PSYA1: Cognitive Psychology Memory “Working Memory Model”

From your Knowledge… what do the following pictures represent? To Start… From your Knowledge… what do the following pictures represent?

By the end of the lesson… Success Criteria What is the WMM and how does it explain memory? By the end of the lesson… Understand To describe the WMM and it’s components. Apply To explain real life examples of the WMM. Analyse To compare and contrast the WMM with the MSM. Evaluate To discuss strengths, weaknesses and evidence of the WMM.

WMM Baddeley & Hitch (1974) Believed memory is not just one store but a number of different stores: 2 visual tasks = poorer performance but 1 visual and 1 verbal means no interruption Focused on STM ONLY and believed it was not a unitary store (like MSM)!! This explanation focuses on STM and how it is organised. LTM as a more passive store that holds previously learned material for use by the STM when needed.

The Working Memory Model (Baddeley & Hitch, 1974) WMM The Working Memory Model (Baddeley & Hitch, 1974)

This is also the role of the Central Executive! WMM Central Executive Imagine the fat controller… What kind of role does he play? What does his job involve? If he was in charge of memory what would he do? This is also the role of the Central Executive!

WMM Central Executive Limited Capacity – Data arrives from the senses but it can’t hold it for long. Determines how resources (slave systems) are allocated. Baddeley (1986) uses the metaphor of a company boss to describe the way in which the central executive operates.  The company boss makes decisions about which issues deserve attention and which should be ignored.  It involves reasoning and decision making tasks! They also select strategies but can only do a limited number of things at the same time. The boss of a company will collect information from a number of different sources such as from the inner ear and eyes and information held in a large database (LTM).

1st Slave System… Phonological Loop Imagine… You are watching your favourite episode of a programme when your Mum comes in and starts telling you about her day… What happens?

Phonological Loop Limited Capacity 1st Slave System… Phonological Loop Limited Capacity Deals with auditory information and preserves word order – Inner Ear Baddeley (1986) further subdivided it into Phonological store (holds words heard) Articulatory process (holds words heard/seen and silently repeated (looped) like an inner voice. This is a kind of maintenance rehearsal.

Visuo-spatial sketch pad WMM 2nd Slave System… Visuo-spatial sketch pad Imagine folding these shapes into cubes. Do the arrows meet? At the same time try to calculate how many windows are in your house. Is this easy? Try calculating the windows in your house while listening to music. Is this easy?

Visuo-spatial sketch pad WMM 2nd Slave System… Visuo-spatial sketch pad Visual and/or spatial information stored here – Inner Eye Visual = what things look like Spatial = relationships between things Limited capacity – 3-4 objects Apply: What situations might we use our visuo-spatial sketchpad for in real life? Clip

WMM Episodic Buffer 3rd Slave System… Baddeley (2000) added episodic buffer as he realised model needed a more general store. Slave systems deal with specific types of information. Central executive has no storage capacity Buffer extra storage system but with limited capacity of 4 chunks Integrates information from all other areas.

WMM Consolidation Complete the consolidation sheet too compare the coding, capacity and information in each of the WMM components.

WMM Consolidation

WMM Evidence… Now we’ve looked at the components of the model we now need to look at what evidence supports it!

WMM To test the idea of more than one component, Baddeley and Hitch devised the dual task technique. Let’s see what happened…..

WMM Your Turn! You will now complete a dual task technique (one that was used by Baddeley and Hitch). Repeat the numbers below whilst completing the true/false exercise. You need to say whether the statement on the left matches the letters on the right.. 482917

WMM 482917

WMM Now Repeat! Now do the same again: complete the true/false exercise while repeating the word ‘the’ over and over again. ‘The’

WMM 482917 ‘The’

Which did you find easier? WMM Which did you find easier? Why do you think that is?

WMM Baddeley & Hitch (1976) Gave participants two tasks to perform simultaneously. Task 1: True or False task occupied the Central Executive as it tested verbal reasoning. They were asked to perform this task at the same time as performing either….

WMM Baddeley & Hitch (1976) Asked to say ‘the the the’ – a task involving the Articulatory Loop. Asked to say random digits – a task involving both the Central Executive and Articulatory Loop.

Baddeley & Hitch (1976) Results WMM Baddeley & Hitch (1976) Results The true or false task was slower when given the 2nd task involving both the Central Executive and Articulatory Loop. What does this result show? Does it support or challenge the Working Memory Model? What did they conclude? They concluded that completing two tasks that involve the same component causes difficulty. This supports the Central Executive and the Working Memory Model.

More evidence for CE WMM Extension: Read the evidence below, summarise it in your workbook and decide why it supports the Central Executive. Individuals had to perform two tasks simultaneously (dual task) rather than one after the other (single task). Bunge et al (2000) used fMRI to see which parts of the brain were most active when participants were doing two tasks (reading a sentence and recalling the final word in each sentence). The same brain areas (pre-frontal cortex) were active in either dual or single task conditions but there was significantly more activation in dual task condition.

Evidence for the phonological loop and articulatory process WMM Evidence for the phonological loop and articulatory process Remember the following:

WMM Harm

WMM Twice

WMM Calm

WMM Share

WMM Tree

WMM Book

WMM Sun

WMM Four

WMM Key

WMM Short

How many did you recall correctly? WMM Recall them! Harm Twice Calm Share Tree Book Sun Four Key Short How many did you recall correctly?

WMM And same again… Remember these:

WMM Association

WMM Representative

WMM Discouragement

WMM Meaningfulness

WMM Suppression

WMM Enhancing

WMM Component

WMM Performances

WMM Forgetting

WMM Damaging

How many did you get right this time? WMM Recall them! How did you do compare to last time? Why might the results be different for the 1st set of words compared to the 2nd set? What does this say about working memory? Association Representative Discouragement Meaningfulness Suppression Enhancing Component Performances Forgetting Damaging How many did you get right this time?

Word-length effect WMM The phonological loop explains why the word-length effect occurs. The fact that people cope better with short words than long words in working memory (STM).

Word-length effect WMM It seems that the phonological loop holds the amount of information that you can say in 1.5 - 2 seconds (Baddeley et al, 1975). This makes it hard to remember a list of long words such as ‘association’ and ‘representative’ compared to shorter words like ‘harm’ and ‘twice’ and therefore inhibits rehearsal of longer words!

BUT…articulatory process WMM BUT…articulatory process Word length effect disappears if a person is given an articulatory suppression task (‘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.

How does the WMM compare to the MSM? Analyse How does the WMM compare to the MSM? Remember comparisons include similarities and differences!

Evaluate WMM Answer the following questions: How do dual task experiments support the WMM? What does evidence from Brain damaged patients suggest about the WMM? How clear/accurate are the explanations of the components of the model? How might the supporting evidence be evaluated itself? What practical uses/implications does this model have for real life? Particularly when conducting dual tasks? Challenge: Can you answer these questions in the State, Make, Explain format?

Apply WMM

WMM Answers

Exam Q WMM Briefly outline the working memory model (4 marks) Outline one limitation of the working memory model (2 marks)