Working memory model Flashcards
What does the working memory model explain?
How short term memory is organised and how it functions.
What are the main components of the WMM?
Central executive, phonological loop, episodic buffer and the visuo-spatial sketchpad.
What does the central executive do?
It monitors incoming data, makes decisions and allocates slave systems to tasks. It has a limited processing capacity.
What is the phonological loop?
It deals with auditory information and has two sections-the articulatory control system and the phonological store. The phonological loop stores the words that you hear and the articulatory process allows maintenance rehearsal of words to keep them in working memory.
What is the visuo-spatial sketchpad?
This stores visual or spatial information, with the visual cache storing visual data and the inner scribe recording objects in the visual field.
What is the episodic buffer?
It was added by Baddeley in 200 and is a temporary store for information, integrating the visual, spatial and verbal information. It links working memory to LTM.
What are the strengths of the WMM?
There is supporting evidence from KF as he had bad verbal STM but could process visual information normally.
Dual task performance studies support the WMM as it is more difficult to do two visual tasks rather than one visual and one verbal as they are competing for the same slave system.
Studies of word length support the phonological loopas longer words were more difficult to remember because there is finite space for rehearsal.
Brain scanning studies support the WMM as tasks involved with the central executive were shown to have greater activity in the prefrontal cortex, showing there is physical evidence to support the WMM.
What are the weaknesses of the WMM?
There is a lack of information about the central executive, meaning information about the WMM is missing.
