Working Memory Model

Question 1

Who proposed this model and when was it proposed

Answer 1

Baddeley and Hitch - 1974

Question 2

What is the central executive

Answer 2

An attentional process that has a supervisory role as it focuses, divides and switches our limited attention.
The CE doesn’t handle memories itself but it allocates them to the slave systems and manages them

Question 3

What is the phonological loop

Answer 3

Memory system that handles sound

Question 4

The phonological loop is subdivided into… (2)

Answer 4

• articulatory process = allows maintenance rehearsal with a capacity of 2 seconds
• phonological store = stores auditory information

Question 5

What is the visuo spatial sketch pad

Answer 5

Memory system that handles vision.
- has a limited capacity of 3 or 4 objects

Question 6

Robert Logie (1995) subdivided the VVS into… (2)

Answer 6

• visual cache = stores visual data
• inner scribes = records the arrangement of objects in the visual field

Question 7

What is the episodic buffer (4)

Answer 7

Episodic buffer was added to the model in 2000.
It is a temporal store that integrates the acoustic, visual and spatial information processed by other systems.
It also maintained a sense of time, sequencing, and recording of events that are happening.
It combines information from other subsystems with long term memory and links to wider cognitive processes such as perception.

Question 8

AO3 - Baddeley (1975)

Answer 8

• when participants performed a visual and verbal task together, they performed no worse than when asked to do them separately
• when asked to do two visual/ two verbal tasks, performance declined due to two slave system competing with each other.
• supports the idea for 2 separate salve systems for visual and verbal

Question 9

Shallice and Warrington (1970)

Answer 9

• application to understanding amnesia
• patient KF has damaged their short term memory but could process visual memory but not verbal information
• shows that visual information is processed differently from verbal

Question 10

AO3 - working memory model is not fully explained

Answer 10

The central executive doesn’t explain anything and lacks clarity and hasn’t been fully explained as researchers believe it has separate sub components

Question 11

AO3 - Patient KF opposing view

Answer 11

• patient KF is unique and not typical
• therefore cannot be generalised to the wider population
• not valid findings