The working memory model

Question 1

Why was the WMM created?

Answer 1

Baddeley and Hitch thought that the MSM was too simplistic and so crated the WMM to flesh it out.

Question 2

What are the different parts of the WMM?

Answer 2

central executive

phonological loop

visuospatial sketchpad

episodic buffer

Question 3

What is the central executive?

Answer 3

monitors incoming data and allocates it to one of the other slave systems.

has a limited processes capacity and does not store information

Question 4

what is the phonological loop

Answer 4

Deals with auditory information and preserves the order in which the information arrives

further divides this information into one of the two subsystems

Question 5

What are the subdivisions of the phonological loop?

Answer 5

phonological store-stores words

auditory process-allows for maintenance rehearsal

                            capacity is said to be 2 seconds worth of what is said

Question 6

What is the visuospatial sketchpad?

Answer 6

stores visual and/or spatial information when required

limited capacity of 3 to 4 objects

further divided by Logie into 2 sub sections

Question 7

What are the subdivisions of the visuospatial sketchpad?

Answer 7

visual cache-stores visual data

inner scribe-records the arrangement of objects in our visual field

Question 8

What is the episodic buffer?

Answer 8

temporary store of information and is sometimes called the link between STM and LTM

maintains the chronological sequencing of data gathered by the senses

limited capacity of 4 chunks

Question 9

What is a strength of the WMM?

Answer 9

Clinical eveidence to support, Shalice and Warrington’s study of KF

KF was in a motorbike accident and suffered a brian injjury. He had poor STM for auditory info but could process visual information normally. For instance his imedite recall of letters and numbers was better when he read them than when they were told to him. This shows that while his phonological loop was damged his visuo-spatial sketchpad was still intact. This finding strongly supports the idea that STM can be broken down into differening visual and audiotoy systems.

However, it is cunclear whether KF had any cognitive iimparements after the accident which could have affected ted his performance on the memory tasks. for exaple the trauma inflicted by his motorcycle accident may have affected his cognitive performance. quite apart from any brain injury. This challenges the evidence ethat comes from clinically studiig those with brian injuries as the injury may have affected many different systems.

Question 10

What is a limitation of the WMM (central exec)?

Answer 10

Little is known about it - Most important but least understood (Baddley)
Needs to be more specified than just an attention store e.g other psychologists beleive that it contains its own subsystems. This means that the CE is an unsatisfactory system and undermines the integrity of the WMM

However it also can help in the explaination of some psychological and physical illnesses. Evens et al found that schizophrenic paitients had a disorder of the functions that are thought to be handled by the central executive of working memory e.g planning, decision-making.This raises the possibility that schizophrenia may at least partly involve a disorder of the central executive; this is currently a very active area of research, with potentially important consequences for treatment and rehabilitation of this serious psychotic disorder. This shows that while not much is known about the central executive, its existanc ehas important real-world implications.

Question 11

What is a strength of the WMM?

Answer 11

The phonological loop has research to support
Baddley demonstrated that people find it more difficult to remember a list of long words than short words. Only 2 seconds in store. So can’t repeat if being vocal - Two stores in it.
PET scan shows different activities when doing verbal tasks.
This proves the exsistance of a sepertae audiotory store