Working memory model

Question 1

What are the four parts of the working memory model?

Answer 1

Central executive, phonological loop, episodic buffer, visuospatial sketchpad.

Question 2

What does the central executive do?

Answer 2

It is an attention process which monitors incoming information. It makes decisions and allocates tasks to the 3 slave systems.

Question 3

What is the phonological loop?

Answer 3

It has a capacity of four seconds, and is split into the Phonological store and the articular process. The phonological store stores the words you hear, the the articular processes puts them into order using maintenance rehearsal.

Question 4

What is the episodic buffer?

Answer 4

It has a capacity of four chunks. It integrates the visual, spatial & verbal information. It also maintains a sense of time. This links to the long term memory.

Question 5

What is the visuospatial sketchpad?

Answer 5

It has a capacity of 3-4 items (Baddely 2003) and is split into the visual cache & inner scribe.
Visual cache - Visual data
Inner scribe - The arrangement of objects

Question 6

Evaluate the working memory model (Libermann’s VSS)

Answer 6

Limitation
P - The visuospatial sketchpad implies all spatial information was once visual (they are linked)
E - However Liebermann criticises this as blind people have great spatial awareness despite never having visual information.
T - The VSS should be split into two components - One for visual and a separate one for spatia.

Question 7

Evaluate the WMM (Baddeley’s research support)

Answer 7

Strength
P - Further research support (dual task performance
E - Baddeley et al (1975). Participants did verbal & Visual tasks at the same time. Performance was similar when the tasks were separate, but was worse when the tasks were both.
T - Both tasks were competing for the slave system.

Question 8

Evaluate the WMM (The case of KF)

Answer 8

Strength
P - Research support
E - Shallice & Warrington (1970) study of KF. KF couldn’t process auditory information but could process visual information.
T - Supports the existence of separate slave systems (Phonological loop - damaged, visuospatial sketchpad - intact)

Question 9

Describe the case of KF

Answer 9

KF was in an accident that damaged his left occipatial lobe. His short term memory was damaged leaving him with a digit span of one. He remembers visual words better than auditory ones.

Question 10

What is the issue with the central executive?