in 2000
Temporary store
Integrates visual, spatial, verbal information processed by all the other stores
Maintain a sense of time sequencing
Seen as storage component to central executive
Limited capacity (4 chunks)
Links working memory to long term memory
strength of working memory model
clinical evidence
KF suffered from a motorcycle accident causing damage to his left prefrontal cortex
Shallice and warrington (1970) found out that KF’s recall to visual stimuli was good but had poor recall to auditory stimuli
Suggest that STM involves two different processes – auditory and visual, which are carried out by the phonological loop and visuo-spatial sketchpad
Idiographic evidence, cant generalise the study to a wider population as we do not know what his memory was like before he had his accident, maybe he had problems with his STM before the accident for other reasons
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weakness for the working memory model
Ideographic evidence –> nomothetic (baddeley dual task)
Baddeley and hitch’s dual task lab experiment found out that when participants were asked to follow a spot of light round a circular path while doing a simultaneous visual task, forming a mental image of the letter F then mentally moving round the edge of the letter, answering yes/no to a question
Found it harder than when in condition 2, same simple tracking task but done while verbally repeating the word ‘the’
Findings in line with the WMM prediction that if two tasks make use of different components it should be possible to perform them as well together as separately because there is less competition for space, more capacity to perform it as shown by the better performance in condition 2
Valid as it uses a comparison group reduces false conclusion in the event of potential confounding variable
weakness of central executive
The role of central executive may be less clear
central executive cannot itself be measured directly, its function inherited from the performance at a verbal and visual task, when we want to measure the function we give it a task designed to reduced its performance, e.g. occupying the phonological loop with an articulatory suppression task
If participants were able to perform the task then researchers conclude that the CE is working properly, but if they perform the task poorly then they conclude that the phonological loop is impaired, so it is impossible to design a task that effectively tests the central executive without affecting its slave systems, meaning it may never be adequately investigated and it will always remain a concept with limited support
Richardson (1984) calls this a circular argument
Explaining why there is not a lot of evidence to support the role of central executive
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it is important that the lack of clarity of the CE needs to be resolved because it has a lot of potential to help people with disorders like schizophrenia
Evans et al (1977) found, in comparison to controls, that patients diagnosed with schizophrenia showed signs of what baddeley called dysexecutive syndrome when compared to control groups
Dysexecutive syndrome is a disorder of the function that are thought to be handled by the central executive of the working memory, functions like planning, decision-making, resource allocation and attention
Therefore, it raises the possibility that schizophrenia may at least partly involve a disorder of the central executive which is currently an active area of research, predict positive outcomes for treatment of this disorder
This is significant as the CE not only has the potential to contribute towards psychology’s aim to improve people’s lives through restricting their dysfunctional CE
evaluate phonological loop
Baddeley word length effect
Participant asked to recall a list of short and long words, he found that participants recalled shorter words better than longer ones as predicted by the WMM, shorter words would be better recalled than longer words. When tested using an articulatory suppression task,findings support the model’s view that the phonological loop has a limited capacity (2 seconds)
This supports phonological loop has limited capacity
The finding is poorer with long words demonstrates limited capacity because there is competition for storage for longer word, there is finite space for articulatory process.
Supports the model’s prediction that the WLE will disappear if the participant is given a repetitive verbal task to perform at the same time (such as saying the word ‘the’ over and over again out loud), this is because saying the word “the” is preventing rehearsal and therefore encoding of both short and long words so there is no encoding of short or long words short words have no advantage anymore.
Strength of the model –> it can explain why people are unable to recall words unless they rehearsed and suggest a reason for why people can’t do 2 verbal task at the same time
Important because it has implications for education, if students are doing a writing task which is a verbal task and listening to music with lyrics or being spoken to by another person at the same time, their ability to rehearse and store information for the first task is reduced and likely to write down lyric from the song rather than content from the course.
evaluate visuo-spatial sketchpad
May be inadequately described in the baddeley and hitch version of the model
Lieberman (1980) criticises the working memory model as the visuo-spatial sketchpad (VSS) implies that all spatial information was first visual which they are linked.
Therefore he argues that there should be separated into two different components – one for visual information and one for spatial information
This means the VSS in WMM is not described clearly, therefore WMM is partially valid
However, the VSS may be flawed as it is not described clearly
Lieberman pointed out that blind people has amazing spatial awareness but never has any visual information. Which does not line with the WMM’s claim of visuo-spatial sketchpad being only one component, therefore it should be separated into two separate component
This is a limitation of the model as it suggest it does not account for why blind people has great spatial awareness although there was no ever visual information. A solution is the research by Logie which has led to the development of the model and now It is separated into the visual cache and inner scribe.
Therefore the VSS is clearly identified with 2 separate components
Means the WMM is a valid model in describing STM
