The Working Memory model

Question 1

who proposed the working memory model and when and why?

Answer 1

Baddley and Hitch 1974
Because they thought MSM was too simplistic

Question 2

what does working memory model suggest?

Answer 2

suggests short term memory is not one store but multiple components, each with a different task

Question 3

can more when one task be completed simultaneously?

Answer 3

yes 2 tasks can be completed at same time as long as use different components —> each of which has limited capacity (so can’t be overloaded)

Question 4

what is the WMM concerned with?

Answer 4

‘mental space’ active when we are temporarily storing and manipulating info
e.g. playing chess, completing a maths problem etc (working on tasks)

Question 5

How many components are in the WMM what are they, and are they the same??

Answer 5

4 components- each qualitively different especially in terms of coding and capacity
Central executive
Phonological loop
Visuo spatial sketchpad
Episodic Buffer

Question 6

what is the central executive?

Answer 6

control unit
focuses attention on most important tasks that need attending to in the current moment
coordinates the 3 other components of the WMM by allocating them to different tasks

Question 7

what are the components called that isn’t the central executive?

Answer 7

slave systems

Question 8

central executive capacity and can it store info?

Answer 8

capacity is limited
and it can’t store info

Question 9

what is the phonological loop?

Answer 9

slave system responsible for coordinating auditory info —> coding = acoustic
- it preserves the order in which acoustic info is processed

Question 10

what are the 2 divisions of the phonological loop?

Answer 10

phonological store= stores spoken words (inner ear) (words you hear)
articulory process= stores written words (the inner voice)
—> words repeated on a loop as part of mental rehearsal (repeating sounds/words to keep them in working memory while they are needed) —> these are NOT passed to LTM

Question 11

capacity of phonological loop?

Answer 11

limited

Question 12

what is the visuo spatial sketchpad?

Answer 12

• space system responsible for storing visual and/or spatial info when required
  e.g. if asked to work out how many windows on your house you visualise it

Question 13

how long is info stored in the visuo spatial sketchpad?

Answer 13

stored temporarily and has limited capacity

Question 14

what can the visuo spatial sketchpad be divided into?

Answer 14

• visual cache- stores visual data e.g. colour, shape etc
• inner scribe- records the arrangement of objects in visual field

Question 15

was the episodic buffer always in the working memory model

Answer 15

• no it was added to the model by Baddley in 2000

Question 16

what does the episodic buffer do?

Answer 16

• it receives info from the central executive, phonological loop and visuo spatial sketchpad and to integrate this info into ‘episodes’ so that it is time sequenced
• separate from LTM but forms important stage in long term episodic learning —> facilitates communication between central executive and LTM

Question 17

how long is info stored in the episodic buffer, and what’s the episodic buffers capacity?

Answer 17

• info stored temporarily
• capacity is limited

Question 18

draw out the working memory model

Answer 18

(see mindmap)

Question 19

eval point 1

Answer 19

• case study support from KF (Shallice and Warrington 1970)
  —> KF suffered a brain injury and his STM was then impaired= he struggled with verbal/auditory info but his ability to recall visual info was unaffected—> shows there’s different slave systems in WMM which code for visual vs verbal info
  —> his phonological loop damaged but VSS was intact

BUT KF
- may have had other cognitive impairments which affected his performance on memory tasks e.g his injury from motorbike accident= trauma could have affected his cognitive performance

Question 20

eval point 2

Answer 20

dual task performance (Baddley 1976)= evidence for central executive
—> ppts asked to perform digit span task and verbal reasoning at same time —> as digits increased they took longer to answer true/false questions
—> verbal reasoning task used CE and digit span task used the PL

Question 21

eval point 3

Answer 21

Baddley research also in 1975
- ppts did visual and verbal task at same time and performance was similar to when did tasks separately But when both tasks were visual or both verbal performance dropped due to both being in the same slave system —> shows there’s seperate slave systems (VSS for visual input and PL for verbal processing)

BUT
dual task studies = in highly controlled lab and task unrelated to real life scenarios = lacks realness and lowers ecological validity

Question 22

eval point 4

Answer 22

preferred by many psychologists over MSM and views memories as active not passive process

Question 23

eval
point 5

Answer 23

lack of detail on role of central executive—> may be due to fact CE is difficult to operationalise and measure
—> may be more than one central component to CE which has not been established= challenges integrity of WMM
—> Eslinger and Damasio 1985 studied EUR who had a brain tumour removed and performed well on reasoning tasks but poor decision making skills= CE intact but also not fully= it’s more complex than WMM suggests

Question 24

eval point 6

Answer 24

• WMM initially only involves STM so not a full theory —> BUT add revised by episodic buffer

Question 25

eval point 7

Answer 25

- practical applications - education —> e.g. dyslexia the PL doesn’t match VSS = mismatch between sound and visual representation on paper= muddling of words together etc