The working memory model

• Working memory model (WMM)

  A critique of the multi-store model, as it was thought to be too much of a passive explanation of memory devised by Baddeley and Hitch
• WMM

  • Does not involve LTM, only concerned with STM
  • Central executive delegates information to different "slave systems" (episodic buffer, phonological loop, visuospatial sketchpad)
• Central executive

  Directs attention to specific tasks and delegates them to the corresponding store within STM, depending on the brain function required to complete the task
• Phonological loop

  Deals with auditory information and preserves the order in which the information arrives, subdivided into: 1) Phonological store (stores the words you hear), 2) Articulatory process (allows maintenance rehearsal)
• Visuospatial sketchpad

  Used when planning a task involving movement (real or imagined), such as planning a journey or physically moving from one place to another
• Episodic buffer

  A general store to hold visual, verbal and spatial material in the same store, with limited capacity of 4 chunks. Sends information to LTM
• Baddeley and Hitch believed that STM had more than one store because:


  If you had to perform 2 tasks that require the same sense (vision) you are likely to do them less well than if you were to do them separately (dual task performance )

  if your brain has different "stores" for visual and auditory tasks, allowing you to do them together without affecting performance.
• Nature of central executive

  Baddeley noted that the central executive in the Working Memory Model is key but not fully grasped. Defining it beyond attention and information management is crucial, as the ambiguity challenges the model's accuracy and validity.
• Dual task performance

  When participants did a visual + verbal task together, they did as well as when separate. But if both tasks were visual or verbal, performance dropped, suggesting a separate system for visual processing.
• Clinical evidence

  After brain surgery, patient KF had poor short-term memory for auditory info but normal for visual. His recall was better when reading than hearing, suggesting separate memory stores.
• Counterpoint

  KF's memory task performance might have been influenced by cognitive impairments from the motorcycle accident, challenging evidence from studies of brain-injured individuals.