AO1 + AO3 WORKING MEMORY (BADDELEY AND HITCH)

name the 4 parts of working memory

1. Central executive

2. Phonological loop

3. Visuo-spatial sketchpad

4. Episodic buffer

what is the central executive responsible for?

control centre

decides what component should carry out what job

what is the capacity of the central executive?

very limited capacity

what is the duration of the central executive?

15-30 seconds (short)

what type of encoding does the central executive use?

various types of encoding

what is the phonological loop responsible for?

dealing with auditory and verbal information

what are the 2 components of the phonological loop?

1. phonological store

2. ARP (articulatory rehearsal process)

what is the phonological store responsible for?

word by word recall

holds words we are preparing to speak

what is the Articulatory Rehearsal Process responsible for?

inner voice

actively rehearses words like a tape loop to prevent decay from the phonological store

what is the visuo-spatial sketchpad responsible for?

allows you to temporarily store and manipulate visual and spatial information

what are the 2 components of the visuo-spatial sketchpad?

1. visual cache

2. inner scribe

what is the visual cache responsible for?

holds information about appearance, shape and colour etc.

what is the inner scribe responsible for?

processes and manipulates information in terms of movement, orientation etc.

what is the episodic buffer responsible for?

temporarily storage used by all other components

integrates and binds information from CE, VSS, PL and LTM

sends info to the LTM

AO3: WORKING MEMORY CAN EXPLAIN REAL WORLD PHENOMENA BETTER THAN MSM

P - some children have difficulty learning to read (impaired memory span)

E - Baddeley - argued some children have a phonological deficit

E - problem specific to one part of their working memory --> phonological loop

L - working model explains how children with learning difficulties have specific problems -> MSM doesn't

AO3: EMPRICIAL SUPPORT FOR MANY ASPECTS

P - more valid and scientific evidence that WM is a better model of STM than MSM

E - Baddeley - Ps performed 2 tasks at same time (digital and reasoning)

E - according to MSM - should be difficult because if they've filled their STM with the 7 digits in the digital task there would be no room for the reasoning task

L - As Baddeley found no errors in the reasoning task or digital tasks, proves STM was not unitary and does have specialised components

AO3: ACCOUNTS FOR INDIVIDUAL DIFFERENCES IN MEMORY PROCESSING

P - Turner and Engle --> measured WM

E - Ps had to remember lists of words whilst doing mental arithmetic

E - capacity of WM varied from person to person --> linked to ability to do other cognitive tasks (reasoning etc.)

L - also proved by Shan and Miyake (can score high in one aspect and not in another)

AO3: WE DON'T KNOW A LOT ABOUT THE CE --> MOST IMPORTANT COMPONENT

P - nobody has been able to demonstrate the capacity or precise functions of the CE

E - Richardson -> concept of the CE is so vague it can justify any results

E - If we give a participant an articulatory suppression with a task, we assume it affects the articulatory loop (effects performance) (performance not affected = CE used)

L - the WM is therefore difficult to falsify which reduces it's ability to be used as an explanation of memory