Working Memory Model Flashcards
What did Baddeley and Hitch suggest about the wmm
That is replaces the concept of a unitary stm that was put in place by atkinson
Suggests that stm is a multi-component, flexible system concerned with active processing and short term storage of info
How did b&h test it?
Revised the dual task technique
Asked participants to perform reasoning task ( sentence checking task) while stimulataneouly reciting aloud a list of six digits
What did b&h conclude?
that short term memory must have more than one component and must do more than just storage
Why did b&h think stm was more than storage?
If digit span really is a measure of maximum capacity ps should show impaired performance on the reasoning task and be fully occupied with the remaining six digits
What is central executive?
A supervisory component that has overall control over
What does the central executive have responsibility over?
•monitoring and correcting errors
•Starting the rehearsal process
•Switching attention between tasks
•Inhibiting relevant info and retrieved info from LTM
What are the slave systems ?
-Phonological loop
-Visuo-spatial sketchpad
What is the phonological loop?
A limited capacity temporary storage system for holding verbal info in speech based from
What is visuo spatial sketchpad?
A limited capacity temporary memory system for holding visual and spatial info
What is the episodic buffer?
Added by Baddeley in 2000
Proposed that tasks such as remembering prose requires quiet complex info processing
Why must it be an additional system
We must know what words mean, how words relate to other words in sentences and how they are structure and combined into meaningful paragraphs
THIS REQUIRES SEMANTIC ANALYSIS INFO FROM LTM
What else did b&h find about the episodic buffer?
When two of the same stimutaneously performed tasks use the same component of working memory, performance on those tasks suffer
HOWEVER
they found that when tasks include diff parts of wm they don’t suffer
What did Shallice and Warrington find about KF
had difficulties recalling auditory info from stm memory but not visual info
What did that suggest about KF?
That his brain damage affected the phonological loop as he appeared to be able to use the visuo-spatial sketch pad
- also supports idea of multiple components of STM
However what are limitations of studies on patients with brain damage
Most studies on BD are case studies- provide details and unique characteristics
ALTHOUGH
Not representative as not possible to make a before and after comparison of memory deficits - trauma of brain may have resulted in change in behaviour
what did Bunge et al find about when participants were doing FMRI scans?
When doing dual tasks, showed significantly more activation - shows increased attentional demands of the two stimulataneous task increase brain activity
What does Bunge et al FMRI scan clarify?
Clarification of the central executive
- argued that rolfe of the ce is a little vague what exactly is ‘directing attention’ and ‘allocating resources’
the visual cache- logie 1995
Stores info about visual form and colour and that the inner scribe processes spatial and movement info
How did Klaven and Zhao 2004 support the idea of visual cache
Asked participants to carry one out of two primary tasks
- a visual - a spatial
-at the same time as doing either
-a spatial interference task- a visual interference- no secondary task
What did Klaven and Zhao find?
Found that performance of spatial tasks was much poorer for those doing spatial interference tasks than people doing visual interference task and vice versa
What did studies PET scans show?
Using pet scans also provided evidence for separate spatial and visual system
- THEREFORE
Appears to be more activity in the left half of the brain for visual tasks but more in the right during spatial
What did bunge 2000 use fmri for
to see which parts of the brain were most active when participants were doing two tasks - reading a sentence and recalling final word
What did Bunge find in the fmri test?
The same brain areas were active in either dual or single task conditions- but significantly more activation in the dual tasks condition
Indicates that increased demands were reflected in brain activity
Who was LH?
A patient who had been involved in a road accident- she had performed better on spatial tasks than those involving visual imagery
What does LHs case suggest
Suggest separate visual and spatial systems
KF- showed stm works independent of ltm as he had no problem with long term learning but some aspects of immediate memory was impaired
STRENGTHS OF WMM
-Very influential
-there is a considerable amount of research evidence to support the model
-especially more recent studies which show direct links between certain tasks and activation parts of the brain that represents components of the wmm model
-makes sense of a range of tasks
WEAKNESSES OF WMM
-Doesn’t offer complete understanding of how memory works- no ltm or sm
- The exact role played by central executive remains unclear
-Fails to account for musical memory because we are able to listen to instrumental music without impacting performance on other acoustic tasks
