Working memory

Working memory

1. Components of WM

   • Central Executive
     • Phonological loop
       • Phonological store
         • (inner ear)
       • Articulatory loop
         • Inner voice
       • Evidence for
         • word length effect
         • Unattended speech effect
         • phonological similarity effect
     • Visual-spatial sketchpad
       • Evidence for
         • Baddeley et al 1975
           • Tracking a moving light disrupted the visual message
     • Episodic buffer
       • takes modality specific info and combines them into a unitary multi-dimensional representation
       • Evidence for
         • Use of visual-verbal info
     • Evidence for
       • Needed for constantly switching retrieval plans and so disrupts performance
     • Alzheimer's disease
       • inability to complete dual-tasks due to difficulty dividing attention
     • dysexecutive dysfunction

2. Limited capacity

   • validity tested using dual-task methods
   • "chunking" or re-coding

3. guides behaviour

4. Evaluation

   • Strengths
     • accounts for complex processes
     • accounts for data from pwABI
       • multi-component/ multi-process
       • rehearsal as optional is more realistic
   • Weaknesses
     • Role of central exec still unclear
     • account of episodic buffer lacks detail