Alan Baddeley
British psychologist of working memory
British psychologist who worked at Cambridge, Bristol and York. With Graham Hitch he proposed the multicomponent model of working memory in 1974 and later added a fourth component, the episodic buffer.
Why this person matters
The Baddeley and Hitch model replaced the single short-term store with separate components for speech-based and visual information plus a controlling system. The University of Bristol reports that their 1974 paper has been cited more than 10,000 times.
Main contributions
Working memory model
With Graham Hitch in 1974 he described three components: the phonological loop, the central executive and the visuospatial sketchpad. In 2000 he suggested adding the episodic buffer.
Studies of amnesia
With Barbara Wilson he studied amnesic patients with temporal lobe damage whose short-term memory was normal but whose long-term memory was impaired, which suggested that these are separate systems.
Word length effect
His 1975 study described the word length effect in short-term recall.
Context and limits
The model was revised by its authors, since the episodic buffer was added in 2000. The sources read do not discuss criticisms or rival models, so these are not assessed here. His other work included studies of divers under depth and pressure conditions.
In your introductory course
Memory.Appears in the memory chapter in the section on short-term and working memory, where the model's components are named.
Related course reading: Psychology 2e, section 8.1. This is course context rather than a biographical source.
Years of active work
- 1974
Proposed the working memory model with Graham Hitch.
- 1975
Published work describing the word length effect.
- 1993
Elected a Fellow of the Royal Society.
- 1995
Became a professor at the University of Bristol.
- 2000
Added the episodic buffer to the working memory model.
Sources
- University of Bristol, Professor Alan Baddeley, honorary graduate 2019University. Institutional biography inspected.
- University of York, National accolade for York memory expert (2012)University. Institutional biography inspected.
- Wikipedia, Alan BaddeleyReference work. Reference article inspected.