A03 WMM

• X central executive is abstract & oversimplified?

  • role of ce is essentially same as attention
  • too vague & does not explain anything
  • critics feel that idea of one single ce is inaccurate & there are perhaps several components
  • e.g different ones for decision making & reasoning
  • ? internal
  • it suggests that model is too simplistic as it does not accurately explain all components of model
• * evidence to support from kf?

  • was injured in motorcycle accident
  • was able to recall stored info from ltm but issues with stm
  • his stm for verbal info was much worse than visual
  • had difficulty with sounds but not letters/digits
  • * internal
  • only had impairements with verbal info (pl) whereas his visual was fine (vss)
  • shows there must be multiple stores for different types of info in stm
• * supporting evidence from dual task?

  • baddley et al demonstrated existence of separate parts in model
  • p given visual tracking task & at same time were given 1 of 2 tasks:
  • describe all angles on letter f (vss)/verbal task
  • found it harder to complete task 1 as it involved 2 different components of wm
  • * internal
  • shows that when doing 2 similar tasks our wm is competing for attention of same slave system
  • due to low capacity of each 1 reduces its effectiveness
• * supporting evidence due to phonological loop?

  • pl explains why word length effect occurs
  • we cope better with short words rather than long ones
  • suggests that pl holds info thats said in 2 seconds
  • makes it difficult to remember long words e.g association compared to shorter words e.g harm
  • longer words can't be rehearsed on pl as they dont fit
  • * internal
  • research into pl has allowed us to understand how we are able to remember shorter sounding words more easily than longer ones
  • has practical applications to how memory works in real world