The working memory model Flashcards
Features: Central executive, phonological loop, Visuo-Spatial Sketchpad and episodic buffer Features of the model: Coding and Capacity
What is the working memory model?
The WMM (Baddeley & Hitch, 1974) sees STM as an active, multi-component system. The central executive controls attention and delegates tasks to slave systems (phonological loop, visuo-spatial sketchpad, episodic buffer). These systems process different types of info at the same time.
What is the role of the central executive?
It’s the main controller, it decides which information to pay attention to and which slave system to use for operating.
What is the phonological loop?
Processes verbal information and language.
What is the Phonological store?
Holds words we hear like an inner ear.
What is the Articulatory control process?
Repeats what you hear to prevent it from being forgotten.
What does the visuo-spatial sketchpad do?
It processes visual and spatial info.
What is the Visual Cashe?
Stores visual data (e.g. shape, colour).
What is the inner scribe?
Notes where objects are in the visual field.
What is the role of the episodic buffer?
Integrated information from all the systems in to an episode of information which can then be sent to the long term memory.
What is the working memory model?
A model of STM by Baddeley & Hitch (1974) that sees memory as an active system with multiple components for different types of information.
How does information flow through the Working Memory Model?
Sensory info enters via the senses and is processed by the central executive, which decides what to focus on.
Auditory info is sent to the phonological loop, where the articulatory control process repeats it silently.
Visual info goes to the visuo-spatial sketchpad: the visual cache stores colour and form, while the inner scribe handles spatial layout.
The central executive coordinates these systems, and the episodic buffer combines all info to pass it to long-term me
What does the case study of KF (Shallice & Warrington, 1970) show about the WMM?
KF had poor STM for verbal info (phonological loop) but normal STM for visual info (visuo-spatial sketchpad).
This supports the idea that STM has separate stores for visual and verbal info, as proposed by the WMM.
How does Robbins et al. (1996) support the WMM?
Participants doing a chess task performed worse when doing a visuo-spatial task (tapping pattern) than when doing a verbal task (repeating words).
This shows that visuo-spatial sketchpad and phonological loop are separate systems that can be overloaded individually.
What did Ma et al. (2002) find and how does it support the WMM?
Found the visuo-spatial sketchpad has a limited capacity of about 3–4 items.
This supports the WMM’s idea that slave systems have limited capacity and process specific types of information.
What’s a key strength of the WMM compared to the Multi-Store Model?
The WMM gives a more realistic and detailed view of STM by showing it as active and made up of separate components, not just a single store like the MSM
What’s a weakness of using case studies like KF to support the WMM?
Case studies involve brain-damaged individuals, which may not reflect how memory works in typical brains — findings may lack generalisability
What is a limitation of the central executive in the WMM?
It is poorly explained. We know it allocates attention, but its exact role and capacity are unclear. It may not be a single system.
Baddeley himself recognised this when he said “The central executive is the most important yet least understood component of the WMM”
How does the WMM have practical applications?
It helps us understand cognitive impairments (e.g. after strokes or brain injury) and can improve rehabilitation techniques by targeting specific slave systems.
Dual task performance.
Baddeley & Hitch found participants could do a verbal reasoning task and digit span task at the same time, suggesting different components were used.
The central executive handled reasoning, while the phonological loop managed digits.
This supports the WMM’s idea of separate STM systems, unlike the MSM which sees STM as a single store and can’t explain this.
