The crux of the question is to critically evaluate the concept of working memory, that lies at the heart of the Baddeley and Hitch Model (1974) and assess its application in everyday life. The concept of working memory originated from the unitary short-term memory store projected by Atkinson and Shiffrin (Baddeley, 2003). Working memory allows for the storage, retaining of information for a specified period of time and manipulating that information for performance of cognitive activities. A multi-component model of working memory was proposed by Baddeley and Hitch consisting of three main components (Baddeley, 1998). It is important to briefly outline the three main elements of the mentioned model before proceeding further.
Central executive …show more content…
Let’s focus on an activity that children might engage in followed by adults i.e. use of working memory in daily life. An example of children making use of their working memory could be in a classroom and they are given a couple of pictures consisting of different objects, with their names written at the bottom. After a while they are asked to recall the names of objects. The list includes similar sounding names (e.g. cat, bat, and hat) and objects that do not sound the alike (e.g. book, handle, door knob). Student’s performing well in recalling dissimilar words, especially of short length in comparison to long words gives evidence for the phonological similarity and word length effect, respectively. The role of imaging the objects in their mind’s eye is an example of the use of visuospatial sketchpad of working memory. Moreover, central executive will come in play in decision making and giving answers or performing two tasks at once (example, imaging the objects and verbal recall of them). Word length effect can be upset if the teacher asked them to repeat word ‘the’ twice or any irrelevant word. This breakage in rehearsal is termed as articulatory suppression. It leads to poorer recall because information is not being refreshed in the phonological loop (Baddeley, 1966). Poor verbal recall would be associated with impairment on measures of phonological loop. For …show more content…
Kane, 2004). Baddeley and Hitch model has stimulated further research and debate on the phenomenon and there is experimental evidence to support it, increasing its validity and usefulness (Smith and Kosslyn, 2014). When critically appraising each component of the working memory model, it is not surprising that the role of central executive is complex, making it difficult to understand. Thus, emphasising need for further research to determine whether it has subtypes like its slave systems or is a single component (Kane et al, 2007). With regard to phonological loop, impairments in verbal short term memory in sufferers of Down syndrome cannot be solely due to deficits in the phonological loop component. To illustrate this point, there has been research attributing the cause to hearing, speech difficulties or lack of rehearsal (Baddeley, 2007). However, this subsystem is the most researched component due to its increased need in everyday cognition by students (Baddeley and Repovs, 2006). Individual differences cannot go unnoticed when evaluating the components of working memory model, as items recalled is dependent on the individual speech rate (Cowan et al, 1992).The second slave system, visuospatial sketchpad is under scrutinised, however, the use of episodic buffer
Central executive …show more content…
Let’s focus on an activity that children might engage in followed by adults i.e. use of working memory in daily life. An example of children making use of their working memory could be in a classroom and they are given a couple of pictures consisting of different objects, with their names written at the bottom. After a while they are asked to recall the names of objects. The list includes similar sounding names (e.g. cat, bat, and hat) and objects that do not sound the alike (e.g. book, handle, door knob). Student’s performing well in recalling dissimilar words, especially of short length in comparison to long words gives evidence for the phonological similarity and word length effect, respectively. The role of imaging the objects in their mind’s eye is an example of the use of visuospatial sketchpad of working memory. Moreover, central executive will come in play in decision making and giving answers or performing two tasks at once (example, imaging the objects and verbal recall of them). Word length effect can be upset if the teacher asked them to repeat word ‘the’ twice or any irrelevant word. This breakage in rehearsal is termed as articulatory suppression. It leads to poorer recall because information is not being refreshed in the phonological loop (Baddeley, 1966). Poor verbal recall would be associated with impairment on measures of phonological loop. For …show more content…
Kane, 2004). Baddeley and Hitch model has stimulated further research and debate on the phenomenon and there is experimental evidence to support it, increasing its validity and usefulness (Smith and Kosslyn, 2014). When critically appraising each component of the working memory model, it is not surprising that the role of central executive is complex, making it difficult to understand. Thus, emphasising need for further research to determine whether it has subtypes like its slave systems or is a single component (Kane et al, 2007). With regard to phonological loop, impairments in verbal short term memory in sufferers of Down syndrome cannot be solely due to deficits in the phonological loop component. To illustrate this point, there has been research attributing the cause to hearing, speech difficulties or lack of rehearsal (Baddeley, 2007). However, this subsystem is the most researched component due to its increased need in everyday cognition by students (Baddeley and Repovs, 2006). Individual differences cannot go unnoticed when evaluating the components of working memory model, as items recalled is dependent on the individual speech rate (Cowan et al, 1992).The second slave system, visuospatial sketchpad is under scrutinised, however, the use of episodic buffer