WMM

• Dual-task study (Baddeley & Hitch 1974)

  • p's had to carry out verbal reasoning tasks whilst simultaneously rehearsing digit strings
  • result: they were pretty accurate although slower
  • MSM would predict that they wouldn't be able to complete the tasks but they could do the dual-tasks together
  • STM is not unitary
• Central Executive

  • Key component in model (overall charge, supervisory role)
  • Functions:
  • Direct attention to tasks
  • Determine how resources are allocated
  • Limited capacity
• Visuospatial Sketchpad


  • Visual and/or spatial information stored
  • Visual: what things look like
  • Spatial: relationship between things
  • Limited capacity

  Logie (1995) suggested a subdivision

  -> Visuo-cache (temporary store for visual information i.e. form + colour)

  -> Inner scribe (holds spatial information i.e. arrangement of objects)
• Phonological Loop

  • Deals with auditory information and preserves word order (aids understanding)
  • Limited capacity

  Baddeley suggested subdivision

  -> Phonological store (holds words recently heard)

  -> Articulatory process (looping words silently over and over to allow maintenance rehearsal)
• Episodic Buffer

  • Added in 2000 (still developing model)
  • combines information from different sources into "chunks"
  • integrates material from LTM when required
  • i.e. an elephant playing ice hockey
• Cocktail party effect


  The subconscious ability to focus one's attention to a particular stimulus whilst filtering out a range of other stimuli
• How does the case of KF support the WMM?


  KF had impaired verbal short-term memory (PL) but intact visual short-term memory (VSSP), supporting the idea of separate short term memory systems in the Working Memory Model
• The Working Memory Model

  theory made by Baddeley & Hitch (1974)

  replaces the MSM's concept of a unitary STM

  features different processors that can work simultaneously

  A) Central Executive

  B) Visuospatial Sketchpad

  C) Episodic Buffer

  D) Phonological Loop

  E) Long term memory

  F) Articulatory process

  G) Phonological store

  H) Visuo-cache

  I) Inner scribe