1. PSYA1: Cognitive Psychology Memory
“Working Memory Model”

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

3. 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.

4. 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.

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

6. 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!

7. 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).

8. 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?

9. 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.

10. 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?

11. 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

12. 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.

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

14. WMM
Consolidation

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

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

17. 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

18. WMM
482917

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

20. WMM
482917
‘The’

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

22. 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….

23. 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.

24. 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.

25. 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.

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

27. WMM
Harm

28. WMM
Twice

29. WMM
Calm

30. WMM
Share

31. WMM
Tree

32. WMM
Book

33. WMM
Sun

34. WMM
Four

35. WMM
Key

36. WMM
Short

37. 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?

38. WMM
And same again…
Remember these:

39. WMM
Association

40. WMM
Representative

41. WMM
Discouragement

42. WMM
Meaningfulness

43. WMM
Suppression

44. WMM
Enhancing

45. WMM
Component

46. WMM
Performances

47. WMM
Forgetting

48. WMM
Damaging

49. 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?

50. 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).

51. Word-length effect WMM
It seems that the phonological loop holds the amount of information that you can say in 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!

52. 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.

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

54. 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?

55. Apply
WMM

56. WMM
Answers

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