Working Model of Memory

• Central Executive 


  Director of attention and decision making

  An attentional process which monitors incoming data, makes decisions and allocates tasks to the slave stores

  It has a limited capacity
• Phonological loop 


  The temporary store of auditory information

  Broken up into: phonological store, articulatory process
• Phonological loop - phonological store

  Stores the words you hear

  Allows for two seconds of speech
• Phonological loop - Articulatory process

  Allows maintenance rehearsal

  ‘The voice in our heads’
• Episodic Buffer 


  Integrates all forms of information and maintains time sequencing

  brings together others stores and puts them in order
• Visuo-spatial sketchpad 


  Temporary store of visual and spatial (orientation and arrangement) information

  Incudes: Visual cache and Inner scribe
• Visuo-spatial sketchpad - Visual Cache


  Stores visual data
• Visuo-spatial sketchpad - Inner scribe

  Records arrangement of objects in the visual field
• Phonological loop study

  mentally counting back from 100

  Lacks mundane realism and ecological validity
• Visuo-spatial sketchpad study

  Tracking coloured objects on the screen

  Lacks mundane realism and ecological validity
• Patient KF


  Suffered brain damage Due to car crash

  Poor acoustic memory but good visual memory
• Evaluation - Clinical evidence

  KF had poor acoustic STM but good Visual STM

  Shows STM is not unitary

  Supports credibility of WMM

  However case studies are unique and not generalisable

  Undermines support, damaging reliability
• Evaluation - Dual task performance

  Two visual tasks are done worse than one visual and one verbal task

  Supports idea of seperate stores

  Supports credibility of WMM

  However lacks mundane realism as lab study

  Therefore doubtful real world utility
• Evaluation - Brain imaging evidence

  Left prefrontal cortex activity increases when performing logic/decision tasis

  Suggests that different stores are linked to different regions in the brain, supports non-unitary model of working memory

  May lack internal validity as FMRI scans are based on blood flow not electrical impulses, which is what controls brain activity

  Partial support for WMM