Participants given a list of words
and asked to recall them
immediately or after a 30 second
delay
Participants only remembered last
few words more in immediate
condition. They had time to
rehearse first few but remembered
the last few because they were
recent
Milner (1966) case
study
Amnesia patents
Clive Wearing
Severe form of herpes that
caused brain damage.
Could remember memories from before
the damage but could not form new ones.
Suggests LTM was functional but STM was
not.
HM
Brain damaged in surgery to
reduce epileptic fits.
Weaknesses
KF case study
LTM normal but STM capacity damaged
(2 items). LTM could still form new
memories. According to the model this
should not be possible.
Brain damage in motorcycle accident
HM case study
Could not form new LTM
memories but could take on
new skills (rotary disc), could
not remember doing it, but
still improved. Suggests LTM
is split into different units.
Central Executive- Monitors
incoming information and
allocates slave systems
Phonological Loop- Temporary storage
system for holding auditory information in a
speech based form. Key role in development
of reading
Phonological Store (inner ear)-
Stores words you hear
Articulatory Process (inner voice)- Allows
maintenance rehearsal (repeating words to
keep them in working memory as long as they
are needed)
Visio-Spatial Sketchpad- Holds visual
and spatial information
Inner Scribe- Records
arrangement of objects
Visual Cache- Stores
visual data
Episodic Buffer- Temporary store that
communicates with long term
memory and slave systems
Evaluation
Strengths
Supports dual task studies. It is easier to do
something using different slave systems
(verbal and visual) than using the same ones
(visual and visual). Competes for limited
resources of one system
KF's impairment was mainly verbal but visual
was mainly unaffected. Suggests they're different
components.
Brain damage patients are
not reliable as they are
unique cases of people with
traumatic experiences.
Weaknesses
Little is known about how
the central executive works.
It is an important part of the
model but it's exact role is
unclear.
Does not explain the link between
working memory and LTM