Phonological Loop

Phonological Loop

1. Deals with auditory information

2. Orders information

3. Similar to the rehearsal system in MSM

4. Limited capacity determined by amount of information that can be spoken out loud in about two seconds

5. Mainly an acoustic store, and any confusions that occur are due from similar sounding words

6. Baddeley 1986

   • Divided PL into two sub parts
     • Primary acoustic store (PAS)
       • Inner Ear/ stores words recently heard
     • Articulatory process (AP)
       • Inner voice/ keeps information in the PL through sub-vocal repetition and is linked to speech production

7. RESEARCH

   • Trojani + Grossi 1995
     • Case study of SC, who had brain damage affecting the functioning of the PL but not VSS
       • Suggests the PL to be a separate system
   • Baddeley et al 1975
     • Reported on the word length effect, where participants recalled more short words in serial order than longer words
       • supports the idea that capacity of PL is set how long it takes to say words, rather than actual number of words

8. EVALUATION

   • PL + VSS are separate stores from evidence by PET scans which shows different brain areas are activated when doing verbal and visual tasks
   • PL strongly associated with evolution of human vocal language, with the development of the slave system seen as producing a increase in short-term ability to remember vocalisation