working memory model ao3 Flashcards
strength of wmm - clinical evidence
P: support for wmm comes from case study (shallice and warrington 1970) of brain damged pateint KF after motocycle accident
E: he was able to recall info from ltm but had issues w recall for stm. his ability to processes auditory info from stm was poor but viusal info was normal. so immediate recall of letters whne he read them (visual task) was good but he found it hard to recall when he heard the letters (auditory task)
E: suggests that there are at least 2 sep components of stm as he was still able to do some tasks req stm thus his pl was damaged but vss still intact
L: thus reseach into kf supports components of stm and 2 slave systems vss anf ps
dual task performance strenght of wmm
P: further support is shown by baddley and hitch dual task performance studies 1976
E: ppts carried out both visual and verbal task simultaneously.
if one vis and one verb task done at same time to perf when tasks performed sep
but if 2 visual or 2 verbal tasks were performed at once then perf declined
E: this is because doing both visual tasks req same vss component when visual and verbal tasks occur at once diff components are used so dual task performance cannot occur if same component used
L: thus supports wmm and compoents of stm - vs - visual info processijf and pl - auditory info and verbal processing
counterpoint for clinical ev strength of wwm
P: using individual case studoes specifc to the individual has its draw backs
E: FOR EXAMPLE we dont kno whether kf had any other cog impairments (apart from damage to pl) that could have affected performance in mem tasks. since the injury was caused by an accident motorcycle the trauma may have affected performance and not the injury itself
E: THERFORE we cannot be sure that his performance on tasks and the finding of seperate visual and acoustic memory store is completley true. this challenges evidence from brain ijured patients that may have affected many diff systems. also the maj of pop dont have brain inuries and thus it can be argued that findinfgs from brain studies may not he generalisable to the wider population
weaknesses of wmm - centralnexecutive lack of clarity
Weaksness of wmm - laxk of clarity over centrak. Executive
P, there is a lack of clarity over the nature of CE
E: for example eshinger and damasiao 1985 studied EVR a patient who had her tumour
Removed, they found that she did good on tests req reasoning imolying her CE was still
Inatct per wmm but cid bad on desciosn making tasks implying something within CE may not be i
Intact but wmm doesnt account fir this although the CE is the main supervisory component
L, so thus uts an unsatisfactoy componenet and not clear enough to procide evidenevd for wmm and its
Components thus challenging its integrity
weaknesess of wmm - nomothetic approach
P: a limitation is that it adopts a nonmothetic app
E: this means it attempts to create universal laws that apply to all ppl regarding how stm processes info based on dual task studies constructed under labatory starts tmo
E: alternatively using an idiographic app which focuses more on individual expiernves rather than creation of universal laws such as was used by oliver sacks 2007 w CW and milner 1957 w HM, can shed light on how stm loss can vary between ppl. Hm stm was severly affected but not as bad as cw despite removal of hippocampus
L: thus using an idiographic app alongside nomothetic app could furhter our understanding of how human memory works
