The working memory model

    Cards (9)

    • What is the working memory model? - Baddeley and Hitch 1974

      This is the focus on the short term memory is organised and how it functions. It is concerned with the space that is active when we are temporarily storing and manipulating information like playing chess
    • The role of central executive
      • Motors incoming data
      • limited processing capacity and does not store information
      • focuses and divides our limited attention and then allocated them to subsystems
      • Phonologic loop
      • Visuo-spatial sketch pad
      • Episodic buffer
    • The role of the phonological loop
      • this deals with auditory information and chronologically preserves information
      it is the subdivided into:
      • Phonological store - the words you head
      • Articulatory process - allows maintenance rehearsal (capacity is est. 2 secs)
    • The role of the visuo-spacial sketchpad
      • stores visual/spacial information if required i.e how many monkeys did you see in the video
      • limited capacity around 3-4 objects
      subdivided into:
      • Visual cache - stores visual data
      • Inner scribe - records arrangement of object
    • The role of the episodic buffer
      • temporary store for information - spacial, visual, verbal
      • info processed by other stores and maintaining a sense of time sequencing - recording events
      • limited storage of 4 chunks - links to the LTM and percpetion
    • Clinical evidence - (P) Shallice and Warrington 1970

      (E) A study on a patient after brain surgery, had poor STM for auditory information but still processed visual normal
      (E) He could recall digits better than read them. His phonological loop was damaged but his visuo-spacial sketchpad was intact
      (L) Supports the existence of separate visual and acoustic memory stores
    • Counter to Clinical evidence
      (P) unclear is there is other cognitive impairments that affect his performance
      (E) His injury was caused by a motorcycle performance quite apart from any brain injury
      (L) challenges evidence that from clinical studied of people with brain injuries that may have affected many different system
    • Dual-task performance - (P) Baddeley et al - visuo-spacial sketchpad
      (E) carried out visual and verbal tasks at the same time, performance similar to when carried out separate. When visual on both declined
      (E) both visual task compete in same subsystem, but not competition when verbal and visual
      (L) there must be a separate subsystem that process visual input
    • Nature of the central executive - Baddeley 2003
      (E) recognised then when he that the CE was the least understood in WMM
      (E) the CE needs to be more specified than just 'attention'
      (L) CE is an unsatisfactory component and this challenges the integrity of the WMM