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angelicalangie(This is here in case I lose it on my puter.) Feel free to read and review
Evaluate the Working Memory Model.
It will be attempted in this essay to evaluate the Working Memory Model (WMM) as proposed by Baddeley and Hitch (1974). In this essay it will first look at what the working model is comprised of, then the essay will consider and evaluate the concepts of the WMM as separate components beginning with the Phonological loop, moving on to the Visuo-Spatial Sketchpad and finally the Central Executive. This model replaced or superseded the Atkinson and Shiffrin’s multi-store model (1968).
How is the Working Memory Model purported to work?
The phonological loop and visuo-spatial sketchpad are considered to be slave systems to the central executive which is thought to have a limited capacity and is alleged to deal with any cognitively demanding task. Under the WMM the phonological loop is said to preserve the order in which words are presented, the visuo-spatial sketchpad on the other hand, is said to be used for the storage and the manipulation of visual and spatial information.
Under this model there are two basic assumptions, 1) that if there are two tasks that have the same component then the two tasks cannot be performed together and 2) that if two tasks have separate components however it is feasible to complete the tasks together or separately.
Robbins et al (1996) performed a dual task study proving/disproving the above assumptions. It considered the involvement of WMM in the selection of moves in strong and weak chess players, whilst selecting a continuation of chess moves players were required to perform one of four tasks, a control, one accessing the central executive, one accessing the phonological loop and the other the visuo-spatial sketchpad.
The result of the study was that the effect was similar for both weak and strong chess players, suggesting universality for the general populace in the effects on working memory in the way that it was accessed and used.
The Phonological Loop.
Baddeley, Thompson and Buchanan (1975) found that the ability to reproduce a sequence of words was better with short words rather than long words; this later became known as word length effect. It was found in their study that participants would recall words that could be read in 2 seconds or less over those of longer words.
This suggests that the capacity the phonological loop has a time dependant component, this in turn also suggested that the phonological loop was more complex that the original 1974 study. The study did however present that articulary suppression did eliminate word length effect with visual presentation however with articulary presentation there was no such articulary suppression. It is thus that the phonological loop itself an be broken down into two component parts the phonological store and the articulary control process
Evidence for the distinct separation of the phonological store and the articulary control process can be seen in Vellar and Baddeley’s (1984) case study of PV where it was found that the Patient, PV, was processing phonologically whilst not making use of articulation.
It was thus that Baddeley (1986, 1990) went on to make a revised account of the WMM under this Baddeley stated that the phonological loop now consisted of a passive phonological store solely concerned with speech perception and secondly there was an articulary process linked to speech production which would then be able to access the phonological store. It is also thought under this revised account that it is thought that words presented auditorily are processed differently to those presented visually.
This revision of the Phonological Loop leads to the question of; does sub-vocal articulary activity within the phonological loop require the use of speech musculature? A patient study (Baddeley and Wilson (1985) studied patients with dysarthria (greatly restricting speech) and one with anarthria(completely preventing speech) it showed that all patients engaged in sub-vocal rehearsal or articulation. Baddeley (1986) thus concluded that “The loop and its rehearsal processes are at a much deeper level than might at first seem likely, apparently relying on central speech control codes which appear to be able to function in the absence of peripheral feedback.”
It has also been found that when tested udder PET scans there is heightened activity in the parietal lobe when the phonological store was being utilised and an increased activity in the Broca’s area of the brain when the articulary process was being used. After this physical evidence it was thus concluded that the two postulated sub-systems of the phonological loop depend on different parts of the brain.
Evaluation
The theory of the phonological loop and its sub-systems accounts for the word length effect, the performance of various brain-damaged patients and articulary suppression, there are also two other effects that the phonological loop is considered to bring about. The irrelevant speech effect, and the phonological similarity effect. These two effects can be said to lead to two predictions; 1. That the two effects should both affect the same area of the brain and 2. They should also be interactive rather than independent.
However there have been found by other researchers, Martin-Loeches, Schweinberger, and Sommer (1997, p. 471) Obtained evidence against the first prediction :“Irrelevant speech and phonological similarity caused ERP effects with clearly different scalp topographies, indicating that these factors influence different brain systems.” and also failed to find any evidence of the second Cowan et al (1998) also stated that “… the leading model of working memory, the phonological loop model…has merit, but is an oversimplification.”
The value of the phonological loop however can be said that it is said to increase memory span, but its tangible downfall happens to be in everyday application, as the phonological loop is removed from every day life.
Baddeley, Gathercole and Papagno (1998) disagree with an earlier assertion that there was evidence that the phonological loop having no intrinsic value by asserting that “the phonological loop does have a very important function to fulfil, but it is one that is not readily uncovered by experimental studies of adult participants. We suggest that the function of the phonological loop is not to remember familiar words but to learn new words.”
Such and assertion does tend to make the reader think that the author is trying to make a theory fit in when evidence physical and experimental. However there is some evidence as to the assertions veracity. Papagno, Valentine and Baddeley found that under articulary suppression the learning of foreign vocabulary was reduced; Trojano and Grossi (1995) showed in a case study that a patient with a poorly functioning phonological loop would prevent the learning of un-familiar non-words. Baddeley et al (1998) also went on to say that sub-vocal rehearsal was thought to be used from the age of 7 onwards though children of 3 were thought to show a a close link between phonological memory performance and vocabulary learning.
The Visuo-Spatial Sketchpad.
It is considered that the characteristics of the visuo-spatial sketchpad are less clear than those of the articulary/phonological loop. It, however, is used in the temporary storage and manipulation of spatial and visual information. Baddeley et al (1975) from an experiment found that easily visualisable tasks could have the performance impaired due to a pursuit rotor, however the non-easily visualisable task the pursuit rotor had little effect, the interpretation of these findings could be said that the pursuit rotor involved perception and it is this that would interfere with the easily visualisable task.
Baddeley and Lieberman (1980) found that visually concurrent tasks would interfere with performance to a higher degree with a non visualisable task. Thus, recall of visualisable messages of the kind used by Baddeley et al, (1975) and also by Baddeley and Lieberman, (1980) is interfered with by spatial rather than by visual tasks, implying that processing of such messages relies mainly on spatial coding.
In a study where the assumption was that dynamic visual noise would gain access too the visuo-spatial sketchpad, whereas irrelevant speech would gain access to the phonological loop (Quinn and McConnell, 1996) the findings were that “Words processed under mnemonic (imagery) instructions are not affected by the presence of a concurrent verbal task but are affected by the presence of a concurrent visual task. With rote instructions the interference pattern is reversed.” (Quinn and McConnell, 1996, p.213) Thus, imaginal processing which uses the visuo-spatial sketchpad, whereas rote rehearsal used the phonological loop.
Evaluation
However, like the phonological loop it has been argued (Logie, 1993) that the Visuo-spatial sketchpad should be sub-divided into two sub-categories the Visual cache which, it is thought, stores information about visual form and colour and the inner scribe, which deals with spatial and movement information.
Evidence that seems to confirm this theory came from a case study (Beschin, Cocchini, Della Sala, & Logie, 1997) in a stroke victim who found it difficult to perform on tasks involving his visuo-spatial sketchpad, it is thought that in this case study the patient may have sustained damage to his visual cache so he could only create poor mental representations of the stimulus available.
It is once again that we are found with a question; how important is the visuo-spatial sketchpad in everyday life? Baddeley (1997, p. 82) answers with; “The spatial system is important for geographical orientation, and for planning spatial tasks. Indeed, tasks involving visuo-spatial manipulations … have tended to be used as selection tools for professions … such as engineering and architecture.
Baddeley and Lieberman’s (1980) Finding that the maintenance of spatial information in working memory was NOT disrupted by a concurrent visual task is consistent with the notion of separate components. Whilst Farah, Hammond Levine and Calvanio (1998) found that a brain damaged patient performed better on tasks involving the visual aspects of imagery than the spatial aspects, again this is too consistent of a separately existing sub-systems of the visuo-spatial sketchpad.
Physical evidence of such separate sub-systems came from Smith and Jonides (1997) who gave the relevant neurophysiological evidence when in their study they found Regions in the right hemisphere (prefrontal cortex; Premotor cortex; occipital cortex; and parietal cortex) became active during a spatial task and a visual task activated areas in the left hemisphere especially the parietal cortex and the inferotemporal cortex.
The Central Executive
The central executive is considered to resemble an attentional system and is considered to be the most ““important and versatile component of the working memory model” (Eyesenk and Keane, 2004) Baddeley argues that damage to the frontal lobes of the cerebral cortex can cause impairments to the central executive.
Using the classical frontal syndrome as described by Rylander (1939, p.20) (“disturbed attention, increased distractibility, a difficulty in grasping the whole of a complicated state of affairs…well able to work along old routine lines … cannot learnt to master new types of task, in new situations.”) Baddeley (1996) then goes on to call such problems dysexecutive syndrome.
However, it is Baddeley himself who points out that the central executive is not a “solely frontal system based processor” (Eyesenk and Keane (2004); “…we might well find ourselves excluding from the central executive processes that are clearly executive in nature, simply because they prove not to be frontally located.”
Baddeley (1996, and also Baddeley, Emslie, Kolodny, & Duncan, 1998) reported a study where participants were asked to hold between 1 and 8 digits w whilst trying to generate random sequences of numbers. The findings were that the randomness of the sequence decreased with digit memory load was increased.
Towse (1998) argues that random generation actually uses many processes, and so would not be a pure central executive task. His own study asked participants to produce random sequences of numbers from 1-0 or 1-15, he found that the sequences of numbers were more random if the participants had the numbers in front of them.
Evaaluation
Eslinger and Damasio (1985) found through a case study into a patient who had, had a tumour removed from the frontal area remained at high functioning level on IQ tests and reasoning, but had problems with decision making and Judgement, this lead them to conclude that the central executive, like its slave systems had two or more components.
Conclusion
In conclusion, whilst the WMM seems like a good explanation of the way Short-term/working memory works it is difficult to see given the numerous revisions Baddeley has made and ‘dodges’ in light of researchers finding fault with the WMM that it could ever sit well in modern psychology. It has however in its more elaborate format given rise to a greater understanding of the way in which the short-term memory works.
The WMM seems to have been a rushed model ass Baddeley himself says; “Our initial specification of the central executive was so vague as to serve as little more than a ragbag into which could be stuffed all the complex strategy selection, planning, and retrieval checking that clearly goes on when subjects perform even the apparently simple digit span task.”
And continually there is much debate over whether any of the tasks were measuring a pure part of the WMM as was raised by Towse (1998). Its main issues though are that 1. The role the central executive plays is still unknown; 2. The central executive has a limited capacity but this limited capacity itself has been hard to measure and 3. That the working memory is claimed to be modality free and used in numerous operation, but the exact constraints of modality free in this case aren’t known. Its final flaw is in its application to everyday use. When Baddeley has since said; “…the phonological loop does have a very important function to fulfil, but it is one that is not readily uncovered by experimental studies of adult participants.” Which begs the question, who is it designed for?
References.
1. Baddeley, A.D.,(1986) Working memory, Oxford: Clarendon Press
2. Baddeley, A.D., (1990), Human memory: Theory and Practice, Hove, UK: Psychology Press.
3. Baddeley, A.D. (1997, p 82). Human Memory: Theory and practice (revised edition), Hove, UK: Psychology Press
4. Baddeley, A.D. (1996) Exploring the Central Executive Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology, 49A 5-28
5. Baddeley, A.D., Emslie, H., Kolodny, J., & Duncan, J.(1998) random generation and the executive control of working memory. Quarterly Journal of experimental Psychology, 51A, 819-852
6. Baddeley, A. D., Gathercole, S., & Papagno, C., (1998) The phonological loop as a language learning device.
7. Baddeley, A.D., Grant, S., Wight, E., & Thompson, N. (1975) Imagery and visual working memory. In P.M.A Rabbitt & S. Dornic (Eds.), Attention & Performance, Vol. V. London: Academic Press
8. Baddeley, A.D. & Hitch, G.J. (1974) Working memory in G.H. Bower (Ed.), The psychology of learning and motivation (vol.8) London Academic Press.
9. Baddeley, A.D., & Lieberman, K. (1980) Spatial working memory. In R.S. Nickerson (ed.), Attention and Performance, Vol. III. Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates Inc
10. Baddeley, A.D, Thompson, N. and Buchanan, M.(1975) Word length and the structure of short-term memory, Journal of verbal learning and verbal behaviour, 9, 176-189
11. Baddeley, A.D. & Wilson, B., (1985) Phonological coding and short-term memory in patients without speech. Journal of Memory and Language, 24, 490-502.
12. Beschin, N., Cocchini, G., Della Sala, S., & Logie R.H. (1997). What the eyes perceive, the brain ignore: A case of pure unilateral representational neglect.
13. Cowan, N., Wood, N. L., Wood, P. K., Keller, T. A., Nugent, L. D., & Keller, C. V. (1998) Two separate verbal processing rates contributing to short term memory span. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 127, 141-160
14. Eslinger, P.J., & Damasio, A.R. (1985) Severe disturbance of higher cognition after bilateral frontal lobe ablation: Patient EVR, Neurology, 35 1731 - 1741
15. Eyesenk, M.W., & Keane, M.T. Cognitive Psychology: A Students Handbook. Hove: UK, Psychology Press (2004)
16. Farah, M.J., Hammond, K.M., Levine, D.N., & Calvanio, R. (1988) Visual and Spatial mental imagery: Dissociable systems of representation. Cognitive Psychology
17. Logie, R.H. (1995) Visuo-Spatial working memory, Hove, UK: Psychology Press.
18. Martin-Loeches, Schweinberger, and Sommer (1997). The phonological loop model of working memory: An ERP Study of irrelevant and phonological similarity effects. Memory and Cognition, 25, 471-483
19. Papagno, c., Valentine, T. and Baddeley, A.D.(1991) Phonological Short-Term memory and foreign language learning. Journal of Memory and Language, 30, 331-347
20. Quinn, J.G., & McConnell,, J. (1996) Irrelevant pictures in visual working memory. Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology, 49A, 200-215
21. Robbins et al (1996) Working memory in chess, Memory and Cognition, 24 83-93
22. Rylander, G. (1939, p. 20) Personality Changes after operations on the frontal lobes. Acta Psychiatrrica neurological (Supplement No. 30)
23. Shah. P., & Miyake, A. (1996) The severability of working memory: An introduction. In A. Miyake & P. Shah (eds.), Models of working memory: Mechanisms of active maintenance and executive control. New York: Cambridge University Press
24. Shah. P., & Miyake, A. (1996) The severability of working memory: An introduction. In A. Miyake & P. Shah (eds.), Models of working memory: Mechanisms of active maintenance and executive control. New York: Cambridge University Press.
25. Towse, J.N, (1998) On random generation and the central executive of working memory. British journal of Psychology, 89 77-101
26. Vallar, G. & Baddeley, A.D., (1984) Phonological Short-term store, phonological processing and sentence comprehension: A neurological case study. Cognitive Neuropsychology, 1, 121-141
Evaluate the Working Memory Model.
It will be attempted in this essay to evaluate the Working Memory Model (WMM) as proposed by Baddeley and Hitch (1974). In this essay it will first look at what the working model is comprised of, then the essay will consider and evaluate the concepts of the WMM as separate components beginning with the Phonological loop, moving on to the Visuo-Spatial Sketchpad and finally the Central Executive. This model replaced or superseded the Atkinson and Shiffrin’s multi-store model (1968).
How is the Working Memory Model purported to work?
The phonological loop and visuo-spatial sketchpad are considered to be slave systems to the central executive which is thought to have a limited capacity and is alleged to deal with any cognitively demanding task. Under the WMM the phonological loop is said to preserve the order in which words are presented, the visuo-spatial sketchpad on the other hand, is said to be used for the storage and the manipulation of visual and spatial information.
Under this model there are two basic assumptions, 1) that if there are two tasks that have the same component then the two tasks cannot be performed together and 2) that if two tasks have separate components however it is feasible to complete the tasks together or separately.
Robbins et al (1996) performed a dual task study proving/disproving the above assumptions. It considered the involvement of WMM in the selection of moves in strong and weak chess players, whilst selecting a continuation of chess moves players were required to perform one of four tasks, a control, one accessing the central executive, one accessing the phonological loop and the other the visuo-spatial sketchpad.
The result of the study was that the effect was similar for both weak and strong chess players, suggesting universality for the general populace in the effects on working memory in the way that it was accessed and used.
The Phonological Loop.
Baddeley, Thompson and Buchanan (1975) found that the ability to reproduce a sequence of words was better with short words rather than long words; this later became known as word length effect. It was found in their study that participants would recall words that could be read in 2 seconds or less over those of longer words.
This suggests that the capacity the phonological loop has a time dependant component, this in turn also suggested that the phonological loop was more complex that the original 1974 study. The study did however present that articulary suppression did eliminate word length effect with visual presentation however with articulary presentation there was no such articulary suppression. It is thus that the phonological loop itself an be broken down into two component parts the phonological store and the articulary control process
Evidence for the distinct separation of the phonological store and the articulary control process can be seen in Vellar and Baddeley’s (1984) case study of PV where it was found that the Patient, PV, was processing phonologically whilst not making use of articulation.
It was thus that Baddeley (1986, 1990) went on to make a revised account of the WMM under this Baddeley stated that the phonological loop now consisted of a passive phonological store solely concerned with speech perception and secondly there was an articulary process linked to speech production which would then be able to access the phonological store. It is also thought under this revised account that it is thought that words presented auditorily are processed differently to those presented visually.
This revision of the Phonological Loop leads to the question of; does sub-vocal articulary activity within the phonological loop require the use of speech musculature? A patient study (Baddeley and Wilson (1985) studied patients with dysarthria (greatly restricting speech) and one with anarthria(completely preventing speech) it showed that all patients engaged in sub-vocal rehearsal or articulation. Baddeley (1986) thus concluded that “The loop and its rehearsal processes are at a much deeper level than might at first seem likely, apparently relying on central speech control codes which appear to be able to function in the absence of peripheral feedback.”
It has also been found that when tested udder PET scans there is heightened activity in the parietal lobe when the phonological store was being utilised and an increased activity in the Broca’s area of the brain when the articulary process was being used. After this physical evidence it was thus concluded that the two postulated sub-systems of the phonological loop depend on different parts of the brain.
Evaluation
The theory of the phonological loop and its sub-systems accounts for the word length effect, the performance of various brain-damaged patients and articulary suppression, there are also two other effects that the phonological loop is considered to bring about. The irrelevant speech effect, and the phonological similarity effect. These two effects can be said to lead to two predictions; 1. That the two effects should both affect the same area of the brain and 2. They should also be interactive rather than independent.
However there have been found by other researchers, Martin-Loeches, Schweinberger, and Sommer (1997, p. 471) Obtained evidence against the first prediction :“Irrelevant speech and phonological similarity caused ERP effects with clearly different scalp topographies, indicating that these factors influence different brain systems.” and also failed to find any evidence of the second Cowan et al (1998) also stated that “… the leading model of working memory, the phonological loop model…has merit, but is an oversimplification.”
The value of the phonological loop however can be said that it is said to increase memory span, but its tangible downfall happens to be in everyday application, as the phonological loop is removed from every day life.
Baddeley, Gathercole and Papagno (1998) disagree with an earlier assertion that there was evidence that the phonological loop having no intrinsic value by asserting that “the phonological loop does have a very important function to fulfil, but it is one that is not readily uncovered by experimental studies of adult participants. We suggest that the function of the phonological loop is not to remember familiar words but to learn new words.”
Such and assertion does tend to make the reader think that the author is trying to make a theory fit in when evidence physical and experimental. However there is some evidence as to the assertions veracity. Papagno, Valentine and Baddeley found that under articulary suppression the learning of foreign vocabulary was reduced; Trojano and Grossi (1995) showed in a case study that a patient with a poorly functioning phonological loop would prevent the learning of un-familiar non-words. Baddeley et al (1998) also went on to say that sub-vocal rehearsal was thought to be used from the age of 7 onwards though children of 3 were thought to show a a close link between phonological memory performance and vocabulary learning.
The Visuo-Spatial Sketchpad.
It is considered that the characteristics of the visuo-spatial sketchpad are less clear than those of the articulary/phonological loop. It, however, is used in the temporary storage and manipulation of spatial and visual information. Baddeley et al (1975) from an experiment found that easily visualisable tasks could have the performance impaired due to a pursuit rotor, however the non-easily visualisable task the pursuit rotor had little effect, the interpretation of these findings could be said that the pursuit rotor involved perception and it is this that would interfere with the easily visualisable task.
Baddeley and Lieberman (1980) found that visually concurrent tasks would interfere with performance to a higher degree with a non visualisable task. Thus, recall of visualisable messages of the kind used by Baddeley et al, (1975) and also by Baddeley and Lieberman, (1980) is interfered with by spatial rather than by visual tasks, implying that processing of such messages relies mainly on spatial coding.
In a study where the assumption was that dynamic visual noise would gain access too the visuo-spatial sketchpad, whereas irrelevant speech would gain access to the phonological loop (Quinn and McConnell, 1996) the findings were that “Words processed under mnemonic (imagery) instructions are not affected by the presence of a concurrent verbal task but are affected by the presence of a concurrent visual task. With rote instructions the interference pattern is reversed.” (Quinn and McConnell, 1996, p.213) Thus, imaginal processing which uses the visuo-spatial sketchpad, whereas rote rehearsal used the phonological loop.
Evaluation
However, like the phonological loop it has been argued (Logie, 1993) that the Visuo-spatial sketchpad should be sub-divided into two sub-categories the Visual cache which, it is thought, stores information about visual form and colour and the inner scribe, which deals with spatial and movement information.
Evidence that seems to confirm this theory came from a case study (Beschin, Cocchini, Della Sala, & Logie, 1997) in a stroke victim who found it difficult to perform on tasks involving his visuo-spatial sketchpad, it is thought that in this case study the patient may have sustained damage to his visual cache so he could only create poor mental representations of the stimulus available.
It is once again that we are found with a question; how important is the visuo-spatial sketchpad in everyday life? Baddeley (1997, p. 82) answers with; “The spatial system is important for geographical orientation, and for planning spatial tasks. Indeed, tasks involving visuo-spatial manipulations … have tended to be used as selection tools for professions … such as engineering and architecture.
Baddeley and Lieberman’s (1980) Finding that the maintenance of spatial information in working memory was NOT disrupted by a concurrent visual task is consistent with the notion of separate components. Whilst Farah, Hammond Levine and Calvanio (1998) found that a brain damaged patient performed better on tasks involving the visual aspects of imagery than the spatial aspects, again this is too consistent of a separately existing sub-systems of the visuo-spatial sketchpad.
Physical evidence of such separate sub-systems came from Smith and Jonides (1997) who gave the relevant neurophysiological evidence when in their study they found Regions in the right hemisphere (prefrontal cortex; Premotor cortex; occipital cortex; and parietal cortex) became active during a spatial task and a visual task activated areas in the left hemisphere especially the parietal cortex and the inferotemporal cortex.
The Central Executive
The central executive is considered to resemble an attentional system and is considered to be the most ““important and versatile component of the working memory model” (Eyesenk and Keane, 2004) Baddeley argues that damage to the frontal lobes of the cerebral cortex can cause impairments to the central executive.
Using the classical frontal syndrome as described by Rylander (1939, p.20) (“disturbed attention, increased distractibility, a difficulty in grasping the whole of a complicated state of affairs…well able to work along old routine lines … cannot learnt to master new types of task, in new situations.”) Baddeley (1996) then goes on to call such problems dysexecutive syndrome.
However, it is Baddeley himself who points out that the central executive is not a “solely frontal system based processor” (Eyesenk and Keane (2004); “…we might well find ourselves excluding from the central executive processes that are clearly executive in nature, simply because they prove not to be frontally located.”
Baddeley (1996, and also Baddeley, Emslie, Kolodny, & Duncan, 1998) reported a study where participants were asked to hold between 1 and 8 digits w whilst trying to generate random sequences of numbers. The findings were that the randomness of the sequence decreased with digit memory load was increased.
Towse (1998) argues that random generation actually uses many processes, and so would not be a pure central executive task. His own study asked participants to produce random sequences of numbers from 1-0 or 1-15, he found that the sequences of numbers were more random if the participants had the numbers in front of them.
Evaaluation
Eslinger and Damasio (1985) found through a case study into a patient who had, had a tumour removed from the frontal area remained at high functioning level on IQ tests and reasoning, but had problems with decision making and Judgement, this lead them to conclude that the central executive, like its slave systems had two or more components.
Conclusion
In conclusion, whilst the WMM seems like a good explanation of the way Short-term/working memory works it is difficult to see given the numerous revisions Baddeley has made and ‘dodges’ in light of researchers finding fault with the WMM that it could ever sit well in modern psychology. It has however in its more elaborate format given rise to a greater understanding of the way in which the short-term memory works.
The WMM seems to have been a rushed model ass Baddeley himself says; “Our initial specification of the central executive was so vague as to serve as little more than a ragbag into which could be stuffed all the complex strategy selection, planning, and retrieval checking that clearly goes on when subjects perform even the apparently simple digit span task.”
And continually there is much debate over whether any of the tasks were measuring a pure part of the WMM as was raised by Towse (1998). Its main issues though are that 1. The role the central executive plays is still unknown; 2. The central executive has a limited capacity but this limited capacity itself has been hard to measure and 3. That the working memory is claimed to be modality free and used in numerous operation, but the exact constraints of modality free in this case aren’t known. Its final flaw is in its application to everyday use. When Baddeley has since said; “…the phonological loop does have a very important function to fulfil, but it is one that is not readily uncovered by experimental studies of adult participants.” Which begs the question, who is it designed for?
References.
1. Baddeley, A.D.,(1986) Working memory, Oxford: Clarendon Press
2. Baddeley, A.D., (1990), Human memory: Theory and Practice, Hove, UK: Psychology Press.
3. Baddeley, A.D. (1997, p 82). Human Memory: Theory and practice (revised edition), Hove, UK: Psychology Press
4. Baddeley, A.D. (1996) Exploring the Central Executive Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology, 49A 5-28
5. Baddeley, A.D., Emslie, H., Kolodny, J., & Duncan, J.(1998) random generation and the executive control of working memory. Quarterly Journal of experimental Psychology, 51A, 819-852
6. Baddeley, A. D., Gathercole, S., & Papagno, C., (1998) The phonological loop as a language learning device.
7. Baddeley, A.D., Grant, S., Wight, E., & Thompson, N. (1975) Imagery and visual working memory. In P.M.A Rabbitt & S. Dornic (Eds.), Attention & Performance, Vol. V. London: Academic Press
8. Baddeley, A.D. & Hitch, G.J. (1974) Working memory in G.H. Bower (Ed.), The psychology of learning and motivation (vol.8) London Academic Press.
9. Baddeley, A.D., & Lieberman, K. (1980) Spatial working memory. In R.S. Nickerson (ed.), Attention and Performance, Vol. III. Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates Inc
10. Baddeley, A.D, Thompson, N. and Buchanan, M.(1975) Word length and the structure of short-term memory, Journal of verbal learning and verbal behaviour, 9, 176-189
11. Baddeley, A.D. & Wilson, B., (1985) Phonological coding and short-term memory in patients without speech. Journal of Memory and Language, 24, 490-502.
12. Beschin, N., Cocchini, G., Della Sala, S., & Logie R.H. (1997). What the eyes perceive, the brain ignore: A case of pure unilateral representational neglect.
13. Cowan, N., Wood, N. L., Wood, P. K., Keller, T. A., Nugent, L. D., & Keller, C. V. (1998) Two separate verbal processing rates contributing to short term memory span. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 127, 141-160
14. Eslinger, P.J., & Damasio, A.R. (1985) Severe disturbance of higher cognition after bilateral frontal lobe ablation: Patient EVR, Neurology, 35 1731 - 1741
15. Eyesenk, M.W., & Keane, M.T. Cognitive Psychology: A Students Handbook. Hove: UK, Psychology Press (2004)
16. Farah, M.J., Hammond, K.M., Levine, D.N., & Calvanio, R. (1988) Visual and Spatial mental imagery: Dissociable systems of representation. Cognitive Psychology
17. Logie, R.H. (1995) Visuo-Spatial working memory, Hove, UK: Psychology Press.
18. Martin-Loeches, Schweinberger, and Sommer (1997). The phonological loop model of working memory: An ERP Study of irrelevant and phonological similarity effects. Memory and Cognition, 25, 471-483
19. Papagno, c., Valentine, T. and Baddeley, A.D.(1991) Phonological Short-Term memory and foreign language learning. Journal of Memory and Language, 30, 331-347
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