The WMM

What is the WMM?

• Baddeley and Hitch (1974)

• Made to replace the STM store of the MSM due to the criticisms

• Suggests that the STM is more complex than a single unitary store that only passes info on to the LTM

• Suggests that the STM must be an active processer, holding multiple different types of information simultaneously while being worked on

What is the central executive?

• Head of the model that controls attention

• Receives sensory information and filters it before allocating it to the subsystems/slave systems

• Has limited capacity (4 items) and can only work on type of information at a time

• Can switch attention between different inputs

• Codes modality free

What is the Phonological loop?

• Processes auditory information

• Can be separated into the Phonological store and Articulatory process

• Phonological Store- the inner ear that holds recently heard information/words

• Articulatory Process: the inner voice which holds information via sub-vocal repetition

• Has a capacity of 2 seconds worth of information

What is the Visuo-spatial setchpad

• Processes visual and spatially coded information

• Consists of the Visual Cache and the Inner Scribe

• Visual Cache- A passive store of form and colour- mental notebook

• Inner Scribe- An active store that records the arrangement of objects in your FOV and plans and rehearses movements such as remembering a route

• Capacity- 3-4 objects

What is the episodic buffer?

• Added to the WMM in 2000

• A temporary store to hold and integrate information from the VSS, PL, CE and LTM

• Capacity- 4 chunks

Baddeley’s research on PL and VSS as seperate

• Baddeley (1975)

• Ppts were asked to perform two visual tasks or a visual and verbal task

• It was found that performance was much better when tasks were not using the same processing

• Suggests that the VSS and PL exist as separate systems and the capacity of the VSS cane be overwhelmed with visual information

Shallice and Warrington’s research on the WMM

• Shallice and Warrington (1970)

• Investigated the clinical case of patient KF

• He was involved in a motorcycle accident and as a result had selective impairment to his verbal STM

• He was given visual and verbal memory tasks

• Had poor recall when words were spoken to him however had good/normal recall when reading words himself

• Suggests that damage was done to his PL and his VSS remained intact

• Suggests that the PL and VSS are separate processes and located in separate processes

• However, it could be argued that this could be unique to KF due to the uniqueness of his motorcycle accident

Prabhakaran et al’s research on WMM

• Prabhakaran (2000)

• Used brain imaging FMRI scans

• Asked ppts to complete tasks with equal amounts of spatial and verbal information

• In one condition spatial and verbal information were kept separate

• One condition, they were integrated

• It was found that there was more activation in the prefrontal cortex cortex when information is integrated

• However, posterior brain regions when information was not integrated

• This suggests the EB exists and is in the prefrontal cortex

Baddeley research on duration of the PL

• Ppts were shown word lists and asked to write them down in the same order

• One condition had monosyllabic words such as yield or bond

• One condition had polysyllabic words such as opportunity

• Findings showed that ppts could recall more monosyllabic words than polysyllabic words

• This suggests that capacity of the PL is t distinct but duration approximately 2 seconds of information- the word length effect

Limitations of the WMM

• The CE has been criticised as a vague concept- due to a lack of a full explanation of its function and not being fully open to testing

• It is impossible to directly observe the processes of memory in models- based of inferences- assumptions

• Studies are lab based- can lead to a lack external validity or mundane realism of real life applicability to a naturalistic application of the WMM

Positives of the WMM

• The WMM seems to be a more accurate model for describing STM when compared to the MSM

• Psychologist now refer to the STM as WM

• Studies have high internal validity due to taking place in laboratory conditions