The Working Memory Model Flashcards
What is the central executive?
Drives the whole system whilst processing information in all sensory forms and allocates it to subsystems (phonological loop and visuo-spatial sketchpad)
Deals with cognitive tasks such as mental arithmetic and problem solving
What is the phonological loop?
Deals with auditory information and written material and used to remember things like phone numbers.
What are the 2 sections to the phonological loop?
Phonological store (inner ear) Articulatory control process (inner voice)
What is the Phonological store (inner ear)?
Linked to speech perception and holds information in speech based form for 1-2 seconds
What is the Articulatory control process (inner voice)?
Linked to speech production and used to reverse and store verbal information from the phonological store.
What is the visuo-spatial sketch pad?
Stores and processes information in a visual (what they look like) or spatial (layout of items) form. Accessed through mental pictures
Also used for navigation.
I.e. walking home after college
What is the episodic buffer?
Acts as a “backup” store which communicates with both long-term and the components of working memory.
Who’s piece of research provides evidence for the episodic buffer?
Prabhakaran et el
Used MARK scans to see which area of the brain were most active during a particular task
Activities with verbal and spatial information = front right area is active
Single sources = posterior area active
Whose piece of research provides evidence for the working memory model?
- Gathercole and Baddeley
Found participants had difficulty simulating tracking a moving point of light and describing the angels on a hollow letter ‘F’ because both tasks involved the visuo-spatial sketchpad.
What are the positive evaluation of the working memory model?
-supported by research
High amounts of control
- used to explain reason for learning difficulties. Estimated that as many as 70% with learning difficulties relating to reading score low on working memory
- acknowledges the complexity of STM which the multi-store model ignores
What is the impact of different activities on the slave systems?
Activities that involve different slave systems can be performed together with no dip in performance but activities that involve the same slave system end up overloading that slave system and this results in a dip in performance.
What are the negative evaluation points of the working memory model?
-supporting research is lab experiment
Low ecological validity and low mundane realism
- can be crituses for being vaufye and impercise about the central executive and how it performs its role
Why can the central executive be limited sometimes?
it has a limited capacity and can only effectively cope with one strand of information, attaining a balance between tasks when attention needs to be divided between them
What is a criticism of the central executive?
little is known about the central executive. It isn’t clear how it works or what it does. This vagueness means it can be used to explain almost any experimental results
