The working memory model Flashcards
Who was the working memory model made by?
Baddeley and Hitch
4 parts of the wmm
Central executive
Phonological loop
Episodic buffer
Visuo-spatial sketchpad
What does the central executive do?
Monitors and co-ordinates all other mental functions in working memory
directs attention to particular tasks & controls slave systems
- CE has a very limited capacity
What are the two parts of the phonological loop
phonological store (inner ear)
articulatory loop (inner voice)
What does the phonological loop do?
codes auditory info & preserves order of info
also has a limited capacity
what does the phonological store do?
Inner ear
Auditory info enters memory here, can also only be stored for 2 secs if not passed through articulatory loop
what does the articulatory loop do?
inner voice
Info (words seen or heard) is silently rehearsed here
What does the episodic buffer do?
integrates info.
temporarily stores info and then integrates it in order to construct a mental episode of whats being experienced.
Sends info to LTM
What does the visuo-spatial sketchpad do?
codes visual info in terms of seperate objets (eg shape, colour and size) as well as the arrangement of these objects in one field
limited capacity
AO3: WMM
str: evidence from brain damage
lim: case studies
str: dual task
lim: CE detail
WMM str: evidence from brain damage
Shallice & Warrington: KF
KF’s short term forgetting of auditory info was much greater than that of visual stimuli
= brain damage to phon loop
=seperate brain stores
SC: good learning abilities, except word pairs presented out loud
=brain damage to phon loop
=seperate stores
WMM lim: problems w case studies
Process of brain injury is traumatic= may itself change behaviour
individual differences= some individuals may have other difficulties such as paying attention
cases studies are of unique individuals= cannot be generalised to the population
WMM str: dual task performance effect
May provide evidence for the CE
Participants were asked to perform a digit span task (repeating a list of numbers) and a verbal reasoning task (answering true or false questions) at the same time
As the number of digits increased, participants took longer to answer the true/false questions (not significantly longer)
Baddeley concluded that the verbal reasoning task used the CE and the digit span task used the PL
=CE is one of the components of wmm
BUT:
The dual-task performance effect relies on highly controlled lab conditions using tasks that are unrelated to real-life scenarios
This lack of ‘realness’ lowers the ecological validity of research in this field
WMM lim: CE detail
There is a lack of detail on the role of the CE
This lack of detail may be due to the fact that the CE is very difficult to operationalise and measure
There may be more than one central component to the CE but to date, this has not been established with empirical evidence
