Are there specialised mechanisms for working memory?

When considering memory, there are still major debates concerning the nature and
location of its systems. There has been a wide variety of research on the topic of
memory, and the evidence provided has not been entirely conclusive. With the
question of specialised mechanisms for working memory, one can look at the
potential subsystems in the working memory model proposed by Baddeley, or
whether there is a specialised mechanism for working memory, which is distinct from
long term memory. Each of these will be discussed in turn.

Firstly, Baddeley and Hitch (1974) decided that the concept of the short term store
should be replaced with that of working memory, and this has been highly influential.
They stated that working memory is not unitary and consists of subsystems, which
make up a tripartite system: a modality free central executive resembling attention, an
articulatory loop (phonological loop) holding information in a speech based form, and
a visuo-spatial sketchpad specialised for spatial and/or visual coding. Here, the key
component is the central executive, which has a limited capacity and deals with any
cognitively demanding task. The phonological loop and visuo-spatial sketchpad are
slave systems, which are used by the central executive for specific purposes.
Therefore, there is the idea that every component of the working memory system has
a limited capacity, and is relatively independent of the other components. The
evidence for this comes in the form of dual-task studies, where if two tasks use the
same component, then they cannot be performed successfully together, however, if
the two tasks used different components, such as the articulatory loop and a visual
aspect of the visuo-spatial sketchpad, and then the task is able to be completed
successfully.

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