Evaluation of WMM

First strength of WMM

P - Shallice and Warrington’s case study of patient of KF. E - KF had poor STM ability for acoustic info but could process visual info. Immediate recall of digits and letters was better when he read them. Kf’s phonological loop was damaged, his visuo-spatial sketch pad was intact. L - Strongly support the existence of separate visual and acoustic memory stores

Counterpoint of the first strength

Unclear whether KF had other cognitive impairments, might have affected his performance on memory tasks. The trauma involved may have affected his cognitive performance considerably. This challenges evidence that comes from clinical studies of people with brain injuries that may have affected many different systems

Second strength of WMM

P - Studies of dual-task performance support the separate existence of the visuo-spatial sketch pad. E - Baddeley et al’s participants carried out a visual and verbal task at the same time, their performance was similar on each when performed separately. Both tasks were performed, the performance declined, both visual tasks compete for the same slave system. L - Shows how there must be a separate slave system that processes visual input

Limitation of WMM

P - Lack of clarity over the nature of the central executive. E - Baddeley recognised this when he said “The central executive is the most important but least understood component of working memory”. The CE needs to be more clearly specified. L - CE is an unsatisfactory component, challenges the integrity of the WMM