Working Memory Model (Baddeley & Hitch, 1974) Flashcards
What is the WMM showing?
Goes into detail about the STM.
What is the ideas of the dual test paradigm?
Sound and vision are processed separately by memory (Baddeley noticed in early experiments that P’s who were asked to listen to 2 things or look at 2 things became confused, but were able to listen while looking at something else).
What are the 3 ‘Slave Systems’?
- Phonological Loop
- Visuo Spatial Sketchpad
- Episodic Buffer
Which part of WMM handles sound?
Phonological loop (“inner ear”).
Which part of WMM handles vision?
Visuo Spatial Sketchpad (“inner eye”)
What manages the 2 slave systems?
the Central Executive (what Baddeley described as a “little man” (“homounculus”) inside your heard, organising your memories).
What does the CE do?
- Allocates memories to the slave systems.
- It retrieves info from the 5 sense or the LTM and assigns it to the Phonological Loop or VSSP for processing.
- It has non-specific modality (can process sight, sound or any of the 5 senses).
What 2 sub-systems is the phonological loop split into?
- Articulatory loop (“inner voice”): voices info you are rehearsing.
- Primary Acoustic Store: holds onto the memory of sounds.
What does the articulatory loop engage in?
Subvocalising: mental “talking to yourself” that goes on in your head (similar to the rehearsal loop in the MSM).
What does the Episodic Buffer do?
Works between the Loop and the VSSP and specialises in episodic LTM, bringing elements of info together into patterns or stories. It’s multi-modal (not limited to one sense only like the other 2 slave systems). It binds the visual and phonological memories into single episodes, which then get stored in the Episodic LTM.
What’s the CE’s role with the episodic buffer?
CE picks and chooses info from Loop and VSSP that go into the Episodic Buffer to form an episode of memory. EB also “downloads” episodes from LTM, sending them on to the CE to be analysed and maybe recalled to conscious memory.
What did Baddeley (2003) find?
Dual test: (usually p’s in these tests get confused by lists that are acoustically similar rather than semantically similar - suggests P Loop codes acoustically and gets over-loaded). Baddeley (2003) found similar-sounding letters (e.g. B, C, D, T) aren’t recalled as well as dissimilar sounding letters (e.g. W, X, K, R).
However:
- Baddeley’s study lacks ecological validity (and mundane realism) by asking p’s to recall lists of letters. This means the evidence for the theory is weaker, making the WMM less credible as a theory of memory.
- This reduces the effectiveness of the theory.
How does K.F. provide evidence for WMM?
K.F. suffered brain damage from a motorcycle accident that damaged his STM.
- K.F. struggled to process verbal info but his visual memory was unaffected.
- Shows that VSSP is processed separately from verbal info (phonological loop).
However:
- The low generalisability of K.F.s results (as its a case study with unique injuries and circumstances) reduces the strength of the evidence for the WMM. This makes the WMM less applicable in society as evidence can’t be generalised to the gen popn.
- This reduces the effectiveness of the theory.
How does Lieberman (1980) go against the WMM?
Suggested blind people who have never had visual information have great spatial awareness (as they can remember where things are and not bump into them). Lieberman argues that the VSSP should have 2 different components: visual memory and spatial memory.
Why does the WMM have good reliability?
The WMM was developed overtime and had different versions. In 2000, Baddeley & Hitch introduced the episodic buffer to develop their theory to explain how visual and acoustic memory interacts with eachother and is encoded into the LTM - This increases the reliability of the theory as developments were made to make sure it was a full-proof theory.
