1. The Working Memory Model Baddeley & Hitch, 1974

2. The Working Memory Model The Diagram:

3. The Working Memory Model The Central Executive… in charge of co-coordinating the two slave systems involved in attention and higher mental processes has limited capacity and can process information from any mode.

4. The Working Memory Model The Phonological Loop… 1. Phonological Store – The Inner Ear holds small amount of speech- based information 2. Articulatory Process – The Inner Voicerepeats words in a loop to prevent them decaying

5. The Working Memory Model The Visuo-spatial Sketchpad used in the storage and manipulation of spatial and visual information eg. remembering shapes and colours, or the location or speed of objects in space also involved in tasks which involve planning of spatial movements, like planning one's way through a complex building

6. The Working Memory Model Strength One: The Dual-Process Task Individuals seem able to carry out two cognitive tasks simultaneously as long as they use different slaves, eg. An auditory and a visual task BUT if you ask someone to perform two auditory or two visual tasks at the same time, performance suffers This seems to show that there are two separate slave systems each with a very limited capacity, as suggested by the WMM

7. The Working Memory Model Strength Two: Phonological Similarity Lists of words that sound similar are more difficult to remember than words that sound different Semantic similarity (likeness of meaning) has comparatively little effect This supports the WM’s assumption that verbal information is coded largely by sound

8. The Working Memory Model Strength Three: Articulatory Suppression Memory for verbal material is impaired when people are asked to say something irrelevant aloud Eg. Baddeley and Lewis did a study where people had to read a sentence where words were swapped round. If they had to say something meaningless at the same time (tying up the phonological loop) this reduced their ability to detect mistakes in the sentence. This is evidence of the role of the phonological loop in reading. This supports the WMM as it is assumed that speaking blocks the articulatory rehearsal process, thereby leaving memory traces in the phonological loop to decay

9. The Working Memory Model Strength Four: Brain Imaging (Smith et al 1995) MRI and PET scans have shown that different areas of the brain are active when using different aspects of memory, Eg. Frontal Lobes (Attentional Task - Central Executive) Left Temporal Lobe (Spatial Task – VSS) Left Parietal (Verbal Task – Phonological Loop) This supports the WMM as it points to different areas of the brain being responsible for different aspects of memory, thus backing up the WMM explanation of different subsystems for different functions.

10. The Working Memory Model Strength Five: Case of KF (Shallice and Warrington (1970) Had motorbike accident which affected his memory Good memory for visual information but not so good for speech This suggests that our brain has separate areas for visual memory and speech memory, as suggested by the WMM with the VSS and PL respectively.

11. The Working Memory Model Weakness One: Very little is actually known about the Central Executive and many feel its function is too vague. Even Baddeley stated that it was effectively just like ‘attention’ from the Multistore Model. Some psychologists have gone further and suggested that the CE may actually contain several components that do different things.

12. The Working Memory Model Weakness Two: Recent research has suggested that the VSSP be itself be fractionated into separate visual and spatial components Eg. Farah (1988) Case Study of LH, who was involved in a road accident Afterwards he performed better on spatial tasks than those involving visual imagery This supports the view that there are separate visual and spatial components in our memory. Separation of the VSS into separate components is not shown on the original WMM thus this model could be accused of being reductionist as it oversimplifies the nature of the VSS.