the working memory model

Question 1

what is the working memory model and who proposed it?

Answer 1

Baddeley and Hitch proposed it - its an expansion of the STM.
they believed it was not just a single unitary store as explained by the MSM.
a model explaining how the central executive controls the STM and sends it to the appropriate slave system to process.

Question 2

what are the five components of WMM (including three main slave systems)?

Answer 2

central executive
phonological loop
episodic buffer
visuo-spatial sketchpad
long term memory

Question 3

describe the central executive.

Answer 3

modality free - processes all types of information.
very limited capacity - overloaded.
directs slave systems to be allocated to tasks.

Question 4

describe the phonological loop.

Answer 4

• deals with auditory info (audio) and preserves the order of info.
• its subdivided into:
  phonological state - inner ear, used for words that you can hear.
  articulatory process - inner voice, used for words seen or heard e.g reading uses this process.

Question 5

describe visuo-spatial sketchpad.

Answer 5

• deals with visual and spatial info.
• its subdivided into:
  visual cache - stores info about visual items (shape, colour)
  inner scribe - stores the arrangement of objects in the visual field e.g drawing a backwards B.

Question 6

describe the episodic buffer.

Answer 6

(added in 2000 upon realising a more general store is needed)
- temporary store for integrating visual, spatial and verbal.
- maintains a sequence of time sequencing (episodes)
- links working memory to LTM.

Question 7

what does the working memory model suggest?

Answer 7

that the store systems act independently of each other.

Question 8

evaluation of the working memory model (strengths)

Answer 8

strengths:
- the dual task performance shows that tasks can be performed better when different slave tasks are used at the same time, rather than the same slavery tasks - Hitch and Baddeley study demonstrated dual task performance and shows that central executive is one of the components of working memory.
- further evidence comes from brain damaged patients: KF suffered brain damage after accident and he could process visual info but struggled with verbal info - this shows slave systems work separately (supports WMM)

Question 9

evaluation of the working memory model (limitations)

Answer 9

evidence from brain damaged patients (e.g KF) can be a problem because the process of brain damage can be traumatic which may in itself change behaviour so that a person performs worse on certain tasks - this makes such evidence unreliable/lacking validity.