Logie suggested the VSSP can be divided in the visual cache which stores information about form and colour and the inner scribe which deals with spatial and movement information.
The episodic buffer
this has a limited capacity, it integrates information from the CE,the PL and the VSSP as well as information from the long term memory. It can be said to be like the glue sticking all the pieces of information together.
The working memory differs from long term memory; long term memory is a separate part of the memory system with a vast storage capacity that hold information in a relatively more stable form.
Working memory is an explanation of how short term memory works. The episodic buffer was later added to the working memory to help explain how information is transferred from short term to long term memory.
The EB collects info from the CE,the PL and the VSSP and holds it temporarily. The episodic buffer combines this information and then its stored in the LTM.
The WM only explains how information is organised in the STM, the EB combined it to the long term.
Baddeley and Hitch showed that if you two things at the same and they are both visual task as then you perform less well than if you were doing these tasks separately. This is called the dual task technique.
However, if you do two things at the same time and one is visual using the VSSP. And the other involves sound using the PL then there is no interference. You do them as well simultaneously as you would do them separately
this suggests that there is one store for visual processing and one for processing sound as suggested by the WMM.
An evaluation point for WMM can be that brain scans support the WMM, Dolcus et al used fMRI scans to study the effects of dual task performance on brain activity. As the WMM says different areas of the pre frontal cortex were activated when performing two tasks affecting separate stores than when performing two tasks affecting the same store. This then supports the dual task nature of WM in an objective and scientific way.
Another piece of evidence supporting the WMM is the study done by Shallice and Warrington, they studied KF whose brain was injured in a motor cycle accident. This case study showed that STM works independently to the LTM as he had no problem with long term learning but some aspects of his STM were impaired. His brain damage seemed to be restricted to the phonological loop. This supports WMM as it is in the STM and consists of separate stores. Only his phonological loop was damaged leaving other stores intact. This adds validity as it has more credibility.
The WMM also accounts for a number of research findings not explained by the MSM,such as the dual task performance. Also the WMM doesn't over emphasise the role of rehearsal like the MSM. This supports the WMM.
Another possible supportive point for WMM is that it offers a better account of STM than the MSM. This is because it moves from describing STM as the unitary store to one with a number of components so provides a more detailed description of the STM. The WM makes sense so could be said to be higher in face validity when considering skills like verbal reasoning,comprehension , reading,problem solving and visual and spatial processing.
On the other hand there are some points which favour against the WMM, it could be said that the WMM is only concerned with the STM which means it is limited as it does not have information about all aspects of memory such as LTM.
It can also be said that he stores are poorly defines, for example the concept of the CE is too vague and doesn’t provide any detailed explanation. It has been argued that the notion of the CE is wrong and that there are probably several components within the CE. On the other hand this could be a positive point as this could lead to new research being started.
Levels of processing model:
it was suggested that enduring memories created by the processing that you do rather than through maintenance rehearsal. This model suggests that memory is explained better in terms of increasing depth of processing rather than separate stores.
It was proposed ha memory is just a by-product of the cognitive processing of information and there is no clear distinction between STM and LTM. They believe that information can be processed are a number of different levels. It is said that the more deeply info is processed the more likely t is to be trained and easier to recall.
There were two main assumptions made, one was that the level of depth of processing has substantial effect on ability to remember. And the second was that the deeper levels of analysis produce more elaborate,longer lasting and stronger memory traces than shallow levels of analysis.
Shallow processing :
these are when information is processed at a shallow level so encoding is based only on the physical qualities of something. It involves recognising information in terms of its physical appearance for e.g. the shape of an object. This will lead to worse recall than other levels as it has been superficially processed.
Deep processing:
the deepest level of processing involves analysing information in terms of its meaning, this is semantic processing and will lead to better recall. It involves elaborative rehearsal which requires a more meaningful analysis of information and leads to better recall for example giving word meaning. Researchers have tried to describe how we process information at a deeper level, one way is elaboration-information is expanded on in order to encode information at this level and create a LTM.
An evaluation point of the levels of processing (LOP's) is the research by Craik and Tulving, they found that P's recalled more words that were semantically processed compared to phonemically and visually processed words. These processed words involve shallow processing and less accurate and semantically processed words involve elaboration rehearsal and deep processing linking to better recall.
This supports the LOP's as it proves that semantically processed words link to a better and more accurate recall and creates a long term memory whereas the visually and phonemically processed words were not recalled as well because of structural processing.
Another point is that the levels of processing model led to deeper memory research. It showed that encoding was not a simple process. This widened the focus from seeing long term memory as a simple storage unit to seeing it as a complex processing system. This explanation of memory is useful in everyday life because it highlights the way in which elaboration can aid memory. This supports the LOP's.
Eysenck claimed that the LOP theory describes rather than explains. It was also argued that deep processing leads to better LTM than shallow processing. But they failed to provide a detailed reason as to why deep processing is so effective. This goes against the LOP's.
Another contradicting point to the LOP's is that the ideas of depth and elaboration are measure. It could be said that there is no way to measure the depth of processing. This can lead to the argument that it is predicted that deeply processed information will be remembered better but the measure of depth of processing is how well the information is remembered.
It could be said that the WMM and the LOP model are better at describing information processing than the MSM. They both try to emphasise on the idea that memory is dynamic rather than static.