The Working Memory Model

Working memory Model

Description

Central executive (CE) - acts as 'attention', allocates tasks to slave systems, no storage.

Phonological loop (PL) - preserves order of auditory information. Phonological store holds the words for the PL, inner ear. Articulatory process performs maintenance rehearsal for PL, inner voice.

Visuo-spatial sketchpad (VSS) - for planning and processing visual and/or spatial tasks. The visual cache is for form and colour, whereas the inner scribe is for spatial relations.

Episodic buffer - records events (episodes) as they happen, links to LTM.

Strengths

- Hitch and Baddeley found participants were slower when doing dual tasks (CE & CE and articulatory loop), which demonstrates the central executive.

- KF had damage to his PL and so had problems with verbal material (words, not sounds) according to Shallice and Warrington)

- SC damaged his PL so was unable to learn word pairs presented out loud according to Trojano and Grossi

- LH damaged his spatial ssytem, studied by Farah et al

Weaknesses

- The central executive doesn't explain anything, and is more complex than currently respresented. Evidence proves this from EVR who was studied by Eslinger and Damasio

- Brain damage evidence is unreliable because trauma may cause problems

Further Evaluation

The word-length effect means longer words cannot be rehearsed, therefore supporting the phonological loop. However, articulatory suppression task cancels out word-length effect, thus supporting the articulatory process.