The Working Memory Model

Question 1

How and when was the working memory model (WMM) developed?

Answer 1

• this theory was proposed by Baddeley and Hitch in 1974 because they found that the way the MSM explained working memory was too simplistic and emphasised the role of rehearsal as being critical to learning.
• also used by Atkinson and Shiffrin in 1968 to describe the short-term store.

Question 2

What are the three components of the WMM?

Answer 2

• central executive.
• phonological loop.
• visuospatial sketchpad.

Question 3

What is the central executive?

Answer 3

An attentional controller that needs to be able to pick what needs to be attended to, switch attention and connect working memory to the LTM.

Question 4

What is the phonological loop?

Answer 4

• a slave system that deals with the temporary storage of auditory information.
• two components are the phonological store and the articulatory process.

Question 5

What does the phonological store do?

Answer 5

Holds auditory/verbal information but it decays rapidly after a few seconds. Forgetting is a result of trace decay.

Question 6

How does the phonological loop work?

Answer 6

• sound information goes directly into the primary phonological/acoustic store that remembers sounds in their order.
• the sounds are then rehearsed and repeated in the articulatory loop to maintain the trace.
• in the phonological loop, it is thought that information lasts for about 2 seconds before it decays.

Question 7

What is the visuospatial sketchpad?

Answer 7

• holds the information we see and manipulates spatial information (anything to do with spatial awareness).
• limited in capacity to approximately 3 or 4 objects.

Question 8

What is the function of the visuospatial sketchpad?

Answer 8

• concerned with non-verbal intelligence and how objects appear.
• it is thought to help us understand objects.

Question 9

What are the two parts of the visuospatial sketchpad?

Answer 9

Visual cache - stores information about form and colour.
“Inner scribe” - deals with retrieval and rehearsal.

Question 10

What is the episodic buffer?

Answer 10

• added to the model in 2000.
• provides us with time sequencing for visual, spatial and verbal information, such as chronological order for things.
• allows us to integrate information between subcomponents and feeds into and retrieves information from the LTM.

Question 11

What evidence is there to support the phonological loop?

Answer 11

• phonological store can be used to explain the phonological similarity effect, where it is more difficult to remember similar sounding words and letters.
• this effect wasn’t true for words with semantic similarity showing sound affects rehearsal and meaning doesn’t.
• articulatory rehearsal loop can be used to explain the word length effect where short, monosyllabic words were recalled more successfully than longer words.

Question 12

What evidence is there to support the visuospatial sketchpad?

Answer 12

• studies of patients with right hemisphere damage has provided biological support for the two separate parts of the sketchpad.
• “Corsi block tapping test” used to show that participants visual and spatial memory is separate (blocks have numbers and colours on them or numbers).
• Klauer and Zhao (2004) found that visual memory tasks were more disrupted by visual interference and spatial tasks more disrupted by spatial interference, providing evidence for separate components in the visuospatial sketchpad.

Question 13

What neuropsychological evidence is there to support the WMM?

Answer 13

• patients with William Syndrome are affected by the same phonological factors such as word length and similarity as the general population but perform badly on Corsi block tapping tests, which supports the separate visuospatial and phonological subsystems.
• children with this syndrome struggle to comprehend sentences with spatial prepositions suggesting a link between visuospatial memory and language acquisition.
• KF and HM support the proposal that working memory has two subsystems to deal with visuospatial and verbal independently.

Question 14

What are dual task experiments?

Answer 14

• 1976, Baddeley and Hitch conducted an experiment where participants had to simultaneously use a pointer to track the moving light on the screen whilst imagining the capital letter “F”, and mentally track the edges of the letter whilst verbally saying whether the angles they imagined were at the top or the bottom of the image.
• participants could complete both tasks separately but not at the same time.
• performance was not affected when participants were asked to complete a visual task whilst doing a verbal task, supporting the theory that there are 2 different slave systems, one for verbal and one for visual information.

Question 15

What are the strengths of the WMM?

Answer 15

• expands and refines the MSM and introduces ideas of an “inner ear”, and “inner voice” and “inner eye”.
• generated a lot of research and is still continuously generating research which has led to further refinement of the model.
• evidence from both experimental and neurophysiological research.
• started from biological ideas about how the brain might function and evolved as a result of more evidence and ongoing research.

Question 16

What are the weaknesses of the WMM?

Answer 16

• model has been added to as new findings have been made - model is inadequate/not a valid explanation of memory.
• episodic buffer was an addition that needs further explanation.
• experiments used to study the model use artificial tasks which depend heavily on visual or sound information whereas in real life, tasks tend to involve many different senses - findings don’t represent working memory in real life and therefore lack validity.

Question 17

What is the trace decay theory of forgetting?

Answer 17

• applies to both the STM and the LTM.
• memories have a physical trace which deteriorates over time until it is finally lost.
• thought that memories are stored in the brain which means a structural change must occur, called an engram.

Question 18

What is an engram?

Answer 18

• thought to be subject to neurological decay.
• repeating and rehearsing information renews the trace and reinstates the engram.
• thought that when something is first learned it is fragile, but after further learning the engram becomes more solid and is less likely to be destroyed.
• change from a cognitive process to an engram is a neurochemical one.

Question 19

What evidence is there to support the trace decay theory of forgetting?

Answer 19

Reitman (1974) and McKenna and Glendon (1985) carried out studies into trace decay.
STM - results showed that forgetting came about because of the decay of the trace - rehearsal was prevented which stopped new information from being thought about.
LTM - shop and office workers were trained how to resuscitate someone and after three years, recall of the technique was poor - concluded that such skills needed to be renewed to be remembered and that the memory trace in the LTM had decayed.
- since memory worsens over time, it is time that causes the trace to decay.

Question 20

What are the strengths of the trace decay theory?

Answer 20

• physiological evidence supports the idea there is a physical trace in the brain - Hebb put forward the idea of an engram, Penfield provided evidence that areas of the brain held particular memories when he probed the brains of epileptic patients.
• theory focuses on the physical aspects of memory (e.g. people with Alzheimer’s seem to lose memories rather than not being able to retrieve them which is a physical process) - theory explains forgetting in real life situations which suggests that it may be valid.

Question 21

What are the weaknesses of the trace decay theory?

Answer 21

• in studies of memory loss in the STM, it is difficult to know if new information has been attended to, it is difficult to test only the trace decay theory without suggesting displacement could have caused forgetting, it is difficult to test if the trace has decayed or whether the memory cannot be retrieved for some other reason.
• flashbulb memories can be remembered and recalled clearly after a long time so some memories seem to retain the trace.
• Bahrick and Hall (1991) found that people can remember algebra they learned at school and after practice can improve their skills meaning the traces couldn’t have been lost.