The working memory model Flashcards
Who created the working memory model?
Baddely and Hitch
Why did Baddely and Hitch believe that the STM had multiple stores?
• If you try to do two things at the same time (duel task performance) and they are both auditory tasks, you do them less well than if you did them one at a time
BUT
• If you do two things at the same time that involve visual and auditory (e.g watching a video with sound on) there is no issue
• suggests there are different stores for each process
What is the central executive?
It monitors and co-ordinates all other mental functions in working memory
It directs attention to particular tasks & organises the other slave systems
It can’t attend to too many things at once (limited capacity)
What is the phonological loop?
One of the slave systems that deals with auditory information
Divided into two parts
1: ‘inner ear’ the phonological store which holds the words you hear
2: ‘inner voice’ the articulatory process which takes the words you hear from the phonological store and repeats them like in a loop (like maintenance rehearsal)
What is the visio-special sketchpad?
One of the slave systems that deals with visual information
Logie (1995) suggested this, too, was divided into two parts
1: A visual cache - deals with what you see e.g colours and forms of shapes etc
2: An inner scribe - stores the arrangement of objects in a visual field and the relationships between objects e.g room layout
What is the episodic buffer?
Processes information from the central executive, the phonological loop and the visio-spatial sketchpad
Deals with incineration that is both auditory and visual
It also records events/episodes that are happening (like memories) which are sent to the LTM
Positives of the Working Memory Model
- Baddley and Hitch did a study involving duel task performance which showed that participants were slower when doing tasks that involved more than one of the slave systems - gives evidence of them existing
- Shallice and Warrington - brian damaged suffer could remember short term memories of visual information better than auditory - shows that the phonological loop was more damaged, giving evidence for multiple short term stores
Criticisms for the working memory model
• Key evidence supporting WMM comes from brain damaged sufferers - brain damage could cause problems that influence results that are not directly linked to memory
e.g concentration issues and inability to pay attention may result in underperformance on tasks, not memory problems
• Information from the WMM about the central executive is too vague and too simple
