Alan David BaddeleyCBEFRS (born 23 March 1934) is a Britishpsychologist. He is known for his research on memory and for developing the three-component model ofworking memory. He is a professor of psychology at theUniversity of York.

Baddeley was born inLeeds, Yorkshire on 23 March 1934.^[1] He lived there with his parents, Donald and Nellie Baddeley, until leaving for university.^[2] He decided to study psychology and was originally interested inpsychoanalysis. Later he changed his focus to evidence-based psychology.^[3] In 1956, Baddeley went to the United States of America to continue his studies. After spending a year in America, he returned home. He then went to Cambridge, where he met and married Hilary Ann White. Baddeley and his wife have three sons.^[2]

Baddeley has taught and conducted research atUniversity of Sussex,University of Stirling, MRC Applied Psychology Unit,Churchill College,University of Cambridge, andUniversity of Bristol. He is currently a professor of psychology at theUniversity of York.^[4]

Baddeley attended theUniversity College London from 1953 to 1956. He then obtained an MA fromPrinceton University'sDepartment of Psychology in 1957. He earned a PhD fromUniversity of Cambridge in 1962.^[5] He has been awarded Honorary Doctorates byUniversity of Essex in 1999,^[6]Plymouth University in 2000,^[7] andUniversity of Bristol in 2019.^[8]

In 1974, working withGraham Hitch, Baddeley developed an influential model ofworking memory calledBaddeley's model of working memory,^[9] which argues for the existence of multiple short-term memory stores and a separate interacting system for manipulating the content of these stores. There are three components of this model: the phonological loop, the central executive, and the visuospatial sketch pad.^[9] In 2000, Baddeley suggested adding a fourth component to his memory model called the episodic buffer.^[10] The model accounts for much of the empirical data on short-term retention and manipulation of information.His landmark study in 1975 on the capacity of short-term memory^[11] showed that people remembered more short words than long words in a recall test. This was called the word length effect and it demonstrated that pronunciation time rather than number of items determines the capacity of verbal short-term memory. This study also found that when participants repeated an irrelevant sound while reading the words, the word length effect does not happen.^[11]

Working withBarbara Wilson, Baddeley also did several important studies on amnesia and memory.^[12][13] They studied patients with temporal lobe damage that caused memory problems. Results of such studies provide evidence that short-term and long-term memory are not one system. The amnesia patients had normal short-term memory but impaired long-term memory.^[14]

Baddeley has also done research studies using divers and various underwater conditions. He studied the effects of depth and pressure on dexterity,^[15] the impact of temperature on response time,^[16] andcontext-dependent memory on land and underwater.^[17]

Baddeley was the director of theCognition and Brain Sciences Unit, a branch of theUKMedical Research Council, based inCambridge, from 1974 - 1997.^[18] He was elected aFellow of the Royal Society in 1993^[19] and in 1996, was elected a Foreign Honorary Member of theAmerican Academy of Arts and Sciences.^[20] In 2001, Baddeley received theAmerican Psychological Association (APA) Award for Distinguished Scientific Contributions.^[21] Baddeley was given the Lifetime Achievement Award by theBritish Psychological Society in 2012.^[22] He also received the Major Advancement in Psychological Science Prize from theInternational Union of Psychological Science in 2016.^[23]

Baddeley has also part authored a number ofneuropsychological tests including theDoors and People,^[24] Children's Test ofNonword Repetition (CN REP),^[25] the Rivermead Behavioural Memory Test (RBMT),^[26] Autobiographical Memory Interview (AMI),^[27] Visual Patterns Test (VPT)^[28] and the Speed and Capacity of Language Processing Test (SCOLP).^[29]

Baddeley was involved in the design ofUnited Kingdom postcodes,^[30] and was one of the founders of theEuropean Society for Cognitive Psychology.^[31]

• Alan Baddeley on theHistory of Modern Biomedicine Research Group website

• 1934 births
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• Commanders of the Order of the British Empire
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