What pattern of performance would indicate a selective phonological loop impairment but intact Episodic Buffer?

• A. All cognitive tasks impaired
• B. Poor verbal recall and interference in phonological tasks, while ability to bind multimodal information into episodes using the episodic buffer remains relatively intact
• C. Intact phonological loop but impaired episodic buffer
• D. Broad impairment across all WM components

Answer: (B)

Selective impairment of the phonological loop with an intact episodic buffer is what this item is about. In Baddeley’s working memory model, the phonological loop holds verbal-auditory information through a phonological store and subvocal rehearsal. If this subsystem is damaged, tasks that depend on keeping and refreshing verbal material—such as repeating sequences of digits or words—show clear deficits, and interference effects occur when similar-sounding items crowd the store. The episodic buffer, on the other hand, binds information from different sources into coherent episodes. If this buffer remains functioning, the ability to integrate and bind multimodal information into episodes stays relatively intact even when verbal short-term memory is compromised. So the pattern described—poor verbal recall and phonological interference alongside preserved multimodal binding into episodic representations—fits a selective phonological loop impairment with an intact episodic buffer.