[Music] welcome to siteboost in this video we're going to discuss another model of memory this is called the working model of memory it's effectively an improved version of what we called the short term memory store in the multi-store model video and in that video we said that the model was a little too simplistic with working memory model we'll be able to explain how our brain is able to hold and work on both auditory and visual information in short-term memory psycboost.com over 170 videos to help you with your qualification and patreon supporters can access bonus resources tutorial videos and the discord channel differences between short term memory and the working memory model so the working memory model now if you started a level psychology with the memory unit these models of memory can seem a little complex for a new level student but i'd say if you learn to draw them from memory that can really help you remember how they work and remind you of the studies that support them so hopefully you can draw out the multi-store model of memory it looks like this and in our discussion of the multi-store model we covered the short-term memory store well researchers badly in hitch had some criticisms of the short-term memory store firstly that short-term memory clearly isn't unitary it's not just one single process it's not a stopping off station for information between the sensory register and long-term memory also they thought that rather than a passive store just hold on to information and passing on to long-term memory we use short-term memory to process or work on and combine multiple types of information so we would describe working memory as an active processor so those are two differences between the short-term memory store in the multi-store model and the working memory model the working memory model you can see here all the parts of the working memory model again you need to be able to reproduce this model from memory and describe each of the components the first component is the central executive and this is the part of the model that pays attention to information from the sensors it's known as the head of the model because it passes information onto and controls the other components that we're going to call subsystems the visuospatial sketchpad the phonological loop and the episodic buffer the central executive is very limited in how much information it can hold at any one time and it can only hold on to one type of information at a time but it can switch quickly between each type of information the phonological loop is one of the sub-systems and is controlled by the central executive it processes auditory information like sounds and words we can break the phonological loop into two sections the phonological store that we can think of as the inner ear it holds on to the words that you hear and the articulatory process the inner voice that you use for maintenance rehearsal and when considering capacity we can say the phonological loop has a capacity of how much you can say in two seconds the visuospatial sketchpad is another of the subsystems and as the name suggests it's responsible for processing visual and spatial information it can be described as an inner eye again we can say it's controlled by the central executive and a researcher called logie suggests that the vss can be broken down into two processors a visual cache which is a passive store for forms and colour and the inner scribe which is an active store holding onto the relationship between objects in 3d space the final part of the model is the episodic buffer this was added to the model by badly in 2000 in response to criticism of the model that it couldn't fully explain how information was effectively combined from both visual acoustic and long-term memory stores so the episodic buffer is where information is integrated and stored and that's the working memory model now just something quick to point out aqa has written something a little different between what we need to know for the multi-store model and working memory models for the multi-store model of memory it says the features of each store coding capacity and duration so we had to go into serious depth for each store so we could describe and evaluate each store on each of those factors fortunately for the working memory model the specification only says the features in the model coding capacity so if we get a question about coding or capacity we can use information and evidence from any component of the working memory model to answer that question as a reminder then we've already said that when it comes to coding the phonological loop is acoustic and the visuospatial sketchpad is visual and when talking about capacity the phonological loop is what can be said in two seconds and the central executive is limited in capacity according to a researcher called cohen it's four items plus or minus one evaluating the working memory model we're going to consider four studies of the working memory model a dual task performance study that shows the separation between the slave systems a case study that supports that finding biological evidence for the existence of the episodic buffer and evidence for the capacity of the phonological loop to help us understand dual task studies have you ever thought about how you can focus on a drawing and talk to someone at the same time but find it really difficult to focus on reading if someone's talking to you at the same time in the first example a central executive can help us perform both tasks by sending the visual information to the visual spatial sketch pad and the verbal information to the phonological loop but in the second example the phonological loop is overwhelmed because too much of the same type of information is pushed to it let's start evaluations then with a dual task performance study badly asked participants performed two tasks either two visual tasks which were tracking moving lights and describing the angles of letter f or performing a visual task and a verbal task but has been performed much better when both the tasks were different this suggests that the visual spatial sketch pad exists as a separate process from verbal processing the phonological loop and the vss is limited in capacity the separation of the phonological loop and the visual spatial sketch pad can also be seen in a case study by charleston warrington this is a case study of a man known as kf his short-term memory issues were caused by a brain injury but he had selective impairments to a short-term memory store only his verbal short-term memory was affected he had no problems with the functioning of his visual short-term memory this suggests then that the phonological loop and visual spatial sketch pad exist as separate processes and they're located in different parts of the brain we have brain scanning evidence by parapacaran that seems to show the physical location of the episodic buffer in the brain using fmri the researcher gave participants tasks that had them holding equal amounts of verbal and spatial information in short-term memory but in some of the trials both the visual and spatial information was separated but in other trials the visual and verbal information was integrated now importantly the brain scanner showed more activation in area of the brain called the prefrontal cortex when the information was integrated and posterior regions of the brain when it wasn't integrated this suggests that episodic buffer exists and it has an identifiable location in the brain and a final quick study by badly which found that people could remember more short monosyllabic words like bond and yield the longer words like opportunity this is a demonstration of the word length effect people can remember about two seconds worth of verbal information supporting the capacity of the phonological loop as two seconds additional evaluations okay with those evaluations we should be able to provide evidence for the existence of the components of the working memory model and talk about capacity but we do need to cover some additional evaluations on how we can criticize the working memory model and some of the research that supports it firstly the central executive as i've explained the working memory model that's the bit that might have seemed the least clearly defined and psychologists have argued that it isn't a fully operationalized concept in the working memory system it seems to act as a homunculus a little man in the brain performing any function that isn't fully explained by the model badly accepts this criticism in fact the addition of the episodic buffer was to address some of the problems with the central executive such as how information can be integrated but badly suggests that rather than seeing this as a problem there are opportunities for future research and explaining the functions of the central executive we can positively criticize the working memory model saying it does seem to be more accurate in describing our short-term memory than the short-term memory store especially in describing it as an active processor this has been influential psychologists will now often not use the term short-term memory but use the term working memory now one criticism that we'll use a few times in the memory unit is the reliance on laboratory studies and while they do offer a good control over extraneous variables giving them high internal validity we can argue that there are problems applying the findings outside of the experiment so there are problems with external validity the tasks themselves are designed so that data can be collected and this often makes the task very different from how we use memory in real life they lack what's called mundane realism now this means that the finding from memory studies collected in experimental situations may not be generalizable to how we actually use memory in our day-to-day life to understand my final evaluation we need to understand the term inference cognitive psychologists can't directly observe the working model of memory they observe behavior and make assumptions or inferences about the underlying process that led to that behavior these inferences are effectively educated guesses and those guesses could be wrong when applied to studies on working memory researchers have used inferences they could actually be a completely different set of processes that underpin memory that produce the same behaviors meaning the working memory model is incorrect okay i've given you a lot to work with there mostly because there's a lot that can be asked in questions on the working memory model so i want to prepare you for every eventuality but if you're feeling a little overwhelmed with all that my advice as with all my videos is to pick the ideas and evaluations you're most comfortable with and if asked a question shape that knowledge the best you can to answer the questions set now have a go at this real exam question on the working memory model if you're a psych boost patron at the new orleans level and above you can access a tutorial on psycboost.com in it i'll talk you through a model answer for this question and some general tips for everyone else don't forget to subscribe you don't want to miss videos released right up to your exams and i'll see you in the next psych boost video explanations for forget you