Working memory model Flashcards
Who researched the working-memory model ?
Baddeley and Hitch
What does the working memory model do ?
- explanation of the short-term memory and how its organised
- discusses the ;’mental space’ that’s active when storing temporary information (for example working out a maths problem)
- consists of 4 different components
What are the 4 components of the WMM ?
- Central executive
- phonological loop
- visuo-spatial stereopad
- episodic buffer
What is the central executive ?
- has a supervisory role ?
- monitors incoming data
- allocates ‘slave systems’ to tasks
- limited processing and doesn’t store any info
What is the phonological loop ?
- one of the ‘slave systems’
- coding of acoustic sounds
- preserves the order of information
- has the phonological store and the articulatory process
- limited capacity, temporary memory store
What is the phonological store ?
words you hear
What is the articulatory process ?
maintenance rehearsal - maximum duration is 2 secs
What is the visuo-spatial sketchpad ?
- stores visual or spatial info when required
- e.g) counting words on your house (you have to visualise it)
- limited capacity of 3/4 objects
- Logie divided VSS into:
visual cache = stores visual data
inner scribe = records arrangement of objects on the visual field
What is the episodic buffer ?
- added to the working-memory model 25 years later
- records events that are happening
- can be seen as a storage component of the CE
- limited capacity of 4 chunks
- links working memory to LTM
What are the Strengths of the WMM ?
Clinical evidence:
- Shallice and Warrington
- Patient KF had poor STM for auditory sounds
- Could process visual information normally
- E.g Couldn’t process digits when they were read to him (auditory) but could process if he read them himself (visual)
- Because there phonological loop was damaged but the visuospatial sketchpad was intact
Dual-task performance:
- Baddeley
- When a participant carried out a verbal and visual task at the same time their performance was the same as if they performed them separately
- But when they performed two visual or two verbal tasks together performance declined substantially
- Because the tasks are competing for attention from the same sub-system
What is a limitation of the WMM ?
Lack of clarity over the central executive:
Baddeley recognised that the central executive is the most important but the least understood component of the WMM.
Some psychologists believe that the CE may consist of separate subcomponents.
