2.1.1-.4 Memory- MSM (1968)

Question 1

Proposed by?

Answer 1

Atkinson and Shifrin (1968)

Question 2

What is meant by information being processed in a linear fashion?

Answer 2

Information is processed through a system in a set order, such as encoding, storing, and retrieving.

Question 3

List the 3 main sections of MSM in order.

Answer 3

1. Sensory store
2. STM
3. LTM

Question 4

State the capacity, duration, and type of encoding for the sensory store.

Answer 4

Capacity = 4 items
Duration = 1/2 a second
Encoding = all modalities
Iconic, Echoic, and other stores

Question 5

How is information lost in the sensory store?

Answer 5

Through decay or for not being paid attention to in the first place.

Question 6

How does information move from the sensory store to short term memory?

Answer 6

If it is paid attention to.

Question 7

State the capacity, duration, and type of encoding for the short term memory.

Answer 7

Capacity = 5-9 items, ‘magic number 7 +/- 2’ Miller (1956)
Duration = 18-30 seconds Lloyd + Peterson (1959)
>Can be incr by maintenance rehearsal
Encoding = acoustic Baddeley(1966)

Question 8

How does information stay in short term memory?

Answer 8

Through repetition of items in the rehearsal loop.

Question 9

How is information lost in the short term memory?

Answer 9

Through decay from not rehearsing enough or displacement when capacity of items reaches the max.

Question 10

How does information move back and forth between short term memory and long term memory?

Answer 10

Prolonged rehearsal- info from STM transferred to LTM
Retrieval, info from LTM retrieved to STM

Question 11

Using an example, briefly summarise Miller’s (1956) theory of ‘chunking’.

Answer 11

More information can be recalled by grouping similar items together to reduce a larger capacity down to smaller groups,
> eg. splitting an 11 digit phone number into 3 sections.

Question 12

State the capacity, duration, and type of encoding for the long term memory.

Answer 12

Capacity = almost unlimited
Duration = infinite
Encoding = episodic and semantic

Question 13

How is information lost in the long term memory?

Answer 13

Through decay of not being retrieved enough to rehearse or if there is retrieval/transfer failure.

Question 14

EACH-Evidence

Answer 14

P - Research from Clive Wearing’s case study supports
E - He suffers from retrograde amnesia, had functioning STM, but can’t form new long term memories
E - This supports the MSM proposal of separate stores in memory encoding, rather than a single unitary store for memory storage
P - Peterson and Peterson (1959) supports
E - Ppts were told to remember nonsense trigrams (e.g. BNV) and they found that after 3 seconds 80% of trigrams were recalled but after 18 seconds less than 10% were recalled
E - Therefore this supports the existence of rehearsal aiding memory during the 3 seconds and the process of decay after an extended period at 18 seconds

Question 15

EACH-Application

Question 16

EACH- Criticisms

Answer 16

P-Reductionist
E- Case of HM, was unable to store new events into LTM, but could learn new skills egpursuit rotor task, he was unable to remember seeing the disc before, but each time he gained more accuracy when practising
E-W, MSM is reductionist as it assumes that LTM is a single unitary store, however for HM to gain accurcy in the task but not remeber the disc, suggests that he forms a different type of LTM- explained by WMM so MSM may be underdeveloped

Question 17

EACH-How?

Answer 17

P-Low eco V
E- Uses lab exps eg Peterson & Peterson 1959 used artifical task of useless traigrams
W- Tasks are artificial, in real life we recall info thats important to us in our memory, so model cant explain how memory works in real life situations