Working Memory Model - All Key Studies - Psychology

The Working Memory Model.

(Refers to the STM)

•  By Baddeley and Hitch (1974)

A01:

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  • Central executive - functions like a control tower in an airport. Its quite small and focuses on the most important tasks. however, if a problem arises in relation to a rutine task, they are ready to take control - it keeps an eye on everything going on and deals with the tasks requiring attention. 

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  • Episodic buffer - added to the model later on to explain why some patients with amnesia can remember pasages from a book fairly immediatly despite having no long-term recall.
• • Visuo-spatial sketchpad - is used when you have to plan a spatoal task. like getting from one room to another or picturing how many windows you have in your house. it is all about whta things look like. Logie (1995) suggested the visuo-spatial sketchpad can be divided into a visual cache and inner scribe which deals with spatial relations
• • Phonological loop - this relates to sound. it has limited capacity and is the reason why its so hard to listen to someone speaking at the same time as listening to TV. it is divided into: 
    • Photological store - inner ear
    • articulatory process - inner voice

A02: Research

• Baddeley and Hitch (1976)
  • Doing two tasks using the same or different components
    • Task 1 - central executive (were asked true or false questions)
    • Task 2 - either the articulatory loop (asked to repeat 'the the the the') or that and the central executive (sayong random digits)
  • Results showed that doing two tasks that involve the same component causes difficulty. it also suggests that, when different components are used, performance is not affected.

• Bunge et al (2000) 
  • Evidence for the four components 
    • used fMRI to see which parts of the brain were most active when participants were doing two tasks…