Working model of memory

Question 1

list all the components of the WMM

Answer 1

central executive

phonological loop
- primary acoustic
- articulatory process

Visuo-spatial sketch pad
- visual cache
- inner scribe

episodic buffer

Question 2

describe the phonological loop (A01)

Answer 2

• processes auditory coded information
  split into 2 components:
  primary acoustic = the inner ear, holding words recently heard
  articulatory process = the inner voice, Holds info via the sub-vocal repetition
• limited capacity of 2 seconds

Question 3

describe the central executive (A01)

Answer 3

• controls attention
• receives sense info and filters before passing onto sub systems.
• limited capacity (4 items) working on one type of information at a time
• able to switch attention between different inputs

Question 4

describe the visuospatial sketchpad (A01)

Answer 4

• processes visual and spatially coded info, thought of as the inner eye. Split into two components:
  visual cache = a passive store of shape and colour
  inner scribe = active store holding the relationships between objects in 3D space.

Question 5

describe the episodic buffer (A01)

Answer 5

added to WMM in 2000
- general store to hold and integrate information from the VSS, PL, CE and LTM.

Question 6

2 strengths of WMM

Answer 6

• Baddeley study: pp’s were asked to preform 2 visual tasks (tracking moving lights at same time as describe the angles of the letter F). Or, a visual and verbal task. It was found that performance was much better when the tasks were not using the same processing. This suggests the VSS and PL exist as separate systems and capacity of the VSS can be overwhelmed with visual info.
• Shallice and Warrington investigated the clinical case of KF. It was found KF has a selective impairment to his verbal STM, caused by brain injury; however the visual functioning of his STM is not affected. This suggests the PL and VSS subsystems are separate processes located in separate brain regions

Question 7

2 weaknesses of WMM

Answer 7

• Most of experiments or studies backing up theory are lab based, and lack mundane realism. Therefore, findings may not be generalisable to how we use memory.
• The model has been been criticised as it had been changed and refined to add the episodic buffer due to the vague concept surrounded where info is held. Therefore,, this suggests that the model could still be incomplete.