Working memory model

• who came up with the working memory model? Baddeley and Hitch (1974)
• what is the working memory model? an explanation of one aspect of memory (STM) is organised and how it functions concerned with the mental space that's active when storing/manipulating info
• what are the 4 components of the working memory model? central executive, phonological loop, visuospatial sketchpad, episodic buffer
• what does the central executive do? monitors incoming data, focuses and divides our limited attention, allocated subsystems to tasks

  has a limited processing capacity
• what does the central executive not store?

  information
• what type of information is the phonological loop?

  auditory
• what is the phonological loop divided into? phonological store (stores words you hear)

  articulatory process (allows maintenance rehearsal)
• what is the phonological stores capacity? 2 seconds worth of what you can say
• what does the visio-spatial sketchpad store? visual and spatial info
• what is the capacity of the visio-spatial sketchpad? 3 or 4 objects according to Baddely 2003
• what did robert logie 1995 do in terms of the visio-spatial sketchpad? subdivided it into visual cache (stores data)

  and the inner scribe (records the arrangement of objects in the visual field)
• who came up with the episodic buffer?

  Baddeley 2000
• what is the episodic buffer? temporary store for information- integrated visual, spatial and verbal info and maintains time sequencing
• what is the capacity of the episodic buffer? 4 chunks (Baddeley 2012)
• what does the episodic buffer link? working memory to LTM and wider cognitive processes such as perception
• strength - P - support from tim shallice and elizabeth warrington's 1970 case study of KF: E - he had poor STM ability for auditory info but could process visual info normally

  - his immediate recall of letters and digits was better when he read them (visual) than when they were read to him (acoustic)

  - his phonological loop was damaged but his visuo-spatial sketchpad was intact

  T - strongly supports the existence of separate visual and acoustic memory stores
• strengths - P - studies of dual task performance support of the separate existence of the visuo-sketchpad: E - when Baddeley 1975 pps carried out annual task at the same time

  - their performance on each was similar to when they carried out the tasks separately

  - when both tasks were visual/ vice versa performance declined
• (Baddeley 1975) Dual-task performance - why did performance decline when both tasks were visual or both tasks were verbal? - both visual tasks compete for the same subsystem (VSS)

  - no competition when performing a verbal and visual task together

  
  

  T - must be a separate system (BSS) that processes visual input

  limitation - P - lack of clarity over nature of the central executive
• what did Baddeley say in 2003? The CE is the most important but least understood component of the working memory.

  It needs to be more clearly specified than just simply being 'attention'.
• what do some psychologists believe that the CE may consist of? separate sub components