working memory model

    Cards (10)

    • central executive
      monitors incoming data, makes decisions and allocates slave systems
      limited processing capacity
    • phonological loop
      deals with auditory information
      phonological store - stores the words you hear
    • articulatory process
      allows maintenance rehearsal (repeating sounds or words in a 'loop' to keep them in the working memory)
      the capacity is believed to be two seconds worth of what you can say
    • visuo-spatial sketchpad
      stores visual and/or spatial information
      limited capacity of around 3 or 4 objects
      visual cache - stores visual data
      inner scribe - records the arrangement of objects in the visual field
    • episodic buffer
      temporary store of information, integrating visual, spatial and verbal information and maintaining a sense of time sequencing
      storage component of central executive
      limited capacity of about 4 chunks
      episodic buffer links working memory to LTM and wider cognitive processes such as perception
    • +clinical evidence
      case study on patient KF who had poor STM ability for verbal info but could process visual info presented visually. this suggests that just his phonological loop had been damaged leaving other areas intact
      supports that stores are separate
    • +dual task performance
      studies support separate existence of the visuo-spatial sketchpad. baddeley showed that ppts had more difficulty doing two visual/two verbal tasks than doing a visual and verbal at the same time
      = must be a separate slave system (VSS) that processes visual input
    • -lack of clarity over the central executive
      cognitive psychologists suggest that this component of the WMM is unsatisfactory and doesn't explain anything
      needs to be more clearly specified than simply being 'attention'
      = model hasn't fully been explained
    • +brain scanning studies support the WMM
      tasks involving central executive, greater activity in prefrontal cortex - increases as task gets harder
      explained by WMM
    • +studies of the word length effect support the phonological loop
      harder to remember a list of long words, than short words=word length effect
      finite space for rehearsal in articulatory process
      effect disappears if a person is given an articulatory suppression task
      supports models view that the loop has limited capacity
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