Working memory model

Baddley and Hitch

what is the central executive

controls attention, receives sense information and filters it before passing onto sub system.

what is the capacity of the central executive

limited (4items)

works on 1 type of information at a time but can switch attention between different inputs

what is the phonological loop

processes auditory (sound) coded information

separated into primary acoustic store and articulacy process

what is the primary acoustic store

inner ear, holding words recently heard

what is the articulary process

inner voice, holds information via sub vocal repitition

what is the duration of the phonological loop

2 seconds

what is the visuo- spatial sketchpad

processes visual and spatially coded information

separated into visual cashe and inner scribe

what is the visual cashe

passive store of form and colour

what is the inner scribe

active store holding relationship between objects in 3D space

what is the capacity of the visuo-spatial sketchpad

3-4 objects

what is the episodic buffer

• temporary store of info

• brings together material from other subsystems into single memory

• links working memory to LTM

what is the capacity of the episodic buffer

limited capacity (4 chunks)

Strength of working memory model (dual tasks)

Baddeleys and Hitch gave participants 2 verbal or visual tasks to complete at the same time, performance was worse

This was because both visual tasks compete for the same subsystem so their performance is impaired but there’s no competition when performing visual and verbal together so their performance isn’t impaired

Shows there is a separate subsystem within our STM

Strength of WMM (case study of KF)

KF could recall stored info from his LTM but had issues with his STM.

He could also remember visual images like faces but couldn’t remember sounds. This suggests that there’s 2 different components for STM- one for visual info (visuo-spatial sketch pad) and one for acoustic info (phonological loop)

supports existence of separate visual and acoustic memory stores located in separate brain regions

Limitation of WMM (only focuses on STM)

Gives detailed description of STM but no info on SR and LTM.

It’s not a complete model of memory so has limited application in everyday human memory as can’t explain how info arrives in out memory and how info is stored in LTM

Also is too vague- unclear on what central executive is

why does it being a lab based experiment show limitations of the WMM

although its highly controlled with strong internal validity, issues with external validity.

Lacks mundane realism as it uses artificial memory tasks. Dosen’t generalise how we use memory in daily life