Working Memory Model

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Introduction The concept of working memory is very new. It was first used by Miller in 1960 and it referred to memory used to plan and carry out behavior. From that time on it has been researched and explored numerously - many theories have come to life, some of them very different, some different only in naming. In my paper I would like to compare two models that I personally have found most interesting - the multi-component model of working memory created by Baddeley and Hitch (1974) and Baddeley (2000) and an Individual Difference approach to working memory proposed by Daneman and Carpenter (1980) and later explored by other researchers. Before I begin comparing these two approaches I would like to focus on a general definition of working…show more content…
It acknowledges the limitations in active keeping of informationand explores it. The individual approach to working memory raised the question regarding the differences between individual performance on cognitive tasks. To find this out individual working memory span was measured thorugh various testing. Most famous test was conducted by Daneman and Carpenter (1980, 1986) and it measured the „reading span” where participants where to simultaneously read words (process) and remember them (store). As Randall W. Angle states in „Working Memory Capacity: An Individual Differences Approach” - „the primary question was whether WM capacity for a given individual is a function of that person’s skill in the concurrent task being performed while measuring the WM storage capacity or, is WM capacity a stable individual difference, independent of the task being performed at the time?„. The answer to this question is yet unknown, however it is suggested that the individual variations exist in working memory during verbal tasks. Daneman and Carpenter through their testing also questioned the way working memory works and proposed that working memory is primarily used to perform the task of reading (process) and those cognitive resources that are left are used for storage. Therefore, they also suggested that working memory’s capacity, which is limited, is being used and…show more content…
The individual approach proposed that working memory represented the skills of individuals in tasks such as reading and that all the memory that was not used during the task, would store the items of that task. The individual theory highlights the efficiency of individuals in processing skills, whilst the multi-component model does not address that issue. In the multi-component model the focus is on the structure of working memory and the role and capacity of its modules. Whilst the individual approach recognizes the difference in storing and processing audio and visual information it also proposes the existence of primary and secondary memory (cf. Craik, 1971; Craik & Levy, 1976; Waugh & Norman,1965), where primary memory is a dynamic system, store for up to four items, which can come and go, depending on availability of storage and attention, and secondary memory is the place where items from PM are displaced to. We can therefore observe how different the perspective between two approaches is. Individual approach derives from the multi-component theory, questions it and then observes how individuals differ in that system through looking at abilities in information maintanance and
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