WMM Flashcards
Who proposed the WMM? What did they believe?
Baddeley and Hitch (1966)
Believed memory is not just one store but a number of different stores
Focused on STM ONLY and believed it was not a unitary store (like MSM)!
What are the slave systems that make up the WMM?
Central executive
Phonological loop
Visuo-spatial sketchpad
Episodic Buffer
What is the role of the central executive?
Function:
- Direct attention to tasks - decides what working memory pays attention to.
For example, two activities sometimes come into conflict such as driving a car and talking. Rather than hitting a cyclist who is wobbling all over the road, it is preferable to stop talking and concentrate on driving.
- The central executive directs attention and gives priority to particular activities.
- Determines how resources (slave systems) are allocated.
What is the capacity of the central executive?
No capacity – data arrives from the senses but it can’t hold it for long.
What is the role of the phonological loop?
Deals with auditory information and preserves word order – Inner Ear (i.e. coding is acoustic)
What does Baddeley divide it into?
- Phonological store (holds words heard)
- Articulatory process (holds words heard/seen and silently repeated (looped) like an inner voice. This is a kind of maintenance rehearsal.
What is the capacity of the PL?
Limited Capacity
What is the role of the Visuo- spatial sketchpad?
Visual and/or spatial information stored here (inner eye)
Visual = what things look like
Spatial = relationships between things
What does Logie subdivide the VSS to?
Logie (1995) suggested subdivision:
Visuo-cache - stores info about visual items e.g shapes and colours.
Inner scribe for spatial relations e.g arrangement of objects in your visual field
What is the capacity of the VSS?
Limited capacity
What is the role of the episodic buffer? When was it added?
Baddeley (2000) added episodic buffer as he realised model needed a more general store.
Episodic buffer is an extra storage system but with limited capacity.
Integrates information from all other areas.
It also deals with episodic (time sequenced) information.
Strength - KF
P - Case of KF supports separate stores of STM
E - KF had poor STM ability for verbal information but could process visual info normally. So his phonological loop had been damaged but other areas of memory were intact.
E - This suggests that there are separate visual and acoustic stores in STM.
L - However evidence from brain damaged patients may be unreliable because it concerns unique of patients who have had traumatic experiences.
Strength - Accounts for dual task performance
P - Accounts for dual task performance
E - Research evidence that supports this is Baddeley and Hitch’s 1974 experiment. Task 1 occupied the CE and Task 2 involved either the articulatory loop or both CE and AL. Task 1 was slower than 2.
E - Demonstrates dual performance effect
L - Shows CE is one of the components of working memory
Weakness - CE too vague
P - CE is too vague and doesn’t really explain anything
E - For example, all it does is allocate resources and essentially be the same as ‘attention’.
E - Research that does not support the CE is Eslinger and Damasio who studied, EVR who had a cerebral tumour removed. He performed well on tests requiring reasoning suggesting his Ce is intact however he had poor decision making skills which implies it isn’t.
L - The CE is probably much more complex then previously mentioned.
