Working Memory Model Flashcards
Who created the working memory model?
Baddeley and Hitch
What four things does the STM consist of?
Central executive, Visuo-spatial scratchpad, phonological loop and the episodic buffer
What controls the 3 separate parts of the STM?
Central executive
What does the phonological loop consist of?
The articulatory process and the primary acoustic store
What is the central executive?
It is the filter that determines which information is and is not attended to and it then directs incoming sensory information to the ‘slave’ systems. It has a limited capacity and can only cope effectively with one strand of information at a time. This is the most important component because it is used when doing any task which makes cognitive demands
Why do all of the systems have a limited capacity?
They all have a limited capacity as they all belong to the short term memory
What is the visuo spatial scratchpad?
This deals with the relationship between the visual and spatial information. It uses a visual code which represents information in the form of its visual features such as size, shape and colour. It helps an individual to navigate and interact with their physical environment. It is also known as the inner eye
What is the phonological loop?
It deals with auditory information and so confusions occur with similar sounding words. It also deals with the order of information. It holds information in terms of how it sounds
What is the articulatory process?
It is an active rehearsal system and it holds words that we are preparing to speak are held (inner voice)
What is the primary acoustic store?
Passive store that stores words heard (inner ear)
What is the episodic buffer?
It was added as the model needed a general store to operate properly. The phonological loop and the episodic buffer deal with processing and temporary storage of specific types of information. The episodic buffer was introduced to explain how its possible to store information combined together from the CE, PL, VSS and LTM
What are three limitations of the working memory model?
Some have argued that the CE as a single store is incorrect. It’s not clear what happens to information that is not coded in either the visuo spatial scratchpad or phonological loop e.g. touch or smell as there are no stores for this information. It’s not clear how the components interact as the model doesn’t explain this only that the information is transferred to different components
What is the research into the CE being a single store as incorrect?
Eslinger and Damasio. They studied a patient who after the removal of a brain tumour, could still perform well on tasks requiring reasoning, but not on the tasks that require decision making. This implies that there is more than one component to the central executive
What are three strengths of the working memory model?
KFs memory was affected for acoustic items but was fine for visual which demonstrates that the STM has different stores. Baddeley and Hitch support the idea of limited capacity because doing two tasks that involve the same component cause difficulty. PET scans show that tasks that require visual, articulatory and acoustic memory are found to use different parts of the brain supporting the idea of it involving separate components
