Working Memory Model

• Baddeley and Hitch 1974 Working Memory Model

  • A model of STM.
  • Concerned with the 'mental space' active when, for example, working on arithmetic, or playing chess, or comprehending language.
• Central Executive: supervisory role, monitors incoming data, allocates subsystems to tasks. Flexible coding, very limited capacity.
• Phonological Loop: Deals with auditory information, preserves order of information. Subdivided:

  • Phonological Store: Stores words you hear.
  • Articulatory Process: allows maintenance rehearsal.

  Acoustic coding. Capacity worth two seconds of speaking.
• Visuo-Spatial Sketchpad: Stores visual and /or spatial info. Logie (1995) subdivided into:

  • Visual Cache: stores visual data.
  • Inner Scribe: records arrangement of objects in visual field.

  Visual and spatial coding. Capacity 3-4 objects.
• Episodic Buffer: Added in 2000. Temp store. Integrates visual, spatial, and verbal information from other stores. Time sequencing. Links to LTM. Flexible coding, capacity 3-4 chunks.
• ++ Support from clinical evidence. Shallice and Warrington (1970) studied patient KF, had brain injury. STM for auditory info was poor (damaged PL), could process visual info normally (intact VSS). Supports WMM view that there are separate visual and acoustic memory stores.
• ++ Dual task performance studies support the VSS. Baddeley et al.'s (1975) participants found it harder to do two visual tasks simultaneously than a verbal and visual task together (and vice versa). Because both visual tasks compete for same subsystems. Therefore, must be separate subsystems for processing visual input (VSS) and for verbal processes (PL).
• --Lack of clarity over CE. Baddeley (2003) said Ce was most important but least understood. The CE is an unsatisfactory component, challenging the integrity of the model.