WMM case studies

Intro

The WWM is different, yet similar to the multi store model. It suggests that the STM is not a single store but a system with multiple components, which consists of the central executive, phonological loop, visuospatial sketchpad and the episodic buffer.

Baddeley and hitch

It was a dual task experiment. The aim of the study was the investigate weather STM has multiple components rather than being a single store like the multi store model. The method in which was used was a verbal reasoning task, where they had to answer true or false questions, and a digital span task like recalling a series of numbers. What they found out was that they could perform both tasks at the same time with minimal interference. These results suggest that the STM is not a single store but it consists of separate components due to the fact that they were multitasking two different components of the STM, central executive and phonological loop.

KF Shallice and Warrington

The aim of this study was to investigate the effects of brain damage on STM. KF was a patient who suffered from brain damage due to a motorcycle accident. This lead to severe impairment of his STM, although his LTM remained the same. They conducted memory tests to assess his ability to recall different types of information. He was tested on his recall auditory and visual spatial information. Numbers, letters and words were vocally presented to him and he was asked to recall them. He was shown images and patterns and asked to recall them in order to test his visual spatial information. After conducting these tests, KF struggled to recall words and numbers beyond 2 digits. Although he was still able to recall images and recognize objects accurately. His LTM memory was normal, meaning that the accident had fully impacted his STM

Evaluation

As both of these case studies are testing and working to prove the Working Memory Model, we can come to a conclusion that the STM has multiple components and don’t just work all together as a whole. We see this because KF was able to recall and identify objects accurately although he wasn’t able to recall words or numbers beyond 2 digits. This suggests that his verbal memory was impaired and not his visual information. We can also see this with the Baddeley and Hitch study that participants were able to multi task and use the phonological loop and central executive pad at the same time, indicating that they are working independently and not together as a whole.