The Working memory model Flashcards
who proposed the wmm
Baddely and Hitch 1974
what the WMM is made of?
Central executive
Visual-spatial sketchpad < I > Phon loop
episodic buffer
I
LTM
role of Central executive
-drives the whole system,
-allocates info to subsystems
-deals with cognitive tasks (mental arithmetics and problem solving)
-capacity is limited
-can’t store info
-it is modality free = dealing with any info
Visuo-spatual sketchpad
info about visual and spatual form
capacity 3-4 objects
Visual cache - visual info like color and shape
Inner scribe - info about spatual re-ship
who came up with subsystems for Visual-spatual sketchpad
Logie 1995
about Phonological loop
-spoken and written material
**phonological store - inner ear. speech based info
articulatory process - inner voiceprocess speech production, stores verbal info **
episodic buffer
general storage, because the CE has no capacity to store info - it send it to EB whcih has capacity of 4 chunks of info.
EB integrates info to PL, VSS, CE
it also sends info to LTM
eval 1 top
main reason for developing WMM was to address dual task performance
and by that supporting the existance of CE
eval 1 point
task 1 occupied CE (ppts given a statement ‘B is followed by A’ and shown the two letters such as ‘AB’ and asked to say true or false .
task 2 involved the articulary loop (saying ‘the the the’) or both - CE and Articulary loop (saying random digits)
task 1 was slower if task 2 involved both CE and AL
eval 1 tail
this demonstrates the dual task performance effect and shows CE is one of the components, as it is being affected by another component AL (from phonological loop)
showing their interdependence
eval 2 top
case studies support the WMM
such a study by shallice and Warrington 1970
eval 2 point
KF suffered a brain damage from a motorcycle accident, that damaged his stm
his impairmnet was mainly for verbal info - but his visual memory was largely uneffected.
but auditory problems were limited to info such as verbal letters and digits but not meaningful sounds (phone ring)
eval 2 tail
this upports the theory that there are multiple ceparate stm components for visual info and for verbal info
eval 2 double
however, there are always limitations when using case studies from indivs who suffered brain damage.
1. the process of injury is traumatic, which can change the way one behaves, and performes
2. such indivs can have other difficulties, like hard to pay attention and consequent;y underperform in a task
3. case studies are if unque indivs and cannot be generalised to the whole population
eval 3 top
Eslinger and Damasio studied EVR and considered there might be several components to CE rather than just one as WMM proposes
eval 3 point
EVR had a cerebral tumour removed. when was tested he performed well on tests requiring reasoning (function of ce), suggesting his CE was intact
however, his decision making (which is also a function of CE) was really lacking, suggesting otherwise that his ce was intact
meaning, it probably has dif components if one function of it is lacking and the other works
eval 3 tail
therefore it is more comples than Baddeley and Hitch thought
