The Working Memory Model of Memory Flashcards
Who made the working model of memory?
Baddeley and Hitch (1974)
What did Baddeley and Hitch believe?
There was more than one single STM store.
What did Baddeley and Hitch believe about STM?
It was an active store holding several pieces of information at once.
What can working memory be defined as?
The focus of consciousness. Holding information currently important
What does the working memory model suggest generally?
There are 4 stores to STM
What is the first store in the STM according to the working memory model?
Central executive
What is the central executives role?
Direct attention to particular tasks, determines which store (slave system) needs to process information.
What is the central executives capacity?
Very limited as it has to allocate tasks
What are the 2 slave systems?
Visuo-spatial sketchpad and phonological loop.
What does the visuo-spatial sketchpad do?
Visual information such as what you see and spatial information
What are the 2 sub-components in the visuo-spatial sketchpad?
Visual cache and inner scribe.
What does the visual cache do?
Processes the visual information such as shapes and colours.
What does the inner scribe do?
Stores the arrangement of objects in the visual field.
What does the phonological loop do?
Processes sound-based information.
What are the 2 sub-components that the phonological loop is split into?
Phonological store and articulatory rehearsal loop.
What does the phonological store do?
Temporarily holds auditory information.
What does the articulatory rehearsal loop do?
Is your inner voice which is a form of maintenance rehearsal.
What is maintenance rehearsal?
Where auditory information can be repeated.
What is the episodic buffer?
An extra storage space for information which can’t be held in the central executive due to its limited capacity.
What does the episodic buffer do?
Binds/integrate information form the two slave-systems. Putting information together into a logical and time-relevant order
Where can the information also travel from the episodic buffer?
Long-term memory.
There is evidence to support that there are separate stores in STM from case studies. What evidence is there to support this claim?
Shallice and Warrington’s case study was of a patient, KF. He’d suffered brain damage and then had poor STM ability for verbal info but could process visual info.
There is evidence to support that there are separate stores in STM from case studies. How can this be evaluated?
Suggests his phonological loop has been damaged and other areas of memory intact. Supports the existence of a separate visual and acoustic store.
There is supporting research from experiments for the existence of the two slave systems. What evidence is there to support this claim?
Baddeley et al. found that participants had more difficulty doing two visual tasks than doing a visual and verbal task at the same time. Both visual tasks compete for same slave system whereas visual and verbal aren’t.
There is supporting research from experiments for the existence of the two slave systems. How can this be evaluated?
Suggests there is a separate slave system the visuo-spatial sketchpad that processes visual input as proposed by the working memory model.
Increases validity.
There is evidence to support the physical existence of the central executive. What evidence is there to support this claim?
Braver et al. gave their participants a task that involved the central executive whilst in a brain scan.
Found greater activity in prefrontal cortex and it increased as task got harder.
There is evidence to support the physical existence of the central executive. How can this be evaluated?
Supports the working model of memory as the demands on the central executive increase, it has to work harder to fulfil its function.
Support the existence.
A weakness of the model is that the role of the central executive is unclear. What evidence is there to support this?
Cognitive psychologists suggest that it is unsatisfactory and no explanation. Baddeley himself recognised that the CE is the most important but least understood component.
A weakness of the model is that the role of the central executive is unclear. How can this be evaluated?
Cannot fully explain for how STM works and therefore psychologists should be careful when using it to justify their claims. Further research should investigate falsifying claims made of this store.
