The Working Memory Model

Question 1

Who described the WMM?

Answer 1

Baddeley and Hitch 1974

Question 2

What is the CE?

Answer 2

Central executive
Directs attention to particular tasks.
Determines at any time how the brain’s “resources” are allocated to tasks
(Resources are slave systems: PL, EB and VSS)

Question 3

What is the PL?

Answer 3

Phonological loop
Deals with auditory info and preserves order of info
Divided into:
- phonological store - auditory info, inner ear
- articulatory process - like an inner voice, words that are silently repeated

Question 4

What is the VSS?

Answer 4

Visio-spatial sketchpad
Visual info (appearance of things) or spatial info (physical relationship between things)
Logie 1995: can be divided into:
- visual cache - stores info about visual items, e.g. colour
- inner scribe - stores arrangement of objects in visual field

Question 5

What is the EB?

Answer 5

Episodic buffer
Extra storage system
Integrates info from the CE, PL and VSS
Maintains sense of time sequencing - recording events/“episodes” that are happening
Sends info to LTM

Question 6

Evaluation? ✅

Answer 6

• Shallice and Warrington 1970
• case study KF
• short term forgetting of auditory info was much greater than that of visual stimuli
• his brain damage seemed to be restricted to the PL
• supports idea of separate visual and spatial systems, as suggested by WMM

Question 7

Evaluation? ❌

Answer 7

• problems with using evidence from case studies of those who have suffered severe brain damage
• process of brain injury = traumatic = may change behaviour so individual performs worse in certain tasks
• issue as some of the key research that supports the WMM comes from sometimes unreliable case studies

Question 8

Evaluation? ❌

Answer 8

• concept of CE is too vague
• all it appears to do is allocate resources and be the same as “attention”
• account offered of CE is unsatisfactory (Baddeley and Hitch’s interpretation is overly simplistic)