Paper 1 - Psychology ( The working memory model )

What does the WMM suggest makes up STM?

The central executive, phonological loop, the visuo-spatial sketchpad and the episodic buffer.

What is the role of the central executive?

Role is to allocate tasks to the slave systems.

What is the role of the phonological loop?

Processes auditory and verbal information.

What are the two components of the phonological loop?

Articulatory control system and phonological store.

What is the role of the visuo-spatial sketchpad?

Combines the visual and spatial information found from other stores to generate a ‘complete image’

What are the 2 components of the visuospatial sketchpad?

The visual cache and inner scribe.

What is the role of the visual cache?

Temporarily stores visual information such as form and colour.

What is the role of the inner scribe?

Temporarily store spatial and movement information.

What is the role of the episodic buffer?

Integrates information from all the other stores and links STM to LTM.

How does the study of KF support the WMM?

KF had poor STM for auditory stimuli but good STM for visual stimuli proving that the phonological loop and visuospatial sketchpad are separate stores.

How do dual task studies support the WMM?

Due to the stores limited capacities, when 2 tasks require the same store to be used, ppts struggle to perform and the slave systems are in competition for resources and information. Proving that the WMM has limited capacity and that specific tasks use specific stores.

What is a problem with using dual tasks to support the WMM?

They tend to have low ecological validity, as they are lab based and do not reflect everyday tasks.

Why is using KF’s case study to support the WMM a problem?

Relying on brain damaged patients may make it difficult to determine if changes are entirely due to the injury and can be problematic.