Working Memory Model

• Baddeley and Hitch (1974)- created the Working Memory Model (WMM) after criticising the oversimplification of STM in the MsM. Believed that STM was not a unitary store, and is instead made up of 3 stores (central executive, phonological loop, visuospatial sketchpad) and information is processed through the episodic buffer
• Central executive:

  • Monitors sensory info
  • Allocates processing resources
  • Limited processing capacity- so it doesn't store information
  • Controls attentional processes
• Visuospatial sketchpad:

  • Stores visual and spatial info (inner eye- eg. picture the front of your house, how many windows are there?)
  • Helps us navigate the world and process what we see
  • Limited capacity of ~3 objects
  • However it lacks a full explanation, Logie (1995)- visuospatial sketchpad can be further divided into the visual cache which stores visual data and the inner scribe which records the arrangement of objects
• Phonological loop:

  • Stores auditory info
  • Coded acoustically
  • Maintains info in chronological order
  • Has a capacity of two seconds
  • 2 sub-systems
• Phonological store- sub-system of the phonological loop, known as the 'inner ear', linked to speech perception and storing heard words. Spoken words enter directly, written words must be converted into spoken code. Limited capacity due to the rapid decay of auditory info
• Articulatory process- sub-system of the phonological loop, known as the inner voice, linked to speech production and rehearsing info from the phonological store using maintenance rehearsal
• Episodic buffer:

  • Added to the WMM in 2000
  • Modality-free store (no specific coding format)
  • Temporary store for info- integrated info into a single memory, maintaining the time sequence of the info
  • Bridges the working memory to LTM
  • Limited capacity of ~4 chunks (Baddeley 2012)
• Evaluation of WMM:

  • Provides a full explanation for parallel processing, while Atkinson & Shiffrin don't.
  • Case study of Patient KF- brain damaged and could recall verbal info but not visual info, supports that there are separate STM stores.
  • Based off evidence from lab studies- high control of confounding variables means reliable results. BUT low ecological validity- tasks lack mundane realism.