WMM - cognitive

• why was the WMM created

  baddeley believed the MSM was too simplistic, especially the STM, so created the WMM to develop his ideas
• what was the WMM trying to describe short term memory as

  an active part of memory which is more complex than the MSM describes
• what are the components in the WMM

  central executive, visuospatial sketchpad, episodic buffer, phonological loop, LTM
• what is the role of the central executive

  . supervisory role - dictates how the slave systems should function, allocates information
• what type of information can the central executive deal with

  different types of sensory information
• what is the capacity of the central executive


  no capacity as it doesn't hold information
• what type of information does the phonological loop deal with

  deals with auditory information
• what is the phonological loop made up of

  . the phonological store

  . the articulatory control system
• what is the phonological store

  inner ear
• what is the articulatory control system

  inner voice
• what does the phonological loop allow

  maintenance rehearsal
• what does the visuospatial sketchpad store

  visual and spatial information eg size, shape, colour
• what is the capacity in the visuospatial sketchpad

  limited
• what is the visuospatial sketchpad made up of

  . visual cache

  . inner scribe
• what is the role of the visual cache

  stores info about form and colour
• what is the role of the inner scribe

  deals with spatial and movement information, rehearses info in the visual cache ad transfers info to the central executive
• what does the episodic buffer store

  the info processed by other slave systems
• what does the episodic buffer do

  . maintains a sense of time sequencing (records events that are happening)

  . combines info from the other slave systems with the LTM
• when was the episodic buffer added to the WMM

  in 2000
• capacity of episodic buffer

  limited
• Evidence for the WMM - who (2)

  1 - Baddeley and hitch, dual task experiments

  2 - KF case study
• How did the dual task experiments support/link to WMM

  Showed when undertaking two visual tasks (two tasks requiring the same slave system) they compete for the limited resource of the visuospatial sketch pad = limited store of each system, only one task can occupy it at a time
• What were the Dual task experiments

  1 - participants asked to do two tasks that would utilise the visuospatial sketch pad either separately or at the same time
• What did the dual task experiments find

  . Participants could perform the tasks, both requiring the same store, separately with no difficulty but when at the same time the performance was impaired

  . When doing tasks requiring different stores the performance was not affected at all
• How did the KF case study support the WMM

  Showed there are separate stores within the STM and visual info is processed differently to verbal info
• What happened in the KF case study

  1 - he suffered brain damage from a motorcycle accident, damaged his STM

  2 - was asked to recall digits and words, when they were read out loud his performance was significantly impaired but when reading them himself performance was largely unaffected
• Evidence in WMM (2)

  1 - Baddeley and Hitch dual task experiments

  2 - KF case study
• What did the evidence of B+H prove

  . showed capacity in each store/system was limited
• pros and cons of B+H

  pros - lab experiment, standardised procedure = reliable

  cons - lacks ecological validity and mundane realism
• what did the evidence of KFs case study prove

  showed there are seperate stores within the STM that are responsible for processing different info
• cons of KF evidence

  is not generalisable, doesn't represent a wider population
• application 


  in alzheimers - can help us understand patients with it
• how has the WMM been applied to patients with alzheimers

  . Baddeley conducted dual task experiments on them using verbal and visual tasks either together or separately

  . Those with Alzheimer's showed significant impairment when trying to do tasks together

  . Showed links to problems with the central executive
• strengths of the WMM (3)

  1 - KFs case study

  2 - application in alzheimers

  3 - dual task experiments
• shortcomings of WMM (1)

  elements of the model are suggested to be hypothetical constrcts eg the central executive
• alternative explanation 


  . Development from MSM - WMM provides us more details and accounts for the complexity in STM

  . however doesn't go into detail on LTM and transferring info from STM to LTM so is not a complete explanation for memory