The working memory model

• Central executive

  Direct attention to particular tasks

  Allocate information to appropriate slave system
• Visiospatial sketchpad

  Inner scribe

  Involved in arrangement of objects
• Phonological loop

  Inner voice and inner ear

  uses acoustic info
• Episodic buffer


  Decides what goes to LTM
• Case study of KF (1970)

  • KF had amnesia
  • He had digits read out to him and had to recall them but struggled
  • If they let him read the digits himself then had to recall them he performed better
• How KF case study supports/disproves WMM

  + Good Visiospatial sketch pad, bad phonological loop

  Shows multiple sections of WMM

  + Separate slave systems processing the digits

  • Central executive doesn't explain anything and is unclear
• Positive of WMM


  Dual task activities - When doing multiple things often perform badly, shows multiple stores
• Negatives of WMM

  Artificial memory tasks - demand characteristics