Working Memory: Baddeley And Hitch

In the last half century several theories have emerged with regard to the best model for human memory. In each of these models there was a specific way to help people recall words and

This supports the idea of an immediate memory store for items that are neither visual nor phonological and that draw on long-term memory to link the related words. It is used as both the Phonological Loop and the Visuo-Spatial Sketch Pad have specific roles and the Central Executive has very limited storage capacity so as a result there was no where to store both visual and acoustic information. The Episodic Buffer is an extra storage system that has in common with all working memory units, a limited capacity. It is handy and can integrate information from the Central Executive, The Phonological Loop, The Visuo-Spatial Sketch Pad and also information from the Long-Term Memory.

Atkinson’s and Shiffrin’s (1968) multi-store model was extremely successful in terms of the amount of research it generated. However, as a result of this research, it became apparent that there were a number of problems with their ideas concerning the characteristics of short-term memory. Building on this research, Baddeley and Hitch (1974) developed an alternative model of short-term memory which they called working memory. Baddeley and Hitch (1974) argued that the picture of short-term memory (STM) provided by the Multi-Store Model is far too simple. According to the Multi-Store Model, STM holds limited amounts of information for short periods of time with relatively little processing. It is

Memory in the human brain is a complex process which is easier understood by the use of theoretical constructs. Memories begin as sensory stimuli which become sensory memory which only last about one second, from there it moves into working memory which lasts for about twenty to thirty seconds and is used to process information. Within working memory there are a few separate processes, the central executive which directs attention, the episodic buffer which is a secondary storage lasting ten to twenty seconds, this area communicates with long term memory as well as the central executive. The visuospatial sketchpad which is used to visualise visual and spacial

Baddeley (2001) suggests a working memory system which consists of four components; a modality-free central executive, a phonological loop which holds information in speech based form, a visuo-spatial sketchpad and an episodic buffer which is the temporary storage system that holds and integrates information from the phonological loop, visuo-spatial sketchpad and long-term memory (Eysenck & Keane, 2005).

According to Peter Doolittle's Ted Talk working memory is limited. There is only so much our working memory can take away from the information we learn. This is why it is important for me to construct my speech in such a way that it helps keep my audience engaged and leaves them remembering the topic long after my speech is over. I could do this in a couple different ways. I plan on engaging my audience by sharing a story connected to the topic early on to make it personal to the audience and keep their attention on the topic throughout the speech. Besides telling a story I will arrange my main points into clear patterns that help my audience follow my speech easily. This means I will make sure my main points are easily understood by the audience.

Verbal short term memories encode and represent information in a phonological form in immediate memory. This was highly supported by Baddeley and Hitch’s (1974) working memory model. Baddeley and Hitch introduce the “phonological (articulatory) loop”, a mechanism in the short term memory which helps in the retention of verbal information temporarily. (Baddeley & Hitch, 1974). As these mechanisms are heavily dependent on the phonological systems, they have brought about inefficiencies in memory encoding bringing about various effects which includes phonological similarity effect ( difficulty in recall due to similar sounding words), word length effect (recall to be more difficult with long words than short words), the unattended speech effect

This essay will be discussing one particular cognitive process: the memory by evaluating two models, which are the Multi store model introduced by Atkinson and Shiffrin in 1968 and the Working memory model by Baddeley and Hitch in 1974.

Baddeley and Hitch determined that this working memory should be divided into three parts based on the type of information it processes. The first part, deemed the central executive area, acts as a boss sending data to the other areas while dealing with cognitive tasks such as problem solving on its own. The visuo-spatial area stores and processes visual information and is responsible for navigation. Finally, the phonological loop stores and processes written and spoken materials and would be responsible for memorizing a telephone number. The phonological loop is further broken down into two parts, the phonological store, which holds spoken information, and the articulatory control process, which is used to store verbal information from the phonological store. In 2000, based on a failure to explain experimental results, Baddeley decided to add the fourth part called the episodic buffer. This component is responsible for communication between long-term and episodic (short-term) memory and serves as a backup (Mcleod, 2008). Working memory and short-term memory are often interchanged, however working memory commonly includes the active processes in the brain that make up the short-term memory, while the term short-term memory solely refers to the brain’s ability to temporarily store

Working memory is the immediate memory for the finite amount of material an individual is processing at the moment. This memory capacity allows an individual to keep information attainable and active in order to use them in various cognitive tasks. Working memory is similar to the outdated term known as short- term memory. According to the working memory approach proposed by Baddeley (1996), this immediate memory is a multipart system consisting of four components known as the phonological loop, visuospatial sketchpad, central executive, and the episodic buffer. The component in question is the central executive, which is responsible for integration of the other components. Is the central executive an essential part of working memory or is it simply a glorified homunculus?

This essay addresses the working memory model which was proposed by Baddeley and Hitch (1974 in Smith & Kosslyn, 2007) as a response to Atkinson and Shiffrins (1968 in Smith, 2007) multi-store model. According to Baddely and Hitch the multi-store model failed to explain most of the complexities of the human memory and viewed it as being too simplistic. They argued that the short term memory store must have more components rather it being a single inflexible store as suggested previously by Atkinson and Shiffrin (1968). The working memory model is therefore an enhancement of the multi store model. According to Baddeley and Hitch working memory is a limited- capacity system that stores and processes information.

Do you know what the Working memory model is? Per the website explorable.com, the working memory model was proposed by Alan Baddeley and Graham Hitch in 1974. They had studied the 1968 Atkinson-Shiffrin model in 1968 and believed that the model’s short term memory store lacked detail. The 4 main components of the working memory model are; Central executive, Articulatory-Phonological loop, Visuospatial sketchpad, and Episodic buffer.

Historically, the development of cognitive models like the Baddeley and Hitch (1974 ) model of working memory and the Norman and Shallice (1986) model of supervisory attentional system have pointed out to the existence

Working memory is arguably the most studied area of memory research. Yet, the underpinnings of its functionality remain to reveal astonishing insights. Thus, to supplement the literature, Goodman and Vogel (2005) broadly examine if the regions responsible for memory consolidation are distinctly different from networks responsible for VWM maintenance. Additionally, while attempting to shed light on what can been deemed as a daunting task, Goodman and Vogel assess whether concurrently held representations alter the efficiency rate of new incoming information. Consequently, to illuminate this long investigated perplexity, participants were introduced to a masked change-detection paradigm. Results suggest that the relationship between consolidation

The working model of memory was developed by Baddeley and Hitch in 1974. It suggests that short term memory is made up of different stores.