Working memory model Flashcards
Who created the working memory model?
Baddeley and Hitch
What is the working memory model?
Representation of the short term memory.
Explanation of how one aspect of memory is organised and how it functions.
Concerned with ‘mental space’ that is active when we are temporarily storing and manipulating information.
What is the central executive?
Monitors incoming data
Focuses and divides our limited attention
Allocates to subsystems to tasks
Does not store information
Capacity - very limited
Coding - flexible
What is the phonological loop?
Subsystem
Auditory information
Preserves order in which info arrives
Coding - aucoustic
What is the phonological store?
Stores words you hear
What is the articulatory process?
Allows maintenance rehearsal
Capacity of loop - 2 secs worth of what you can say
What is the visuospatical sketchpad?
Stores visual/spatial information
Capacity - limited (3-4 objects)
What is the visual cache?
Stores visual data
What is the inner scribe?
Records the arrangement of objects in the visual field.
What is the episodic buffer?
Added to model by Baddeley in 2000
Temporary store of info
Combines Visual, spatial and verbal information from other stores
Maintain sense of time sequencing
Links to LTM
Capacity - limited (4 chunks)
Coding - flexible
What is an evaluation of the working memory model?
Clinical evidence
Shallice and Warrington
Case study of KF
Had poor STM ability for auditory info
Process visual normally
His phonological loop was damaged
Visuospatial sketchpad was intact
Supporting existence of separate visual and acoustic memory stores
What is an evaluation of the working memory model?
Counterpoint to clinical evidence
Unclear wether KF had other cognitive impairments apart from damage to his phonological loop that might have affected his performance on memory tasks.
Injury caused by motor cycle accident
Could be due to trauma
Challenging evidence coming from clinical evidence of people with brain injuries that may have affected many different systems
What is an evaluation of the working memory model?
Dual task performance
Support separate existence of the visuospatial sketchpad
Baddeley et al
Participants visual and verbal task at same time
Performance was similar to when they did it separately
When both were visual or both verbal
Performance was substantially worse
Because both visual tasks compete for the same system
Showing there must be a separate subsystem that processes visual input.
What is an evaluation of the working memory model?
Nature of central executive
Lack of clarity
Baddeley
‘most important but least understood’
Needs to be more clearly specified than just simply being attention
Meaning the central executive is an unsatisfactory component and this challenges the integrity of the working memory model.
