Working Memory Flashcards
Limitation of WMM =falls victim to the homunculus argument
E - homunculus argument = fallacy, attempts to explain one thing in terms of another concept without explaining how the new concept works
E - Baddeley recognised the CE resembles a homunculus argument. It is the vital control system for working memory, but there is, as yet, no way of explaining how the CE directs other Slave systems
L - therefore Limitation of WMM is that the working of the CE remains, essentially, a mystery
Case study evidence demonstrates the WMM = more accurate explanation of STM than MSM
E - Patient KF suffered brain damage -> in impaired STM for acoustic information but persevered STM for visual information
E - Challenges the MSM, which assumes STM is a single, unitary store. If the MSM were correct, damage to STM would affect all types of information equally. However WMM suggests that STM consists of separate components: phonological loop ~ acoustic info + visuospatial sketchpad ~ visual info. Therefore KF’s selective impairment supports the WMM as by separating acoustic and visual memory the model allows for the possibility of 1 slave system = damaged & other remaining intact. HOWEVER limitation of evidence = single case study of an individual w/ highly usual form of brain damage =ing patient isn’t representative of atypical person making it difficult to generalise study’s support to the wider population
L - In summary while this supports the WMM its reliance on case study limits the strength of this supports
Strength = has had real-life applications in education
E - Important education insight from WMM is that working memory has a limited capacity to process information =ing learner can only store + manipulate a finite amount of info at one time
E - because of this insight, educators are encouraged to reduce the cognitive load of their lessons =ing they shouldn’t overload students with information, otherwise the info can’t be processed by working memory =ing it won’t be transferred to long term memory. E.g teachers should be aware that attempting to lecture their students (giving verbal info) whilst simultaneously presenting verbal info via PowerPoint (written words on board) will overload limited capacity of their students phonological loop =ing won’t be able to takin in all of the information.
L - Therefore a strength of the WMM is that it can be of practical use as it informs educators to improve their teaching
There is supporting research for the WMM from dual-task research
E - Baddeley (1975) found participants had more diff doing 2 visual tasks simultaneously than doing a visual + verbal task together.
E - WMM explains this finding as the relative ease of the visual/verbal condition is explained by neither task overwhelming the limited capacity of the slave-system or the overall attentional resources of the CE. In contrast the difficulty with the visual/visual condition makes sense given these task would overwhelm the limited capacity of the Visuo-spatial sketchpad.
L - Therefore this study provides support for the WMM as its findings fit with predictions that the model can make.
