working memory model - WMM Flashcards
What is working memory?
A limited capacity store for retaining inofrmation for a brief period while performing mental operations on that information.
Working memory has mostly replaced the use of the word stm form the msm
Who created the WMM and why?
Baddeley & hitch (1974) belived that stm was not a unitary store like the msm suggests.
They also argued that it was active processor of information and not passive like the msm
What is the role of the CE?
Supervisory role, does not store information
Functions:
Directs attention to tasks and makes decisions
Allocates tasks to the slave systems
Data arrives from the sneses or the LTM
What capacity does the CE have?
very limited processing capacity
What is the role of the phonological loop (PL)?
it processes auditory information, codes info acoustically
phonological store (baddeley 1986)
holds acoutic info heard
articulatory control process (baddeley 1986)
inner voice (maintenance)
What capacity does PL have?
Limited capasity of 2 seconds
What is the word length effect?
Immdediate memory span is better with short words
Short words can be articulated faster, so that more words can be silently atriculated before they decay
What is the role of the visuospatial sketchpad (VSS)?
Processes visual and/or spatial (relationship between things) info
Visual-cache (Logie 1995 )
which store info about visual items eg. Form / colour
Inner scribe (Logie 1995 )
Stores information about the spatial relationship of items
What capacity does vss have?
Limited capasity of 3-4 items
What is the dual task technique?
Ones in which performance is measure as participants perform 2 tasks simultaneously
baddeley (1975) - dual task technique
found that if one store is utilised for both tasks then task performance is poorer due to store’s limited capasity
What is the role of the espisodic buffer (EB)?
Temporary store which integrates (moves) info from other slave systems
Baddeley (2000) - episodic buffer (EB)
Baddeley (2000) added episodic buffer as he realised model needed a more general store
What capacity does the EB have?
Limited capasity of approximately 4 chunks
It sends information to the LTM store
A strength of the WMM is that is supported by clinical evidence of case studies of patients suffering from brain damage.
supports the idea that there are separate stores for visual, spatial and acoustic processing within STM and increases validity of the model
what happened to KF?
KF suffered brain damage from a motorcycle accident
His STM has issues
Unable to recall verbal (acoustic) information (pl)
but he could still process visually including faces (vss)
limitation of the WMM from KF’s case study
It is unknown how the patients would have acted before the brain injury
not everyone with brain injury has it in the same place
A strength of the WMM is that there is empirical evidence from dual task performance studies.
Ppts only had difficulty doing two similar tasks.
This shows evidence there are multiple components within our STM system which increases the validity of the model
Baddeley and hitch (1976)
ppts has more difficulty doing 2 tasks which uses phonological loop
However when one task use their phonological loop (remembering numbers) and the other their VSS (copying a drawing) their performance was not affected
A limitation of the WMM is that critics including Baddeley himself have have suggested that the CE component is too vague
The lack of clarity - questions the validity of this part of the model as it is not fully explained
the CE may consist of separate stores.
