Central executive-has overall control of information from any sensory system. Controls the slave system ; decision maker
Phonological loop- stores a limited number of speech based sounds; consists of the
Phonological store – INNER EAR allows acoustically coded items to be stored for a brief period of time
Articulatory control process- INNER VOICE allows sub vocal repetition of the items in the phonological store.
Visuo-spatial scratch pad –stores visual and spatial information and can be thought of as an INNER EYE
Episodic Buffer- this was a additional component to the working memory model that intergrates and manipulates information. It is capable of binding together info from different sources into chunks or episodes hence ‘episodic’ e.g. we can imagine an elephant playing ice hockey although we’ve never seen it we can conjure it up by manipulating information in the LTM to create scenarios.
Baddely and Hitch 1974 ‘dual task study’
Participants were given digit strings to rehearse whilst at the same time carrying out verbal reasoning tasks. Participants recalled 6 digits on average and performed accurately on verbal reasoning.
Baddely and Hitch findings suggest that STM or working memory consists of several different compartments that can work independentely and therefore handle more than 1 task at a time.
Baddely 1975 ‘study of word length’
To see if people could remember more short than long words, therefore demonstrating that pronounciation time rather than the number of items recalled determines the capacity of short term memory.
Participants had there reading speed measured and were then presented with sets of 5 words which were either one syllable or two. Immediately after they were asked to write the 5 words in serial order. They recalled several list of both long and short words.
They found that participants could recall considerably more short words. They were able to recall as many words as they were