Working Memory Model (WMM)

what is the WMM?

• Baddeley in Hitch's working memory model replaced the idea of a unitary STM.

• It believes STM is more active and complex than the MSM suggested.

• For example, they believe the STM can complete two different tasks at the same time.

• Working memory is made up of four interconnected and interactive components.

• These components are the central executive, the phonological loop, the visuo-spatial sketchpad, and the episodic buffer.

What are the 4 components of the WMM

1) Central executive

2) Phonological Loop

3) Visuo-spatial Sketchpad

4) Episodic Buffer

central executive

• main part of WMM that controls and coordinates the other sub components and decides which component is required for the task.

• is involved in higher mental processes such as decision making and reasoning.

• can process information from different senses, each sense just coded differently.

• may handle one task at once, and it allocates resources to sub components by deciding which task is more important and should be handled first.

• decides what the Working Memory pays attention to.

• It has little to no storage capacity, but with practice, tasks become automated and require less capacity, as there's going to be fewer attentional demands of the Central Executive, and therefore it frees up to perform other tasks.

phonological loop

Codes info acoustically and has 2 parts:

Primary acoustic store (linked to speech perception)

• ST store receiving acoustic info and holding it for approx 1-2 secs

• remembers sounds in the same order they were presented

Articulatory process (linked to speech production)

• used to rehearse and store sounds collected by the PAS

• capacity of 2 seconds of speech

• info from PAS is repeated in a loop to prevent decay and therefore helps move info into LTM

Visuo-spatial sketchpad

Codes and rehearses info through visualising mental images. Has a limited capacity of 3-4 objects

Logie (1995) subdivided into 2 parts:
1)visual cache - stores visual info about form and colour

2)inner scribe - handles spatial relations and also transfers and rehearses info from VC to the CE

Episodic buffer (added in 2000)

• takes info from the Visual Spatial Sketchpad and the phonological loop and integrates them together.

• This helps with tasks requiring both slave systems.

• It's a temporal storage system with a limited capacity of about four chunks of information.

• The episodic buffer links to long-term memory in case this info is needed by the working memory and provides a two-way communication with this long-term memory.

Strengths

Weaknesses