Memory Flashcards
A01: Who created the Multi-Store Model of Memory (MSM), and what is it?
Atkinson and Shiffrin (1968). It is a theoretical cognitive model of how the memory system processes information. It contains three stores: the sensory register, short-term memory and long-term memory.
A01: Define the first memory store in the Multi-Store Model of Memory (MSM).
Sensory Register (SR). This store receives raw sense impressions; information is passed to STM via
attention. Coding = Modality specific
(depends on the sense). Capacity = very large; includes all sense impressions in each moment.
Duration = very short; 250ms for
vision, but varies per store.
A01: Define the second memory store of the Multi-Store Model of Memory (MSM).
Short Term Memory (STM) is a temporary and active store. It receives information from sensory register (attention), and receives information from LTM (retrieval).
Keeps info in STM (maintenance rehearsal) or passes to LTM (elaborative rehearsal). Coding =
acoustic. Duration = 18-30 secs.
Capacity = 7(+/- 2) items.
A01: Explain how information travels through the Multi-Store Model of
Memory (MSM).
Sensory Register receives raw sense impressions from the environment.
Information that is paid attention is passed to the STM, while information not paid attention to is lost.
Information is held in STM via maintenance rehearsal, or passed to LTM (elaborative rehearsal).
Information not passed LTM is lost.
Information that is in LTM is passed to
STM via retrieval.
A01: Explain two additional aspects of the Multi-Store Model of Memory (MSM).
1) It is a linear model; this means information flows through the system in one direction. 2) Passive stores: the stores of the MSM simply hold on to information before being passed on or lost.
A03: Outline Sperling’s support of the duration of the Sensory Register.
When asked to recall all letters,
Sperling found participants could only recall the first 4-5 letters, suggesting the letters faded from sensory memory quickly, before they could be paid attention to and passed to the STM. Suggesting duration of sensory memory is < 1sec.
A01:Define the third memory store of the Multi-Store Model of Memory (MSM).
Long-Term Memory (LTM).
Information enters LTM from STM via rehearsal. To use information, it is passed to STM (retrieval). Coding = semantic (in the form of meaning).
Duration = very long duration /
permanent. Capacity = theoretically
unlimited (forgotten info appears inaccessible.
A03: Outline Jacobs’ (1887) support of one aspect of the Multi-Store Model of
Memory (MSM).
Jacobs (1887) investigated the capacity of the STM. He found recall for lists of letters was on average 7, and 9 for numbers, suggesting a limited capacity of STM. However, capacity can be improved by chunking, which is making small sets / groups of items.
A03: Outline Baddeley’s (1966) research on the coding of the STM.
Baddeley gave four 10-word lists to 4 participant groups. Word lists were acoustically similar or dissimilar, semantically similar or dissimilar. He found immediate recall was worse for the acoustically similar words. This suggests STM is coded acoustically.
A03: Outline Baddeley’s (1966) research on the coding of the LTM
Baddeley gave four 10-word lists to 4 participant groups. Word lists were acoustically similar or dissimilar, semantically similar or dissimilar. He found recall after a delay of 20 mins was worse with the semantically similar words. This suggests LTM is coded semantically.
A03: Outline Peterson and Peterson’s
(1959) support of one aspect of the Multi-Store Model of Memory (MSM).
Peterson and Peterson (1959)
investigated the duration of STM.
They gave participants three letter trigrams (e.g., HFR, TKD) at the same time as asking participants to perform an interference task (to stop maintenance rehearsal). They found recall was less than 10% after 18 seconds. Suggesting STM duration is very short
A03: Outline Wagnaar’s (1986) support of one aspect of LTM.
Wagnaar (1986) investigated the capacity of the LTM store. He created a diary (2400 events over six years.
He tested himself on events and found 75% recall after one year and 45% after five years. Suggesting a very large capacity, potentially limitless
A03: Outline Bahrick’s (1975) support of one aspect of LTM.
Bahrick (1975) investigated the duration of LTM. He found recall of school friends from photographs was 90% after 15 years, and recall was still 80% for names after 48 years.
Suggesting the duration of LTM is potentially limitless.
A03: Why may the MSM be too simplistic an explanation of memory?
The MSM sees each store as a single unit. However, there seem to be different types of LTM, and the WMM explains STM as a much more active system with multiple stores.
A03: Why may the features of the STM not be fixed as suggested by the MSM?
The Capacity of STM can be altered significantly by factors such as age and practice, so the view of STM capacity as fixed is incorrect.
