Working Memory Model

Question 1

who devised the WMM? when did they do this?

Answer 1

Baddeley and Hitch (1974)

Question 2

why was the WMM made?

Answer 2

comes from Baddeley’s realisation that memory was in fact more complicated than the MSM made out, in particular the role of STM

Question 3

what is the WMM?

Answer 3

a model that splits STM into multiple components, rather than considering it to be a single, unified construct

Question 4

what are the 4 stores of the WMM?

Answer 4

• central executive
• phonological loop
• visuospatial sketchpad
• episodic buffer

Question 5

what is the role of the central executive?

Answer 5

to direct attention to particular tasks, determining at any time how the brain’s ‘resources (3 slave systems) are allocated to tasks

Question 6

where does data coming to the central executive come from?

Answer 6

the senses or from LTM

Question 7

what is the capacity of the CE?

Answer 7

very limited capacity (ZERO capacity for storing data)

Question 8

what is the role of the phonological loop?

Answer 8

deals with auditory information and preserves the order of information.

• the phonological store: hold words you hear, like an inner ear
• articulatory process: used for words that are heard/seen. these words are silently repeated, like an inner voice - this is a form of maintenance rehearsal

Question 9

what is the capacity of the PL?

Answer 9

limited capacity (that is why you cannot listen to TV and mum talking at the same time)

Question 10

why can you not listen to TV and mum talking at the same time?

Answer 10

the phonological loop has limited capacity

Question 11

what is the role of the visuo-spatial sketchpad?

Answer 11

codes visual information in terms of seperate objects as well as the arrangement of these objects in one’s visual field

Question 12

give 2 examples of when the V-SS would be used

Answer 12

• directions from point A to point B

- counting the number of windows in your house

Question 13

in what year, and what psychologist, suggested that the visuospatial sketchpad can be divided further? what were the two divisions?

Answer 13

Logie (1995)

• a visual cache: stores information about visual items, e.g. form and colour
• an inner scribe: stores the arrangement of objects in the visual field

Question 14

in what year did Baddeley add the episodic buffer?

Answer 14

2000

Question 15

what is the role of the episodic buffer?

Answer 15

receives input from 3 other systems, temporarily stores this information, and then integrates it in order to construct a mental episode of what is being experienced

Question 16

why was the episodic buffer added to the WMM?

Answer 16

because he realised the model needed a general store. The phonological loop and visuospatial sketchpad deal with processing and temporarily storing specific kinds of information.
The central executive has no storage capacity, so there was nowhere to hold information that relates to both visual AND acoustic information.
So, the episodic buffer acts as extra storage system that has, in common with all working memory units - limited capacity

Question 17

where does the EB send information to?

Answer 17

LTM

Question 18

what are the 4 things the EB is capable of doing?

Answer 18

• holding information while it’s being used
• receiving info from other stores
• exchanging info with LTM
• order of events

Question 19

what is dual-processing?

Answer 19

this is the idea that we are able to complete tasks which require two separate subsystems of the STM

Question 20

give an example of dual-processing?

Answer 20

driving a car (visuospatial) and singing to a song (phonological)

Question 21

explain 2 situations where dual-processing will not work

Answer 21

listening to your friend talking and watching TV at the same time

Question 22

what are the 5 evaluation points for the WMM?

Answer 22

1. evidence for the existence of the central executive
2. evidence from brain-damaged patients
3. problems with case studies
4. evidence from the phonological loop and articulatory process
5. dual task performance

Question 23

what is the PEEL paragraph for the WMM evaluation point ‘dual task performance’

Answer 23

P - Hitch and Baddeley (1976), supported the existence of the central executive in a study involving dual-task performance
E - Task 1 occupied the central executive (e.g. participants were given a statement ‘B is followed by A’ and shown two letters such as ‘AB’ and asked to say true or false).
Task 2 either involved the articulatory loop (e.g. asked to say ‘the the the’ repeatedly) or involved both the central executive and the articulatory loop (saying random digits).
E - Task 1 was slower when task 2 involved both the central executive and the articulatory loop.
L - this demonstrates the dual-task performance effect and shows that the central executive is one of the components of working memory

Question 24

what is the PEEL paragraph for the WMM evaluation point ‘evidence from brain-damaged patients’

Answer 24

P - studies of individuals with brain damage also support the WMM
E - Shallice and Warrington (1970) studied a man called KF whose short-term forgetting of auditory information was much greater than that of visual stimuli. In addition to this, his auditory problems were limited to verbal material such as letters and digits but not meaningful sounds (such as a phone ringing).
E - thus his brain damage seemed to be restricted to the phonological loop. Another patient, SC, had generally good learning abilities with the exception of being unable to learn word pairs that were presented out loud. This suggests damage to the phonological loop. Another patient, LH, who had been involved in a road accident, performed better on spatial tasks than those involving visual imagery.
L - this supports the idea of separate visual and spatial systems, as suggested by the WMM

Question 25

what is the PEEL paragraph for the WMM evaluation point ‘problems with using case studies’

Answer 25

P - there are a number of problems with using evidence from case studies of individuals who have suffered serious brain damage
E - firstly, the process of brain injury is traumatic, which may in itself change behaviour so that a person performs worse on certain tasks.
E - second, such individuals may have other difficulties paying attention and therefore underperform on certain tasks.
E - finally, case studies are of unique individuals and cannot be generalised to the population (low population validity)
L - this is an issue for the WMM as some of the key research that supports the WMM comes from case studies

Question 26

what is the PEEL paragraph for the WMM evaluation point ‘evidence for the phonological loop and articulatory process’?

Answer 26

P - a strength of the WMM lies in the phonological loop and its explanation of the word-length effect - the fact that people cope better with short words than long words in working memory (STM)
E - Baddeley et al (1975) showed that the phonological loop hold the amount of information that you can say in 2 seconds. This makes it hard to remember a list of long words such as ‘association’ and ‘representative’ compared to shorter words like ‘harm’ and ‘twice’.
E - the longer words can’t be rehearsed on the phonological loop because they don’t fit. However, the word-length effect disappears if a person is given an articulatory suppression task, for example if you are asked to say ‘the the the…’ while reading the words.
E - this repetitive task ties up the articulatory process and means that you can’t rehearse the shorter words more quickly than the longer one, so the word-length effect disappears.
L - this is evidence for the articulatory process - a key component of the WMM

Question 27

what is the PEEL paragraph for the WMM evaluation point ‘central executive’?

Answer 27

P - some psychologists feel the concept of the central executieve is too vague and doesn’t really explain anything.
E - all it appears to do is allocate resources and essentially be the same as ‘attention’. Critics also feel that the notion of a single central executive is wrong and that there are probably several components. Eslinger and Damasio (1985) studied EVR, hwo had had a cerebal tumour removed.
E - he perfromed well on tests requiring reasoning, which suggested that his central executive was intact. However, he had poor decision-making skills (he would spend hours trying to decide where to eat) which suggests that in fact his central executive was not wholly intact.
L - in summary, the account offered of the central executive is unsatisfactory because it is probably more complex than Baddeley and Hitch originally suggested