The Working Memory Model

What is the path of the Working Memory Model?

• Central Executive < > Visuo-spatial sketchpad (Visual cache, Inner Scribe)

• Central Executive < > Episodic Buffer < > Long-Term Memory

• Central Executive < > Phonological (Articulatory Control System, Phonological Store)

• Without the WMM, we couldn’t multitask but the tasks have to be in the different slave systems.

Who worked on The Working Memory Model?

• Baddeley and Hitch (1974)

• Mainly prefrontal cortex

• Lots of evidence supporting theory

What does The Central Executive do?

• An attentional process that monitors incoming data.

• It’s the boss of working memory as it decides how to process the incoming information by allocating relevant slave systems to tasks.

• Has limited processing ability

What is the Phonological Loop?

• One of the slave systems.

• It processes auditory information, it’s coding is acoustic and preserves the order in which information arrives.

What two stores does the Phonological loop have and what do they do?

Phonological store (Inner ear): Stores the words you hear

Articulatory process (Inner voice): Allows for maintenance rehearsal (i.e repeating words you hear in a loop to keep them in working memory while they are needed

What is the capacity of the Phonological loop?

The capacity of the loop is 2 seconds of what you can say.

What is the Visuo-spatial sketchpad?

• Another slave system

• Stores visual and or spatial information when required.

• Eg: how many doors are in your house.

What is the capacity of the Visuo-Spatial sketchpad?

• Baddeley (2003) said it is limited to 3-4 objects.

What are the two subdivisions of the Visuo-Spatial sketchpad?

Logie (1995) subdivided into two:

• Visual Cache: Stores visual data

• Inner Scribe: Records arrangement of objects in a visual field

What is the Episodic Buffer?

• Added in 2000 by Baddeley

• Storage component of the Central Executive

• It is a temporary store for information, integrating the visual, spatial, verbal information processes by the other stores and maintaining a sense of time sequencing.

• It links working memory to longer-term memory and wider cognitive processes such as perception.

What is the capacity of the Episodic Buffer?

Limited capacity of about 4 chunks (Baddeley 2012)