Working Memory Model

Question 1

Central Executive

Answer 1

• In the working memory of model, the central executive is an attentional process that monitors incoming data and makes decisions and allocates slave systems to the task.
• It has a very limited processing capacity.

Question 2

Episodic Buffer

Answer 2

• In the working memory of model, the episodic buffer is the third slave system, which is a temporary store for information, integrating the visual, spatial, and verbal information processed by other stores and maintaining a sense of time sequencing.
• According to Baddeley, It has a limited capacity of approximately four chunks and links working memory to LTM and wider cognitive processes such as perception

Question 3

Phonological Loop

Answer 3

• In the working memory model, the phonological loop is one of the slave systems which deals with auditory information and preserves the order in which the information arrives.
• The phonological loop is split into the phonological store which stores the word you hear and the articulatory process which allows maintenance rehearsal

Question 4

Visual-spatial sketchpad

Answer 4

• In the working memory model, the visuo-spatial sketchpad is the second slave system which stores visual or spatial information and has a limited capacity.
• For example, if you are asked to work out how many widows there are on your house you visualise it.
• Logie subdivided the VSS into the visual cache, which stores visual data and the inner scribe which records the arrangement of objects in the visual field.

Question 5

Briefly outline the Working Memory Model [4]

Answer 5

• The central executive is an attentional process with limited capacity that monitors incoming data, made decisions and allocates slave systems to task.
• The phonological loop is one of the slave systems which is acoustically coded and subdivided into the phonological store which stores the words you hear and the articulatory process which allows maintenance rehearsal.
• The visuo-spatial sketchpad is the second slave system which stores visual or spatial information with limited capacity and is subdivided into the visual cache, which stores visual data and the inner scribe which records the arrangement of objects in the visual field.
• The episodic buffer is the third slave system with limited capacity which is a temporary store for information, integrating the visual, spatial and verbal information processed by other stores and links working memory to LTW and wider cognitive processes such as perception

Question 6

Outline one limitation of the working memory model

Answer 6

• Results from laboratory experiments researching the WMM will often have low ecological validity.
• For instance, Baddeley and Hitch’s study asked participants to perform tasks that they wouldn’t usually do in everyday life such as repeating a list of numbers while answering true or false questions.
• This therefore lacks mundane realism as it not representative of our everyday activities and thus cannot be generalised to real life situations.

Question 7

Outline one strength of the working memory model

Answer 7

• a strength of the working memory model is the clinical evidence supporting the concept of separate stores.
• Shallice et al did a case study on KF who had suffered brain damage which led to KF having poor STM ability for verbal information but could process visual information normally when presented visually.
• This suggests that just his phonological loop had been damaged leaving other areas of memory intact which supports the concept of separate visual and acoustic store illustrating further reliability of the working memory model.
• However, a potential issue with this case study is that the evidence comes from brain damaged patients which may not be reliable as they have unique cases that may not be able to be generalised to the wider experiment.

Question 8

Baddeley and Hitch aim

Answer 8

To investigate if participants can use different parts of working memory at the same time.

Question 9

Baddeley and Hitch procedure

Answer 9

Conducted an experiment in which participants were asked to perform two tasks at the same time (dual task technique) - a digit span task which required them to repeat a list of numbers, and a verbal reasoning task which required them to answer true or false to various questions

Question 10

Baddeley and Hitch Findings

Answer 10

As the number of digits increased in the digit span tasks, participants took longer to answer the reasoning questions, but not much longer - only fractions of a second. And, they didn’t make any more errors in the verbal reasoning tasks as the number of digits increased.

Question 11

Baddeley and Hitch conclusion

Answer 11

The verbal reasoning task made use of the central executive and the digit span task made use of the phonological loop.

Question 12

Case study supporting the WMM

Answer 12

• KF Case Study supports the Working Memory Model. KF suffered brain damage which damaged his short-term memory.
• KF’s impairment was mainly for verbal information - his memory for visual information was largely unaffected.
• This shows that there are separate STM components for visual information (VSS) and verbal information (phonological loop).