What is the working memory model, proposed by Baddeley and Hitch?
An explanation of how STM is organised and functions
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What are the four main components of the WMM?
Central executive, phonological loop, visuo-spatial sketchpad and episodic buffer
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What is the job of the central executive?
It co-ordinates the activities of the three 'slave systems' in memory, allocating them tasks
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Does the central executive have a high processing capacity?
No, it's limited
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One of the slave systems is the phonological loop. What type of information does it process?
Auditory information
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What is it sub-divided into, and what are their separate functions?
The phonological store - stores the words you hear. The articulatory process - allows maintenance rehearsal
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The second slave system is the visuo-spatial sketchpad. What type of information does this store?
Visual and spatial information, e.g. when asked to work out how many windows are on your house
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The visuo-spatial sketchpad has a limited capacity. According to Baddeley, around how many objects is this?
Three or four objects
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What are the roles of the sub-divisions of the visuo-spatial sketchpad, the visual cache and the inner scribe?
The visual cache stores visual data, and the inner scribe records the arrangement of objects in the visual field
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The episodic buffer was added to the model by Baddeley in 2000. What is it?
A temporary store for all types of information. It can be seen as the storage component of the central executive, but has a limited capacity of about four chunks
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Which clinical case study supports the existence of a separate visual and acoustic store?
Shallice and Warrington's study of KF - who had difficulty with sounds but could recall letters and digits. Only his phonological loop had been damaged
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Give me some details of Baddeley et al's study into dual task performance
Participants had more difficulty doing two visual tasks (tracking a light and describing the letter F) than doing both a visual and verbal task together. Both visual tasks have to compete for the same slave system, so the VSS must exist separately
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Why is there a lack of clarity over the central executive?
It doesn't explain anything - just said to be 'attention'. Some psychologists think it may consist of separate components
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Why is this lack of clarity over the central executive a limitation of the WMM explanation?
The WMM clearly hasn't been fully explained
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Other cards in this set
Card 2
Front
What are the four main components of the WMM?
Back
Central executive, phonological loop, visuo-spatial sketchpad and episodic buffer
Card 3
Front
What is the job of the central executive?
Back
Card 4
Front
Does the central executive have a high processing capacity?
Back
Card 5
Front
One of the slave systems is the phonological loop. What type of information does it process?
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