The working model of memory (Baddeley and Hitch 1974)
This model was a development of the multi store model to better explain the complexity of the
short-term memory store. It makes sense of a range of tasks - verbal reasoning, comprehension,
reading, problem-solving and visual and spatial processing.
The Central executive: The master/supervisory system that directs incoming information to the
relevant slave systems. It has limited capacity; coding is modality free.
The phonological loop: divided into the phonological store (inner ear) which stores words that you
hear, and the articulatory control system (inner voice) which allows for maintenance rehearsal.
Coding is acoustic and capacity is what one can say in 2 seconds.
The Visuospatial sketchpad: codes information visually and has capacity of 3 to 4 items. This
temporarily stores spatial information including ‘visual cache’ and the ‘inner scribe’ (object
arrangement).
The Episodic buffer: added later in 2000, a temporary store that integrates information from the
other components and maintains a sense of time, so that events occur in a continuing sequence.
Capacity of 4 chunks and coding is modality free.
Evaluation +/-
Research support: The WMM is an advance from the simplicity of the multi store model, and there is
research to support STM being more than one component. Baddeley et al. dual task study found
participants could complete both a visual and verbal task at the same time but not two of the same,
suggesting only one task per subsystem works, backing up the model.
However: The research that supports the WMM is based on highly controlled scientific
environments, which although is great for replicability, however these tasks lack mundane realism
and so may undermine the validity of the model. Further, it fails to explain ‘musical memory’
whereby you can complete other visual tasks whilst you listen to music (using the phonological store
for two tasks), which criticises the assumption of the working model.
This model was a development of the multi store model to better explain the complexity of the
short-term memory store. It makes sense of a range of tasks - verbal reasoning, comprehension,
reading, problem-solving and visual and spatial processing.
The Central executive: The master/supervisory system that directs incoming information to the
relevant slave systems. It has limited capacity; coding is modality free.
The phonological loop: divided into the phonological store (inner ear) which stores words that you
hear, and the articulatory control system (inner voice) which allows for maintenance rehearsal.
Coding is acoustic and capacity is what one can say in 2 seconds.
The Visuospatial sketchpad: codes information visually and has capacity of 3 to 4 items. This
temporarily stores spatial information including ‘visual cache’ and the ‘inner scribe’ (object
arrangement).
The Episodic buffer: added later in 2000, a temporary store that integrates information from the
other components and maintains a sense of time, so that events occur in a continuing sequence.
Capacity of 4 chunks and coding is modality free.
Evaluation +/-
Research support: The WMM is an advance from the simplicity of the multi store model, and there is
research to support STM being more than one component. Baddeley et al. dual task study found
participants could complete both a visual and verbal task at the same time but not two of the same,
suggesting only one task per subsystem works, backing up the model.
However: The research that supports the WMM is based on highly controlled scientific
environments, which although is great for replicability, however these tasks lack mundane realism
and so may undermine the validity of the model. Further, it fails to explain ‘musical memory’
whereby you can complete other visual tasks whilst you listen to music (using the phonological store
for two tasks), which criticises the assumption of the working model.
