2.2 - Models Of Memory Flashcards
Who created the multi store model ?
Multi store model
What did Atkinson and shiffrin propose ?
Memory consists of 3 stores :
- sensory register
- short term store
- long term store
Info has to move through these stores to become a memory
What types of information goes into the sensory register ?
From the environment eg. Visual and auditory
How much capacity and duration does STM have ?
Finite
If information is processed further and rehearsed it can be transferred to long term memory
Displacement
information will disappear if new information enters and pushed the original information due to STM limited capacity
The primary effect - supporting study
- Participants are able to recall the first few items of a list better than those from the middle
- multi store model explains this because earlier items will have been rehearsed better and transferred to LTM
- rehearsal is prevented by an interfere task the effect disappears
Recency effect - supporting study
- participants tend to remember the last few items better than those from the middle of the list
- as STM has limited capacity of around 7 items the words in the middle of the list if not rehearsed are displaced from STM by the last few words heard
- these words are still in the STM at the end of the experiment and can be recalled
Korasakoffs syndrome - supporting study
- People with Korsakoff’s syndrome ( amnesia ) can recall the last items in a list suggesting an unaffected STM
- their LTM is very poor
- this supports the model by showing STM and LTM are different stores
Milner et al (1957) - supporting study
- carried out a case study on a patient called HM who had suffered from severe and frequent epilepsy
- his seizures were based in the hippocampus
- doctors decided to surgically remove part of the brain around this area
- operation reduced his epilepsy but led him to suffer from memory loss
- he could still form short term memories but was unable to form new long term memories
- supports the idea that different types of memory are separate systems in the brain
Limitation 1 of multi store model
- information is transferred from the STM to LTM through rehearsal
- in real life people don’t always spend time rehearsing yet they still transfer information into LTM
- rehearsal is not always needed for information to be stored and some items can’t be rehearsed
Limitation 2 of multi store model
- model is oversimplified
- it assumes there is only one long term store and one short term store
- this has been disproved by evidence from brain damaged patients suggesting several different short term stores and other evidence suggesting different long term stores
Who developed the multi store model ?
Baddeley and hitch
What did baddeley and Hitch name it ?
Working memory model
What did baddeley and Hitch propose that was different ?
The STM rather than being a single store is an active processor which contains several different stores
What is the central executive described as ?
Attention
What does the central executive control ?
Has limited capacity
Controls slave systems
Decides what working memory pays attention to
Phonological loop
- Holds speech based information
- made up of phonological store ( the inner ear ) and an articulating process ( inner voice which rehearsed information by repeating it )
- limited capacity
- deals with auditory information and preserves word order
Visuo- spatial sketch pad
Deals with temporary storage of visual and spatial information
Limited capacity
Stored in the inner ear
Visual= what things look like
Spatial = relationships between things
Episodic buffer
- Briefly store’s information from the other subsystems and integrates it together along with information from LTM to make complete scenes or episodes
- limited capacity
- general store
- buffers information
- added in 2000
What did baddeley and hitch base their model results from ?
Studies that used interference tasks
Interference tasks
- if participants are asked to perform two tasks simultaneously that use the same system their performance will be affected
- according to the working model both these tasks use the phonological loop this has limited capacity so it can’t deal with both tasks - performance will be affected
- if two tasks involve different systems performance isn’t affected on either task
Shallice & Warrington case study of KF - supporting study of the working model
- KF was a brain damaged patient who had an impaired STM
- problem = immediate recall of words presented verbally but not with visual information
- suggests he had an impaired articulately loop but an intact visuo-spatial sketch pad
- proposed STM was just one system
Gathercole & Baddedley (1993) lab study - supporting study of working model
- participants were split into 2 groups
- all had to carry out a task where they had to follow a moving spot of light - using the visuo-spatial sketch pad
- at the same time one group of participants also had to describe the angles on a letter - another task involving the visuo-spatial sketch pad
- the other group of participants were given a second task that would use the phonological loop - they had to do a verbal task whilst following the light
- Gathercole and Baddedly found that performance was much better in the participants doing tasks which used separate systems
Supporting evidence for working model
- model had less emphasis on rehearsal than the multi store model of memory
- rather than being the key process rehearsal is just one possible process in the working model
- thus this can help to explain why in real life some things end up in pit long term memory even though we haven’t rehearsed them - suggests other processes don’t work
