Memory - WMM Flashcards
(14 cards)
What is the Working Memory Model (WMM)?
The WMM, created by Baddeley and Hitch (1974), replaced the unitary STM in the MSM.
STM must be more complex than a passive store.
What are the components of the WMM?
The WMM includes the Central Executive, Phonological Loop, Visuo-Spatial Sketchpad, and Episodic Buffer.
What is the role of the Central Executive in WMM?
The Central Executive directs attention and coordinates slave systems, filters and processes incoming sensory info, has limited capacity (can only process ~4 items), and can switch attention between different inputs.
What does the Phonological Loop (PL) do?
The PL processes sound-based information and is divided into the Primary acoustic store and the Articulatory process.
Capacity is limited by what can be said in 2 seconds (word length effect).
What is the function of the Visuo-Spatial Sketchpad (VSS)?
The VSS processes visual and spatial info, with a Visual Cache that stores form and colour and an Inner Scribe that holds spatial relationships in 3D space.
What is the Episodic Buffer?
The Episodic Buffer, added in 2000, is a temporary store integrating information from PL, VSS, CE, and LTM, with limited capacity.
What did Baddeley (1975) find regarding PL vs VSS?
Participants performed worse when both tasks used the same system, indicating that VSS and PL are separate systems.
VSS can be overloaded by visual info.
What did the KF case study by Shallice & Warrington (1970) demonstrate?
KF had brain damage affecting verbal STM but intact visual STM, showing separate systems for PL and VSS located in different brain areas.
What did Prabhakaran et al. (2000) find regarding the episodic buffer?
fMRI scans showed more prefrontal activity when information was integrated, supporting the existence of the episodic buffer as an integrating store.
What did Baddeley (1975) conclude about the capacity of the Phonological Loop?
Participants recalled more monosyllabic words than polysyllabic, indicating that PL capacity is limited by what can be said in 2 seconds (word length effect).
What is a criticism of the Central Executive?
The CE is criticized as vague and hard to test, with Baddeley admitting the concept is underdeveloped, weakening the model’s explanatory power.
What is a strength of the WMM as an active processor?
WMM views STM as an active processor, reflecting real-life memory use better and explaining dual-task performance more accurately.
What are the strengths and validity issues of lab research on WMM?
Research has strong internal validity due to lab controls but lacks ecological validity and mundane realism, which may not generalize to real memory use.
What is the inference problem related to WMM?
Cognitive processes like WMM components can’t be observed directly and must be inferred from behaviour, which might weaken the model’s validity.
