Working Memory Model (WMM)

• Working Memory Model ( WMM ): Baddeley & Hitch ( 1974 )

  • believed that the STM store is not just a unitary store, but instead multiple
• The Working Memory Model ( WMM ) is made up of 4 stores:

  • Central Executive
  • Phonological loop
  • Visuo spatial Sketch Pad
  • Episodic Buffer
• Central executive: a vague and untestable store with extremely limited capacity that directs information to its necessary sub component: phonological loop, visuo spatial sketchpad, episodic buffer.
• Phonological Loop: responsible for processing auditory information using acoustic coding with limited capacity known as a digit span (Miller)

  It consists of two subcomponents: the phonological store and the articulatory process.
• Visuospatial sketchpad: processes visual information, including images and locations by visual and spatial coding with limited capacity. It has two subcomponents: the inner scribe and the visual cache
• Episodic Buffer: An extra storage system baddeley added because he thought there wasn't enough
• Episodic buffer: A temporary store that holds large amounts information from the STM and LTM, and stores any additional information the other stores can't
• Working Memory Model (WMM) Information Collision:

  • The attentional capacity of the central executive – when tasks are easy or experienced, it makes fewer attentional demands, so easy to divide resources to perform tasks
  • If information uses the same store, it becomes difficult to divide resources efficiently and can lead to lowered attention to tasks as storage is limited in the stores