Outline And Evaluate The Working Memory Model (Wmm)
Outline and evaluate the working memory model (12)
The working memory model (WMM) suggests that there are three main components to human memory. The central executive is the key component of working memory and is what directs attention to particular tasks, deciding which ‘resources’ (being the phonological loop and visual-spatial sketchpad) are allocated to which tasks. The central executive has a very limited capacity however, and can’t attend to too many things at once. The phonological loop (PL) too has a limited capacity and is what deals with auditory information; it is split into two further parts, the phonological store which holds the words you hear, and the articulatory process which is for the words you hear/see and are rehearsed …show more content…
sub-vocally. The visual-spatial sketchpad (VSSP) is the third main component and is used for planning spatial tasks (like walking from one room to another.) It is also where spatial/visual information is stored temporarily. While visual information is what things look like, spatial information is the relationship between things. Logie (1995) suggested the VSSP can be broken down further into a visual cache and an inner scribe which deals with spatial relations. Additionally, in 2000 the episodic buffer was added by Baddeley because he realised the model needed a general store for things that aren’t specific and dealt with by the PL and VSSP. The episodic buffer integrates information from the central executive, the PL and the VSSP. It too has a limited capacity.
As well as being a vast improvement on the simple and flawed Multi-store model by Atkinson and Shiffrin in 1968, there is much evidence to support each of the components in the model.
Firstly, Baddeley and Hitch did a ‘Dual Task’ experiment whereby they asked participants to follow a dot on the wall with a light pointer. Simultaneously they were asked to carry out two other tasks: to describe the angles on the letter ‘F’ and to carry out a simple verbal task. While they found the latter task very easy, they found the angle description task difficult. Baddeley and Hitch concluded that this was because the brain could not carry out tasks which occupied the same component (e.g the light pointer and angle description) due to the limited capacity. However, the brain could cope when the tasks involved separate components (e.g. the light pointer involving the VSSP and verbal task involving the …show more content…
PL.)
Additionally, Bunge (2000) found evidence for the Central executive.
Using an fMRI scan, Bunge measured brain activity and found that, unsurprisingly, there was more when carrying out a dual-task. This showed that increased attentional demands are reflected in brain activity.
Furthermore, evidence for the articulatory process by Baddeley’s ‘Word length effect’ study, shows that long words aren’t remembered as easily as short because they cannot fit into the PL. It also showed that when given an articulatory suppression task, (e.g. repeating ‘the’ over and over again) you cant rehearse the shorter words quickly enough and the word-length effect disappears.
Baddeley also found that when participants were shown words and asked to recall them immediately, they did so much better for sentences than for unrelated words which supports the idea of the episodic buffer- an immediate memory store for items that aren’t visual or
phonological.
Additionally, the case studies of KF and SC support the model. KF had damage to their STM but their LTM was perfectly intact. Furthermore, his short-term forgetting of auditory information was greater than that of visual information which indicates separate audio/visual stores and that his brain damage was restricted to his phonological loop. As for SC, while their learning abilities were good, when given word pairs presented aloud, they could not learn them, again indicating that there are separate stores.
However there are weaknesses of this model. While there are many case studies to support it, the case study of LH suggests that even this model is too simple. LH was ok when it came to spatial tasks but not as good at visual tasks suggesting the VSSP should be broken down further. Additionally, Eslinger and Damasio studied a patient called EVR who was good as reasoning tasks but not at problem solving. This suggests that memory is more complex than this model suggests. The central executive is also criticised. It is very vague and doesn’t explain anything, the function seems to be the same as ‘attention.’ Finally, the fact that much of the supporting evidence for the WMM comes from case studies must be addressed; case studies are individual cases and therefore cannot be generalised to the wider population. Similarly, cause and effect can’t be distinguished as you can’t make before and after comparisons- it’s unclear as to whether the problems are caused by damage or not. And additionally, the process of brain injury is traumatic; it may be that the trauma of KF’s motorcycle accident is what altered behaviour not the anatomical changes to his brain.
The working memory model (WMM) suggests that there are three main components to human memory. The central executive is the key component of working memory and is what directs attention to particular tasks, deciding which ‘resources’ (being the phonological loop and visual-spatial sketchpad) are allocated to which tasks. The central executive has a very limited capacity however, and can’t attend to too many things at once. The phonological loop (PL) too has a limited capacity and is what deals with auditory information; it is split into two further parts, the phonological store which holds the words you hear, and the articulatory process which is for the words you hear/see and are rehearsed …show more content…
sub-vocally. The visual-spatial sketchpad (VSSP) is the third main component and is used for planning spatial tasks (like walking from one room to another.) It is also where spatial/visual information is stored temporarily. While visual information is what things look like, spatial information is the relationship between things. Logie (1995) suggested the VSSP can be broken down further into a visual cache and an inner scribe which deals with spatial relations. Additionally, in 2000 the episodic buffer was added by Baddeley because he realised the model needed a general store for things that aren’t specific and dealt with by the PL and VSSP. The episodic buffer integrates information from the central executive, the PL and the VSSP. It too has a limited capacity.
As well as being a vast improvement on the simple and flawed Multi-store model by Atkinson and Shiffrin in 1968, there is much evidence to support each of the components in the model.
Firstly, Baddeley and Hitch did a ‘Dual Task’ experiment whereby they asked participants to follow a dot on the wall with a light pointer. Simultaneously they were asked to carry out two other tasks: to describe the angles on the letter ‘F’ and to carry out a simple verbal task. While they found the latter task very easy, they found the angle description task difficult. Baddeley and Hitch concluded that this was because the brain could not carry out tasks which occupied the same component (e.g the light pointer and angle description) due to the limited capacity. However, the brain could cope when the tasks involved separate components (e.g. the light pointer involving the VSSP and verbal task involving the …show more content…
PL.)
Additionally, Bunge (2000) found evidence for the Central executive.
Using an fMRI scan, Bunge measured brain activity and found that, unsurprisingly, there was more when carrying out a dual-task. This showed that increased attentional demands are reflected in brain activity.
Furthermore, evidence for the articulatory process by Baddeley’s ‘Word length effect’ study, shows that long words aren’t remembered as easily as short because they cannot fit into the PL. It also showed that when given an articulatory suppression task, (e.g. repeating ‘the’ over and over again) you cant rehearse the shorter words quickly enough and the word-length effect disappears.
Baddeley also found that when participants were shown words and asked to recall them immediately, they did so much better for sentences than for unrelated words which supports the idea of the episodic buffer- an immediate memory store for items that aren’t visual or
phonological.
Additionally, the case studies of KF and SC support the model. KF had damage to their STM but their LTM was perfectly intact. Furthermore, his short-term forgetting of auditory information was greater than that of visual information which indicates separate audio/visual stores and that his brain damage was restricted to his phonological loop. As for SC, while their learning abilities were good, when given word pairs presented aloud, they could not learn them, again indicating that there are separate stores.
However there are weaknesses of this model. While there are many case studies to support it, the case study of LH suggests that even this model is too simple. LH was ok when it came to spatial tasks but not as good at visual tasks suggesting the VSSP should be broken down further. Additionally, Eslinger and Damasio studied a patient called EVR who was good as reasoning tasks but not at problem solving. This suggests that memory is more complex than this model suggests. The central executive is also criticised. It is very vague and doesn’t explain anything, the function seems to be the same as ‘attention.’ Finally, the fact that much of the supporting evidence for the WMM comes from case studies must be addressed; case studies are individual cases and therefore cannot be generalised to the wider population. Similarly, cause and effect can’t be distinguished as you can’t make before and after comparisons- it’s unclear as to whether the problems are caused by damage or not. And additionally, the process of brain injury is traumatic; it may be that the trauma of KF’s motorcycle accident is what altered behaviour not the anatomical changes to his brain.