The working memory model

• Working memory model

  Offers a better explanation for STM as it suggests that STM is not a single store, but is an active processor that actually contains several stores
• Central executive

  • Has a supervisory role
  • Pays attention to incoming information
  • Allocates slave systems to tasks
• Phonological loop

  • Deals with auditory (speech based) information
  • Subdivided into the phonological store (which holds words we hear) and the articulatory process (which allows us to repeat words in a loop)
  • Has a limited capacity of 2 seconds worth of what you can say
• Visuo-spatial sketchpad

  • Processes visual information (the visual cache) and spatial information (the inner scribe)
  • Has a limited capacity of 3-4 objects
• Episodic buffer

  • Has the important role of integrating everything from the slave systems together with information from LTM to make complete 'episodes' and maintain a sense of time sequencing
  • Has a limited capacity of 4 chunks
• Performing two visual tasks

  People are slower than when performing one visual and one verbal task
• Performing two visual tasks


  Visuo-spatial sketchpad was being stretched
• Performing one visual and one verbal task


  One task was delegated to the visuo-spatial sketchpad whilst the other to the phonological loop
• Slave systems are separate and work independently
• Case study of KF

  • Had a motorbike accident which caused STM loss
  • Could not remember acoustic information very well but could remember visual information fine
  • Suggests his phonological loop was damaged whilst his visuo-spatial sketchpad remained fine
• If one slave system can be damaged whilst the others remain intact, this suggests that slave systems are separate
• There is a lack of clarity over the nature of the central executive in the WMM
• The description of the central executive is vague, just saying it is involved in attention
• This makes the central executive untestable and therefore the model does not meet the criteria for falsification
• This lowers the validity of the working memory model