Working Memory Model, Baddeley and Hitch 1974 Flashcards
The initial model stated that there were three components;
central executive, vssp and phonological loop, they later added the episodic buffer
The central executive is seen as a homunculus because
it directs and controls the activity of the other components and it modality free
The phonological loop is
an auditory store that rehearses sound based information to prevent decay
The central executive can also retrieve information from
the ltm
The slave systems exist because
as temporary storage systems they free up space in the central executive for more demanding tasks
The phonological loop consists of two systems;
the articulatory rehearsal system and the phonological store
The articulatory rehearsal system is known as the
inner voice
The ARS has a time capacity of
2 seconds
The ARS is where
you mentally rehearse information by repeating it over and over again
The ARS can explain the word length effect because short monosyllabic words are recalled more successfully than longer polysyllabic words so
longer words fill up the limited capacity of the ARS resulting in decay of words positioned earlier in the list
The phonological store is also known as
the inner ear
The phonological store uses a sound based code to store information, but this info decays after
about 2 seconds unless it is rehearsed by the ARS
The phonological store receives its input either
directly from the ears or from ltm, like imagining your fave song
The PS can explain the phonological similarity effect
where it is difficult to remember similar sounding words and not semantically similar words as the PS encodes acoustically
The VSSP stores and manipulates visual information and gets its input from
the eyes or ltm
The role of the VSSP is to maintain and integrate visual and spatial info from the
visual cache and the inner scribe
The visual cache is
one part of the VSSP which stores info about form and colour
The Inner scribe is the part
which deals with spatial information and movement, but also rehearses all visuospatial info to be transferred to the CE
The purpose of the episodic buffer is to
bind together all info from the other components with info about time and order, it is considered that the buffer brings in info from the LTM
The episodic buffer was brought in
by Baddeley in 2000
Poor working memory is associated with
dyslexia and specific language impairment
It has application to real life to help people with dementia since
the episodic buffer helps people who cannot encode memories in LTM or have travel retrieving LTM. So, cognitive stimulation; playing an old song helps a patient remember where they first heard it.
There is face validity because the idea of the inner ear and eye matches up with what it actually feels like and
it has also been supported by brain scanning which shows acoustic and visual encoding going on in different parts of the brain.
The model is based on lab experiments involving dual tasks which lack mundane realism as in real life, even at cocktail parties
you use your other senses (such as paying attention to body language). If the experiments into WM lack ecological validity, then the model won’t explain how memory works in real life situations.
Lieberman (1980) criticises working memory by pointing out out that blind people have spatial memory (they can remember where things are and not bump into them)
even though they have never had any visual information. Lieberman argues that the VSSP should have two different components: visual memory and spatial memory.
What did Baddeley (2005) find?
That similar sounding letters (V, B, C, G) are not recalled as well as dissimilar sounding letters (X, O, J, Y) as participants get confused because PL encodes acoustically
