wmm

• who founded wmm

  baddeley & hitch (1974)
• what is wmm a model of

  STM
• what did wmm say about STM

  it is active and not passive

  rebranded to working memory
• how many STM stores did b&h believe there was

  at least 3
• what are the 4 components of wmm

  central executive

  phonological loop

  visio - spatial sketchpad

  episodic buffer
• what does the term ‘working memory’ also mean?

  short term memory
• phonological loop

  • inner voice/ear that holds sound for a short time
  • handles auditory & visual info
  • relates info in a loop until you can write it (using a voice in your head)
  • phonological & articulatory control process
  • capacity is limited ( 2 secs worth of speech)
• phonological store

  holds sounds and spoken words you hear for a short time
• articulatory control process

  repeats sounds in your head to keep them active in memory
• visio - spatial sketch pad

  • manages visual & spatial awareness
  • visual cache - stores visual info ( e.g. remembering the pattern of your friends shirt)
  • inner scribe - processes spatial info & manages movement related tasks ( e.g. catching a ball)
• central executive


  • has no memory
  • directs attention & handles specialised tasks (e.g. multitasking while driving)
  • ensures visio - spatial sketch pad & phonological loop can work together
  • limited capacity
  • works with all information
• episodic buffer

  • addressed gaps in original model so introduced later on
  • helps other components interact
  • helps to communicate with LTM to retrive/ store info
  • helps you to remember info like a story
  • new storage system
• supporting research for wmm

  • baddeley & hitch
  • bunge et al
• baddeley & hitch supporting evidence

  • dual task technique - doing 2 things at once
  • cannot do 2 visual / linguistic / auditory things at once
  • can do separate stored at once though
  • proves wmm is split into 2 parts - phonological loop & visio spatial sketch pad
• bunge et al supporting evidence

  • used MRI scans to look at brain activity during 2 tasks being performed simultaneously (increased attentional demands when performing multiple tasks)
  • shows central executive is giving out attention
  • MRI scans also showed that the phonological loop & visio sketch pad are in 2 different places (shows they are 2 different things with different roles)
• APFC structure (describing research)

  • aims - what the study was trying to investigate
  • procedures - how the study was conducted
  • findings - what the study has discovered
  • conclusions - what the results mean
  • AO1 - aims & procedures
  • AO3- findings & conclusions
• strengths of WMM

  • more detailed than MSM - explains STM as an active system, not just passive
  • explains real life memory tasks - helps to understand multi-tasking
  • supported by research
• weaknesses of WMM

  • central executive is vague - its exact role is unclear
  • lacks expansion of LTM - only focuses of STM
  • doesn’t explain forgetting - unlike MSM, it doesn’t explain decay/ displacement