working memory model

• CE and EB


  Baddeley and hitch 1974 to explain how stm is organised

  • CE supervisory role, monitors incoming data, divides attention and allocated subsystems to tasks
  • limited processing capacity and cannot store info
  • EB added in 2000, temporary store integrating info processed from other stores, maintains a sense of time sequencing as records episodes as they happen
  • seen as storage component of CE, limited capacity of 4 chunks
  • EB links stm to LTM and other wider cognitive processes
• PL and VSSP


  Pl desks with auditory info (acoustic coding)

  • preserves info in order it arrives, divided into 2 subsystems
  • phonological store, stores verbal info you hear
  • articulatory process, allows maintenance rehearsal by repeating sound in loop, 2seconds worth of spoken info

  VSSP stores visual and spatial info eg visualising how many windows on house

  • limited capacity of 3/4 objects
  • visual cache stores visual data
  • inner scribe records arrangement of objects in visual field
• strength 


  clinical evidence from KF

  • motorbike injury brain, poor stm ability for auditory info but could process visual info, recall better when info read by him instead of spoken to him
  • PL damaged but VSSP intact
  • supports evidence of separate stores as diff physical basis
• limitation counter 


  case study so cannot generalise, motorcycle injury may have caused other cognitive impairments other than the PL which affected his cognitive performance
• strength 


  support from dual task performance study

  • baddeley, when visual and verbal task at same time, performance same as if done separately, when both tasks visual or both verbal, performance worse
  • in dual processing both compete for same store reducing attention
  • support for diff VSSP AND PL
• limitation


  lack of clarity over CE

  • baddeley, most important but least understood
  • needs to be specified as more than just attention
  • psychologists believe may have sub components itself
  • unsatisfactory component limits WMM as explanation