Evaluation : memory Flashcards
What is a strength of the multi-store model?
Research support for separate stores
- Research support for the idea of Long term memory and short - term memory being different and separate stores provided by baddley (1966)
- In his study on coding he gave participants 1 of 4 lists of words to remember and he found that acoustically similar words were harder to recall immediately and semantically similar words were harder to recall after 20mins.
- It was concluded that acoustic confusion was occuring in STM and semantic confusion in LTM, suggesting STM codes acoustically and LTM semantically. - found that STM codes acoustically and LTM semantically
shows that the two different types of memory are two different entities
What is the a weakness of research into the MSM?
Counterpoint : Artifical Stimuli/Tasks
- Despite such apparent support, in everyday life we form memories related to all sorts of useful things – peoples faces, their names, facts, places, et cetera.
- But many of the studies that support the multi store model use none of these materials. Instead they use digits, letters, and sometimes words. They even use what’s known as consonant syllables that have no meaning.
This means that the multi store model may not be an accurate or valid model of how memory works in our everyday lives, where we have to remember much more meaningful information than is often used in research studies.
What is the weakness of Multi-store model?
Different types of short term memory
- The MSM states that STM is a unitary store i.e. there is only one type. However evidence from patients suffering from amnesia suggests that this is not true.
- Shallice and Warrington (1970) studies a patient known as KF.
- KFs STM for digits was very poor when they read them aloud to him, but his recall was much better when he was able to read digits to himself. This suggests that there is more than one ST store - one for sounds and one for images.
- SUch research challenges the MSM as it shows that there must be at least 2 types of short-term store, rather than just 1 unitary store as the model suggests.
What is a weakness of the multi-store model?
Outdated model
- Atkinson and Shiffrin Based the multi store model on the evidence available at the time that showed short-term memory and long term memory to be single memory stores, separate and independent from each other.
- However there is a lot of research evidence that long-term memory, like short-term memory is not a single memory store. For example, we have one long-term store for our memories of facts about the world, and we have a different one for our memories of how to ride a bicycle.
- Combined with research showing that there is more than one type of short-term memory and even more than one type of rehearsal, this suggests that the multi store model is an oversimplified and outdated model of memory.
What is a strength of the research into coding, capacity and duration?
(Bahrick)
High External Validity in Bahrick’s study
- This is because the researchers investigated meaningful memories (i.e. of people’s names and faces).
When other research has been conducted with meaningless pictures, recall rates were lower.
This suggests that Bahrick et al’s findings reflect a more ‘real’ estimate of the duration of LTM.
What is a weakness of the research into coding,capacity and duration?
Artficial stimuli in the peterson’s study
- Although not completely irrelevant because we do sometimes try to remember fairly meaningless material (e.g. phone numbers, postcodes).
Recalling trigrams does not reflect most everyday memory activities where what we are trying to remember is meaningful.
This means the study lacked external (ecological) validity as it may not be possible to generalise findings to real life.
What is a strength of research into the types of long term memory?
Strength : research support from clinical evidence
Supporting from clinical studies of patients with amnesia.
- HM and Clive Wearing, both sufferers of amnesia. HM displayed normal functioning in his semantic memory (e.g. He understood the concept of a dog), but impaired functioning in their episodic memory (could not remember having owned a dog).
- Clive Wearing was a professional musician and could play the piano without difficulty, however could not remember having learnt to play, suggesting an impaired episodic memory but functioning procedural memory.
Both of these cases support the idea of a clear separation of different types of LTM.
What is a weakness of research into the types of long term memory?
Counterpoint : Clinical evidence
However, although studying people with brain injuries can help researchers to understand how memory is supposed to work normally, clinical studies are by no means perfect.
- One major limitation is that they lack control of variables. The brain injuries experienced by participants were usually unexpected, which means the researcher had no way of controlling what happened to the participant before or during the injury. Equally, the researcher has no knowledge of what their memory was like before the damage.
Without this information, it is difficult to judge exactly how much worse it is afterwards, which limits what clinical studies can tell us about different types of LTM.
What is a strength of research into the types of long term memory?
Strength : suppport from Neuroimaging research
There is also evidence from brain scan studies that different types of memory are stored in different parts of the brain.
- Tulving et al. (1994) asked their participants to perform various tasks whilst scanning their brain with a PET scanner.
- They found that semantic memories involved the left prefrontal cortext whilst episodic memories involved the right prefrontal cortex.
- Supports Tulving’s theory as it shows there is a physical reality to the different LTM stores.
These findings have been confirmed many times in later research, further supporting the validity of the finding.
What is a strength of research into the types of long term memory?
Strength: Real life Applications
Understanding different types of memory allows for the development of helpful real world applications.
- Belleville et al. (2006) compared the performance of older people suffering with a mild cognitive impairment who received memory training with that of a control group who did not.
- It was found that participants in the experimental group performed better on a test of episodic memory.
This suggests that being able to identify different types of LTM can provide psychologists with the opportunity to improve people’s lives though devising appropriate treatments.
What is a strength of research into the working memory model?
Strength: Research support
A strength of the working memory model is that studies of dual task performance support the separate existence of the visuospatial sketch pad and phonological loop.
- When Baddeley et al’s (1975) participants carried out a visual and verbal task at the same time (dual task), their performance on each was similar to when they tried to carry out the task separately.
- But when both tasks were visual (or both were verbal), performance on both declined substantially. This is because both visual tasks compete for the same slave subsystem, whereas there is no competition when performing a verbal and visual task together.
This shows there must be a separate slave system (the visual spatial sketch pad) that processes visual input and one for verbal processing, the phonological loop, each with a limited capacity.
What is a strength of research into the working memory model?
Strength : Clinical Evidence
Support for the WMM comes from the case study of Patient KF, who was injured in a motorcycle accident.
- Following his accident, KF was able to recall stored information from his LTM; however, he had issues with his STM.
- He was able to remember visual images, including faces, but was unable to remember sounds (acoustic information). This suggests that there are at least two components within STM, one component for visual information and one for acoustic information.
The research into KF supports the WMM and the idea of two slave systems, the phonological loop and the visuo‐spatial sketchpad, therefore providing support to the WMM and the idea of a multi‐component STM system.
What is a weakness of research into the working memory model?
Weakness : Clinical Evidence: Counterpoint
However, it is unclear whether KF had other cognitive impairments (apart from the damage to his phonological loop) which might have affected his performance on memory tasks.
- For example, his injury was caused by a motorcycle accident. The trauma involved may have affected his cognitive performance quite apart from any brain injury.
This challenges evidence that comes from clinical studies of people with brain injuries that may have affected many different systems.
What is a weakness of research into the working memory model?
Weakness : The Nature of the central Executive
Critics have suggested that there lack clarity over the Central executive.
* Baddeley states this is the most important part of the model and yet the least understood -
* For example, some psychologists believe it may consist of separate components. E.g. Esslinger & Damasio studied patient EVR who after undergoing brain surgery was unable to make even the simplest decisions but could reason, both of which are functions of the CE.
Such research suggests that the WMM remains incomplete and that more research needs to be conducted to elaborate further e.g. Is the CE in fact made up of several stores as the research above suggests?
What is a strength of research into inteference?
Strength : research support
one strength of interfrence is that there is evidence for its effect in real life situations
* Baddley and Hitch (1977) asked rugby players to recall the names of teams they had played against during a rugby season. The players all played for the same time interval ( over one season) but the number of intervening games varied because some players missed matches due to injury. They found that players who played the most games had the poorest recall.
This study shows that interference can operate in at least some real world situations increasing the validity of theory
