AQA A Level Psychology Outline and
Evaluate The Working Memory Model
Questions with Correct Answers
Introduction - ANSWERSThe WMM presents short term memory as active processing
consisting of several stores rather than the passive stores as outlined in the MSM
Introduction Part 2 - ANSWERSIt is made up of 4 components which work together to
process and integrate information within the STM. Each component has limited capacity
and they all encode differently
AO1 Central Executive - ANSWERSThis is the supervisory system that directs attention
and allocates tasks to other components. It is also modality free
AO1 (VSS) - ANSWERSThe Visual cache stores information about colour and form.
The inner scribe handles spatial relationships
AO1 (PL) - ANSWERSDeals with acoustic information and is made up of the
articulatatory process which deals with verbal rehearsal and the phonological store
which holds speech based information what has been heard and what the individual
prepares to say
AO1 (EB) - ANSWERSThis was added in 2000 as a general store to temporarily hold
information that has been integrated from the other components. It can maintain a
sense of time sequencing, integrate information in a novel way and communicate with
the LTM
AO3 Evidence to support the idea that 2 systems can be used simultaneously -
ANSWERSBaddeley and Gathercole found that ps had trouble tracking a dot of moving
light whilst imagining and describing a hollow letter F whereas when asked to complete
a visual and verbal task they were able to complete both successfully.
