memory 2 Flashcards
Outline the sensory register aspect of the MSM.
A stimulus from the environment passes into the sensory register along with lots of other sensory information (sights, sounds, smells). There are five stores in the SR. One for each sense: auditory (echoic memory), visual (iconic memory), touch (tactile memory), smell (olfactory memory), taste (gustatory memory). Duration is very brief (less than one second). Capacity is high. Coding depends on the sense. Little information from the SR passes further into memory. You have to pay attention for the information to pass to STM.
How is information transferred from STM to LTM?
Maintenance rehearsal (repeating the information to yourself) keeps the information in STM. If the information is rehearsed for long enough it passes into LTM - prolonged rehearsal.
How are memories recalled in the MSM?
Information has to be transferred back to STM by a process called retrieval.
Give one strength and one limitation of the MSM. (KF study)
The MSM is supported by research showing STM and LTM are different. Baddely (1966) found that we tend to mix up words that sound similar when using our STMs but we tend to mix up words with similar meanings when using LTM. This clearly shows that coding in STM is acoustic and LTM is semantic. This supports the MSM’s view that these two memory stores are separate and independent.
A limitation is that evidence suggests there is more than one type of STM. Shallice and Warrington (1970) studied KF, a patient with amnesia. KF’s STM for digits was poor when read out loud to him. His recall was much better when he read the digits himself. The MSM suggests there is only one type of STM but the KF study suggests there must be one short term store to process visual information and another to process auditory information. The working memory model is a better explanation for this finding because it includes separate stores.
Give two limitations to the MSM. (other than KF study)
Another limitation of the MSM is that it only explains one type of rehearsal. Craik and Watkins (1973) argued there are two types of rehearsal - maintenance and elaborative. Maintenance is the one described in the MSM. But elaborative rehearsal is needed for long-term storage (linking information to your existing knowledge). This is a very serious limitation of the MSM as it is another research finding that cannot be explained by the model.
Another limitation is that research studies supporting the MSM use artificial materials. Researchers often asked participants to recall digits, letters. e.g. Peterson and Peterson asked participants to record syllables. These have no meaning/usefulness. In everyday life we form memories related to useful things and meaning - people’s faces, facts, places, etc. This suggests that the MSM lacks external validity. Research findings with meaningless material may not reflect how memory works in real life.
Outline the episodic memory of the LTM store.
Stores events (likened to a diary of daily happenings).
Episodic memories are complex.
Events are time-stamped (you remember when they happened).
They involve several elements (people, places, behaviours all in one memory).
You have to make a conscious effort to recall them.
Outline the semantic memory of the LTM store.
Stores our knowledge of the world (the meaning of words, taste of an orange, make of a car).
The memories are not time stamped.
You do not normally remember when you gained the knowledge.
The knowledge is less personal - more to do with knowledge that everyone can share.
Outline the procedural memory of LTM.
Stores memories for actions and skills.
Memories of how we do things (riding a bike, playing a sport).
Recall occurs without awareness or effort.
It is hard to explain these actions or skills as they are recalled without conscious awareness.
Give three strengths about research into the types of LTM.
A strength of episodic memory is that it is supported by case study evidence. Clinical studies of amnesia (HM and Clive Wearing) showed both had difficulty recalling events that had happened to them in the past. However, their semantic memories were relatively unaffected (e.g. HM would not recall stroking a dog 30 mins previously but he knew the concept of a dog). This supports the view that there are different memory stores in the LTM as one store can be damaged but the others remain unaffected.
A strength is that brains scan studies show that there are different LTM stores. Tulving et al. (1994) had participants perform various memory tasks while their brains were scanned with a PET scanner. Episodic and semantic memories were in the prefrontal cortex; semantic in the left and episodic in the right hand side. This shows a physical reality in the brain to different types of LTM which has been confirmed in many research studies, supporting its validity.
A strength is that identifying different LTM stores has real-life applications. Psychologists can target certain kinds of memory in order to improve people’s lives. Belleville et al. (2006) found that episodic memories can be improved in older people with mild cognitive impairments. Training to improvements compared to the control group. This highlights the benefit of distinguishing between different types of LTM - it allows specific treatments to be developed.
Give two limitations about research into the types of LTM.
A limitation of Tulving’s approach is that there may be only two types of LTM. Cohen and Squire (1980) argued that episodic and semantic memories are stored together in one LTM store called declarative memory (memories that can be consciously recalled). Cohen and Squire agree that procedural memory is a distinctly different kind of memory to semantic/episodic, and called it non-declarative. It is important to get the distinction between semantic and episodic memories right because the way we define them influences how memory studies are conducted.
A limitation is that there are problems with clinical evidence. Evidence is often based on clinical cases (e.g. HM and Clive Wearing) about what happens when memory is damaged. There is a serious lack of control of different variables in these studies. So it is difficult to generalise from these case studies to determine the exact nature of LTM.
