working memory model ao3

Question 1

strength of wmm - clinical evidence

Answer 1

P: support for wmm comes from case study (shallice and warrington 1970) of brain damged pateint KF after motocycle accident
E: he was able to recall info from ltm but had issues w recall for stm. his ability to processes auditory info from stm was poor but viusal info was normal. so immediate recall of letters whne he read them (visual task) was good but he found it hard to recall when he heard the letters (auditory task)
E: suggests that there are at least 2 sep components of stm as he was still able to do some tasks req stm thus his pl was damaged but vss still intact
L: thus reseach into kf supports components of stm and 2 slave systems vss anf ps

Question 2

dual task performance strenght of wmm

Answer 2

P: further support is shown by baddley and hitch dual task performance studies 1976
E: ppts carried out both visual and verbal task simultaneously.
if one vis and one verb task done at same time to perf when tasks performed sep
but if 2 visual or 2 verbal tasks were performed at once then perf declined
E: this is because doing both visual tasks req same vss component when visual and verbal tasks occur at once diff components are used so dual task performance cannot occur if same component used
L: thus supports wmm and compoents of stm - vs - visual info processijf and pl - auditory info and verbal processing

Question 3

counterpoint for clinical ev strength of wwm

Answer 3

P: using individual case studoes specifc to the individual has its draw backs
E: FOR EXAMPLE we dont kno whether kf had any other cog impairments (apart from damage to pl) that could have affected performance in mem tasks. since the injury was caused by an accident motorcycle the trauma may have affected performance and not the injury itself
E: THERFORE we cannot be sure that his performance on tasks and the finding of seperate visual and acoustic memory store is completley true. this challenges evidence from brain ijured patients that may have affected many diff systems. also the maj of pop dont have brain inuries and thus it can be argued that findinfgs from brain studies may not he generalisable to the wider population

Question 4

weaknesses of wmm - centralnexecutive lack of clarity

Answer 4

P, there is a lack of clarity over the nature of CE
EE: for example eshinger and damasiao 1985 studied EVR a patient who had her tumour removed , they found that she did good on tests req reasoning implying her CE was still intact per wmm but she did bad on decision making tasks implying something within CE may not be intact but wmm doesnt account for this although the CE is the main supervisory component
L: so thus its an unsatisfactoy componenet and not clear enough to provide evidence for wmm and its components thus challenging its integrity