WMM (Baddeley & Hitch)

What are the components of WMM?

• Central executive

• Phonological loop (containing articulatory system & phonological store)

• Visuospatial sketchpad

• Episodic buffer

What is the function of the central executive?

• Controls attention & coordinates the actions of the other components (slave systems)

• Can store information briefly but has a limited capacity (4 items)

• It is modality free, meaning it can store information in any sense modality

What is the function of the phonological loop?

• Deals with auditory information, meaning it codes information acoustically

• Consists of two parts: articulatory system & the phonological store

Describe articulatory system within the phonological loop

• Rehearses information verbally & has a capacity of around 2 seconds (used to mentally rehearse information by repeating it over & over again) → inner voice

• Limited capacity verbal rehearsal component used to prepare speech & think in words

• The capacity is determined by how long it takes to say something & not by the number of items (i.e. word length is important as it can retain fewer long words than short ones)

Describe the phonological store within the phonological loop

• Uses a sound based code to store information that is heard, but this information decays after about 2 seconds, unless it is rehearsed by the articulatory control system

• Receives its input either directly from the ears or from LTM → inner ear

What is the function of the episodic buffer?

A fairly recent addition to WMM:

• temporary store for information, which integrates the visual, spatial & verbal information processed by the other stores

• maintains time sequencing & is the storage component

• has a limited capacity of around 4 chunks & links working memory to LTM & wider cognitive processes (e.g. perception)

Describe the visuospatial sketchpad

Stores & manipulates visual information:

• input is from the eyes or LTM

• has a limited capacity, typically holding 3-4 items

• Logie subdivided it into the visual cache (stores visual data) & the inner scribe (records the arrangement of objects in the visual field)

Outline Robbins et al.’s study

• Aim: study the role of working memory in the visuospatial task of memorising chess board positions

• Method: 20 male chess players from 2 university chess clubs were asked to memorise 16 chess pieces on a board. They saw the pieces for 10 seconds & then had to recreate them on another board. In 3 of the conditions, there was a dual task (articulatory suppression - repeating ‘the’ over & over in their heads, visuospatial blocking condition - press numbers on a calculator with non-preferred hand & central executive blocking condition, saying out loud random letters in time with a beat)

• Results: articulatory suppression task had no effect but visuospatial & central executive conditions seriously affected performance

• Conclusion: articulatory & visuospatial components are separate, visuospatial has a limited capacity as does the central executive

Outline Baddeley & Hitch’s study

• Aim: to investigate the impact of a dual task on memory

• Method: asked participants to perform a reasoning task whilst simultaneously reciting aloud a list of 6 digits. If digit span is really a measure of STM capacity, participants would be expected to show impaired performance on the reasoning task as their STM would be fully occupied

• Results: participants made few errors on either task, though the speed was slightly slower

• Conclusion: provided support for the existence of more than one component within STM (as opposed to the MSM) & supported the idea of the central executive

Outline Baddeley’s study

• Aim: investigate the role of the phonological loop & articulatory process

• Method: participants were presented with words for very brief periods of time. Condition A: 5 monosyllabic words. Condition B: 5 polysyllabic words

• Results: average correct recall over several trials showed participants remembered the short words much better (word length effect). It seems that the phonological loop holds the amount of information that you can say in 2 seconds. Therefore, it is harder to remember a list of long words compared to shorter words. Word length effect disappears if a person is given an articulatory suppression task (‘the, the, the’ while reading the words). The repetitive task ties up the articulatory process & means you can’t rehearse the shorter words more quickly than the longer ones, so the word length effect disappears

• Conclusion: provides evidence for a verbal rehearsal system (articulatory system)

Discuss the working model of memory (16 marks)

Write your AO1 paragraph

• Baddeley & Hitch proposed the working memory model (WMM), which is a representation of short term memory. It consists of 4 main components (a central executive & 3 slave systems).

• The central executive monitors incoming data, makes decisions & allocates slave systems to tasks. It has a limited capacity of 4 items.

• The phonological loop processes auditory information & has a limited capacity of what can be said in 2 seconds. It consists of the phonological store (inner ear) which is an auditory rehearsal system, receiving sound information from the environment & within our own heads & the articulatory system (inner voice) which is a verbal rehearsal component & allows maintenance rehearsal.

• The visuospatial sketchpad stores visual & spatial information & has a limited capacity. Logie subdivided it into the visual cache (stores visual data) & the inner scribe (records the arrangement of objects in 3D space).

• The episodic buffer is a fairly recent addition to WMM & is the storage component, integrating visual, spatial & verbal information from the other stores. It maintains time sequencing & has limited capacity of 4 chunks. It also links working memory with LTM & cognitive processes (e.g. perception).

Discuss the working model of memory (16 marks)

Write your strength AO3 PEEL (KF)

• Point: One strength of the WMM is that it considers that there are different types of STM.

• Evidence: For example, KF showed recall of words were worse if they were read out to him (poor recall of acoustic information), but better if he read them himself (good recall of visual information) immediately after they were presented to him.

• Explain: This supports the concept of the visuospatial sketchpad & phonological loop as two separate types of STM, as the WMM proposes.

• Link: Overall, this is beneficial as it goes beyond the oversimplified view of STM within the MSM & provides a more detailed account of how STM operates.

Discuss the working model of memory (16 marks)

Write your strength AO3 PEEL (Baddeley)

• Point: One strength of the WMM is there is research evidence in support of the phonological loop.

• Evidence: For example, in Baddeley’s study, participants were briefly presented with words. The control group were presented with 5 monosyllabic words & the experimental group were presented with 5 polysyllabic words. Results found the 'word length effect', as recall of shorter words was better.

• Explain: This provides support for a verbal rehearsal system (i.e. articulatory system) & the phonological loop’s 2 second duration.

• Link: Overall, this increases the validity of the WWM, suggesting it is a valid explanation for how our STM operates. 

Discuss the working model of memory (16 marks)

Write your limitation AO3 PEEL (Lieberman)

• Point: One limitation of the WMM is the visuospatial sketchpad implies that all spatial information is at first visual.

• Evidence: However, this is incorrect as blind people have excellent spatial awareness when they have not visually encoded this information.

• Explain: As such, Lieberman called for two separate stores, rather than the unitary visuospatial sketchpad: one for visual memory & one for spatial memory.

• Link: Therefore, this suggests the visuospatial sketchpad is incomplete, as it doesn't explain how information is encoded for spatial memory.