wmm Flashcards
who came up with the working memory model (WMM)?
Baddeley and Hitch (1974)
what is the WMM?
a representation of STM that suggests that STM is an active processor of different types of information using components or ‘slave systems’
what are the components of the working memory model?
central executive, visuospatial sketchpad, episodic buffer, phonological loop, long term memory.
describe the central executive
‘supervisory role’, it monitors incoming information, focuses and divides attention and allocates tasks to the appropriate ‘slave systems’. It has a limited capacity and coding is modality free.
what is the phonlogical loop?
a component of WMM that processes information in terms of sound, this includes both written and spoken material. it is divided into two subsystems : the phonological store and the articulatory process. it has a capacity of 2 secs worth of information and is coded acoustically
what does the phonological store do?
it stores the words you hear
what does the articulatory process do?
rehearses words being processes to keep them in working memory until needed.
what is the visuospatial sketchpad?
a component of WMM that processes visual and spatial information. It is divided into two subsystems : the visual cache and inner scribe. it has a capacity of 3-4 objects and is coded visually
what does the visual cache do?
stores visual data, such as shape and colour
what does the inner scribe do?
records the arrangement of objects in the visual field.
what is the episodic buffer
a temporary store for information that intergrates material from the other slave systems into a single memory rather than seperate strands. it maintains a sense of time sequencing. it also acts as a bridge between working memory and LTM. it has a capacity of around 4 chunks and its coding is modality free.
+AO3 - clinical evidence, Shallice and Warrington : KF
case study of KF, after brain injury had poor STM for auditory informastion but could processvisual information. suggests his phonological loop was damaged but visuospatial sketchpad was intact. supports existence of seperate visual and acoustic memory stores
-AO3 - CA other cognitive impairments
unclear if KF had other cognitive impairments whcih could have affected his memory, such as trauma from his accident. clincial evidence may not be suitable as evidence for the WMM
+AO3 - dual-task processing, Baddeley et al. (1975)
ppts carried out a visual and verbal task at the same time and performance was similar to when the the tasks were carried out seperatelty. when both tasks were verbal performance decline substantially. when both tasks were verbal, they were competeing for attention from the same slave system, whereas there is no competition ebtween a verbal and visual task. shows there must be seperate components for processing different types of information.
-AO3 - lack of clarity over the central executive
Baddeley stated ‘the CE is the most important but leats understood component of working memory’. the CE needs to be more clearly spcified than just ‘ attention’, some psychologists beleive that the CE may have subsystems. the CE is an unsatisfactory componeny which callenges the intergrity of the WMM.
