A03 - Memory - Working Memory Model Flashcards
A strength of the WMM is that is supported by clinical evidence of case studies of patients suffering from brain damage.
An example of this is KF being in a motorcycle accident, suffering from brain damage and he had issues with his short-term memory afterwards.
He couldn’t recall acoustic information (verbal) but he could process visually, which includes faces. This suggests his VSS is intact, but his phonological loop has been damaged.
This supports that there are separate stores of acoustic, visual and spatial processing within short-term memory. This increases the model’s validity.
However, KF may have been unique because other case studies show patients with brain damage and experienced trauma.
In addition, it’s not known how the patients would’ve completed the specific tasks before their brain injury.
Therefore, the findings can only be generalised to a partial extent.
A strength of the WMM is that there is empirical evidence from dual task performance studies.
Baddeley and Hitch (1976) showed that participants had more difficulty doing two tasks as it required the use of their phonological loop.
On the other hand, when the participants had to complete one task using their phonological loop by remembering numbers and the other with their visuospatial sketch pad by copying a drawing, their performance was not affected.
This could suggest that participants had difficulty doing the two similar tasks because it puts too much pressure on the phonological loop.
Whereas there was no competition when the tasks required the two systems. This shows evidence that there’s more than one component in short-term memory, which increases the model’s validity.
However, lab study evidence suggests it has low mundane realism due to the artificial tasks.
Therefore the results can only be generalised to a partial extent.
A limitation of the WMM is that critics including Baddeley himself have have suggested that the CE component is too vague and doesn’t really explain anything.
Baddeley admitted that the central executive is the ‘least understood’ component of the working memory model. Therefore, more research is needed to provide evidence for its role.
Some psychologists have suggested that the central executive might consist of separate stores. This lack of clarity questions this part of the model’s validity as it’s not fully developed or explained.
However, Braver (1997) provided brain scan evidence to support central executive’s existence. Participants were given a central executive task where the activity was seen in the prefrontal cortex. The harder the task became, the the more active the prefrontal cortex.
