WMM

• What the WMM is

  Baddeley and Hitchs (1974) WMM is a model of short term memory which replaced the idea of a unitary STM

  -It suggests STM is more active and complete than the MSM proposed

  -It believes the STM can COMPLETE TWO DIFF TASKS AT THE SAME TIME

  -The WMM consists of 4 main components each different it terms of coding and capacity
• What are the 4 main components of the WMM

  -Central Executive (CE)

  -Phonological Loop (PL)

  -Visuo-spatial Sketchpad (VSS)

  -Episodic Buffer (EB)
• What is the Central executive (CE) in the WMM?

  -Its the SUPERVISORY COMPONENT of the WMM

  -It directs attention to incoming information and starts off the rehearsal process

  -It can CODE INFORMATION FROM ANY MODALITY (e.g. acoustically and visually)

  -The CE has a VERY limited storage but can delegate information to its 3 'slave systems'

  -It can also co ordinate the activity needed to carry out more than one task at a time using different slave systems
• What are the CE's 3 slave systems?

  -Phonological loop (PL)

  -Visuo-spatial sketchpad (VSS)

  -Episodic Buffer (EB0
• What is the Phonological loop (PL)?

  -The PL codes and acts as temporary storage (or a 'rehearsal loop') for holding acoustic/auditory information.

  -It also preserves the order in which the information arrives

  -The PL has LIMITED CAPACITY and can be subdivided into the Phonological store and the Articulatory process.
• What is the phonological store?

  The phonological store ('inner ear') is linked to speech perception and rehearses sounds you hear (e.g. words)
• What is the articulatory process?

  It ('inner voice') is linked to speech production which holds and silently repeats (rehearses) the words we are preparing to speak
• What is the Visuo-spatial sketchpad (VSS)?

  The VSS ('inner eye') CODES VISUAL INFORMATION (i.e. what objects look like in terms of form and colour) and SPATIAL INFORMATION (i.e. the physical relationship between objects). -This slave system also has limited capacity of 3-4 objects
• What is the Episodic buffer (EB)?

  -The EB ( added in 2000) is often seen as the storage component of the CE that integrates information from the CE, PL and VSS as well as linking working memory to the LTM.

  -Although it also has limited capacity , its able to code information from any modality whilst maintaining a sense of TIME SEQUENCING which allows it to record events (episodes) which are happening as a single memory rather than separate strands
• WMM - Real life applications, strength or limitation?

  One strength of the WMM is that it HAS REAL-LIFE APPLICATIONS

  -This means that being able to identify different aspects of STM allows psychologists to target certain kinds of memory

  -For e.g. educational psychologists have developed memory training to specifically improve verbal memory to help improve learning for students who experience difficulties.

  -This is a strength as it shows how a better understanding of types of STM can improve people's lives
• WMM- Shallice and Warrington (1974) case study, limitation or strength?


  One strength of the WMM is Shallice and Warrington's (1974) study of KF, this case study supports the WMM because their findings show that KF had very POOR STM RECALL for auditory stimuli, but INCREASED STM RECALL for visual stimuli.

  -This suggests that the components of memory which process auditory and visual stimuli are separate as described in the WMM through the Phonological loop and the Visuo-spatial sketchpad
• WMM - CE, strength or limitation?

  A major criticism of the WMM is that very little is known about the CE

  -This means that despite a great deal of evidence to support the existence of separate visual and verbal STM stores, there is little evidence to understand the main WMM component.

  For example we are unsure of its capacity and some argue that it is used as an umbrella store to cover all the functions that cannot be explained by the slave systems.

  -This is a problem as it seems the WMM cannot fully explain all aspects of the STM
• WMM - Muscle memory, limitation or strength?

  This means that the WMM cannot explain why people are able to process music differently to other sounds

  -Evidence for this comes from Berz (1995) who demonstrated that pps could listen to instrumental music without impairing performance on other acoustic tasks

  -This is a problem as it suggests that there may be more than one acoustic store and therefore memory may be more complicated than the WMM suggests.