Baddeley 1986 Working Memory Study

Memory is often defined as the processing, storage and retrieval of information acquired through learning. Essentially, memory is a neurological representation of some prior event or experience. Although there are other ways of defining memory, all descriptions typically refer to memory as requiring and therefore involving three fundamental processes: encoding, storage and retrieval. In the 1960’s with the introduction of the computer, many psychologists described these processes using the computer as an analogy. Human memory was likened to a computer in terms of the way incoming information is processed. This approach still remains useful, although human memory is much more sophisticated than a computer, and differs in many ways.

Encoding is the process of converting information into a useable form so that it can be represented and stored in memory. Next, these neurological representations of information must be retained in …show more content…
Baddeley (1986) suggests that the working memory is an active system that provides temporary storage for the manipulation of the information necessary for such complex cognitive tasks as language, learning, reasoning and problem solving. Working memory is a ‘workbench’ where all resources needed for a particular task are placed. Baddeley’s 1986 working memory model showed four components: the central executive, which is responsible for selection, initiation and termination of processing, the visuo-spatial sketchpad, which is temporary storage and manipulation of visual and spatial information and what it looks like, the phonological loop, which stores speech passed information and the episodic buffer (Baddeley [2000]), which binds and integrates the information into meaningful unites with time sequencing such as a story or a