WMM - Evaluation

Question 1

support from laboratory experiments- what study and why does it support this theory ?

Answer 1

• dual task performance experiments support the WMM
• Baddeley et al (1975). he found that when a participant performed a visual and verbal task together (dual-task performance), they performed them both to the same standard to when they did them separately. however, when they performed two verbal or two visual tasks together , performance on both declined considerably.
• this is because both tasks compete for the same sub-system, this supports the model, because it supports the idea that it has separate slave subsystems.

Question 2

A weakness of the model (criticism of the theory)?

Answer 2

• the lack of clarity over the central executive
• the CE is an unsatisfactory component and doesn’t really explain anything
• researchers (including Baddeley) suspect that it consists of separate subcomponents, (for example, a conscious ‘supervisory’ attentional process and an unconscious, automatic process). this means that the WMM has not been fully explained.

Question 3

what is an application of the WMM ?

Answer 3

• it has been applied to understanding more about the nature of a clinical memory disorder called amnesia.
• Shallice and Warrington (1970) conducted a case study of ‘patient KF’ who experienced amnesia after a brain injury. he had poor short term memory for auditory information, but he could process visual information relatively normally. for example he could recall words and digits much better when he read them from a piece of paper compared to when they were read to them. KF’S Phonological Loop had been damaged, but his Visuo-sketchpad was intact. However, Case studies are almost impossible to accurately replicate, so there is no way of replicating and testing this theory.