MEMORY Flashcards
who proposed the multi store model of memory
Atkinson and Shiffrin (1968)
what is the purpose of the sensory register
The SR is where information from the senses is stored, but only for a duration of approximately half a second before it is forgotten.
if the information is payed attention too it moves into the short term memory (stm)
what is semantic coding
it is in which the meaning of something is encoded as opposed to the sound or vision of it. Research suggests that we have better memory for things we associate meaning to and store using semantic encoding.
what is acoustic coding
when something is encoded as a sound
what is the capacity of STM
7 +/- 2 items
what is the duration of STM
18 seconds
what is the capacity of LTM
Unlimited
what is the duration of LTM
Unlimited
how does LTM encode information
Mainly Semantic (but can be visual and auditory)
how does STM encode information
mainly auditory
how does the sensory register encode information
sense specific (e.g. different stores for each sense)
evaluate the multi store model
Glanzer and Cunitz showed that when participants are presented with a list of words, they tend to remember the first few and last few words and are more likely to forget those in the middle of the list, i.e. the serial position effect.
This supports the existence of separate LTM and STM stores because they observed a primacy and recency effect.
strengths of MSM
One strength of the multistore model is that is gives us a good understanding of the structure and process of the STM. This is good because this allows researchers to expand on this model.
weaknesses of MSM
The model is oversimplified, in particular when it suggests that both short-term and long-term memory each operate in a single, uniform fashion. We now know is this not the case.
research into interference
often artificial research cant be applied to real life
