Evaluate one study into the working memory model. - Scottish Highers Psychology - Question 3 (a) - 2019

One significant study into the working memory model was conducted by Hitch and Baddeley in 1976. The researchers aimed to investigate how the reliance on a secondary task affects the performance on a primary task, thereby shedding light on the working memory's structure.

In their experiment, participants were divided into two groups, one of which was asked to perform a type of reasoning task while also being given a memory span task. The second group only performed the reasoning task without the memory component. The study found that the group performing both tasks tended to perform worse on the reasoning task compared to the group that focused solely on reasoning.

This outcome supports the hypothesis that when working memory is taxed by an additional task, the efficiency of the main task diminishes. The mere presence of extraneous cognitive load can cause significant disturbances in cognitive performance, highlighting the limited capacity of the working memory system.

However, a limitation of this study is that participants were compensated to take part in the experiment, which might have introduced motivation-related biases. Those who were paid may have invested more effort into the tasks, thereby skewing the results. Additionally, the artificiality of the laboratory setting may not accurately reflect real-world scenarios, suggesting that findings need to be approached with caution.