The Working Memory Model
The Central Executive
● Replaces the “sensory buffer”
● The Central executive directs attention to tasks
● Allocates information based on modality
The Phonological Loop
● Limited Capacity (like the MSM’s STM store)
● Deals with auditory information and language - both written and
spoken
● Baddeley (1986) further subdivided their into the Phonological store;
(holds words heard) and the Articulatory process (holds words
heard/seen and silently repeated like an inner voice.)
The Visuospatial sketchpad
● Limited Capacity (like the MSM’s STM store)
● Visual and/or spatial information stored here.
● Visual cache: = what things look like; stores information about form and
colour.
● The inner scribe: processes spatial and movement information.
The Episodic buffer
● Dedicated to linking information across domains to form integrated
units of visual, spatial, and verbal information with time sequencing,
such as the memory of a story, events or a movie scene.
EVIDENCE
Supporting the Phonological Loop
Word length effect
● The phonological loop had the amount of information that you can say
1.5-2 seconds. This makes it hard to remember a list of long words such
as ‘representative’ compared to shorter words like ‘dog.’
● Word length effect disappears if a person is given an articulatory task
(e.g. saying “the, the, the” while reading the words).
● The repetitive task ties up the articulatory process and means you can’t
rehearse the shorter words more quickly than the longer ones, so the
word length effect disappears.
Supporting the Visuospatial sketchpad
● Studies using positron emission tomography (PET) scans have provided
evidence for separate spatial and visual systems.
● There appears to be more activity in the left half of the brain of people
carrying out visual working memory tasks but more in the right half of
the brain during spatial tasks. Visual memory is also processed in the
occipital lobe, whereas spatial memory in the hippocampus.
● LH suffered from a stroke. The patient could not recall visual objects in
terms of colour and form, but could recall spatial information.
● This indicates that the visuospatial sketchpad is not a singular area of
the brain.
Strengths of the Working Memory Model
● The model is supported by considerable experimental evidence.
● Brain scans have shown that a different area of the brain is active
when carrying out verbal tasks than when carrying out visual tasks.
This supports the idea that there are different parts of memory for
visual and verbal tasks.
● Case studies of patients with brain damage support the theory that
there is more than one STM store.
● This model helps us understand why we are able to multitask in some
situations and not in others.
Limitations of the Working Memory Model
● The role of the central executive is unclear, although Baddeley and
Hitch said it was the most important part of the model.
● How the various components of the model interact is not yet clear.
● This model really only explains short-term memory and so tells us very
little about the processes involved in long-term memory.
● This model does not explain memory distortion or the role of emotion in
memory formation.
The Working Memory model is a model that describes how short-term memory
is stored and processed.
The Central Executive sorts information into the different memory stores.
The phonological loop stores auditory information, like things someone has
heard or read. Split into two parts, the Phonological stores, stores words
heard, the Articulatory process stores words read/heard and then rehearses
them in someone's head. (limited capacity)
The Visuospatial Sketchpad stores information about what things look like,
their color or shape. (limited capacity)
The Episodic Buffer combines memories from someone's phonological loop
and visuospatial sketchpad, allowing people to visualize a memory like a
movie scene; combining auditory and visual information.
Baddeley and Hitch (1974) conducted an experiment to determine if
articulatory suppression would influence the recall of words on a list. The
experiment was conducted with 34 psychology students. In the experimental
group the participants were told to repeatedly say the numbers 1 and 2 while
trying to memorize a list of letters. In the control group the participants also
had to memorize a list of letters but they did not repeat the numbers. The
results of the study showed that the participants in the control group
remembered a lot more words than the experimental group.
This study showed that articulatory suppression is preventing rehearsal in the
phonological loop because it is being overloaded because the participants
were already rehearsing saying the numbers 1 and 2 when needed to rehearse
the letters.
