Working Memory Model

• Working Memory Model

  
• central executive


  modality free component

  limited capacity

  allocates jobs to other 2 components
• phonological loop


  holds speech based info

  subdivided into 2 components:

  phonological store: concerned with speech perception (hearing)

  articulatory process: concerned with speech production (saying)
• episodic buffer


  holds and integrates diverse info

  temporary store of info, integrating visual, spatial and verbal info from other stores.

  helps maintain sequencing and records events happening

  seen as storage component of CE and limited capacity of about 4 chunks

  links WMM to LTM and wider cognitive processes like perception
• visuo-spatial sketchpad


  help to rehearse visual or spatial info

  holds picture based info

  subdivided into 2 components:

  visual cache: hold info about form and colour

  inner scribe: deals with spatial and movement info in visual cache and transfer info to CE
• Strength - research evidence to support role of phonological loop

  Baddeley et al

  list of words presented to ps briefly then ps asked to write down list of words in order presented.

  one condition - familiar words, one syllable.

  second condition - polysyllabic

  recall over several trials showed pts recalled more words in first condition -> 'word length effect' capacity is determined by time it takes to say words rather than number of items.

  longer words can't be rehearsed in phonological loop.

  if ppts are given an articulatory suppression task, this repetitive task ties up articulatory process means you can't rehearse the shorter words quicker than longer ones, so word effect disappears.
• Strength - scientific research evidence from brain scans

  Bunge et al

  ppts asked to perform 2 tasks at same time rather than one after other.

  brain activity was measured to see which parts were the most active when ppts were reading a sentence and recalling last word in a sentence.

  same brain areas were active in both dual and single conditions but there was more activation in dual-task condition
• Weakness - tells us very little about LTM

  Eysenck states it's very unclear how processes of WMM relate to long-term storage of info.

  argues that it may be multi-store model is more informative in terms of explaining how whole of memory works and interacts as a process and function, whereas it's unclear how exactly the main components of WMM interact with each other in performance of tasks.
• Weakness - central executive is known about the least

  Richardson argues there are problems in describing exact function of central executive.

  e.g. ppts given an articulatory suppression task and this affects performance then it's assumed that the phonological loop is being used normally.

  if performance isn't affected then it's assumed the central executive is being normally used rather than the loop.

  means that the model can explain any results and leads to a circular argument.

  difficult to falsify the model and quantify it experimentally which limits validity.