Memory: Models of Memory

Question 1

Outline the Multi-Store Model (MSM).

Answer 1

Proposes that memory consists of three stores - a sensory register, a STM store and LTM store, and information has to move through these stores to become a memory.

Information from our environment (e.g. visual or auditory) initially goes into he sensory register. You don’t really notice it, but if you pay attention to it or think about it, the info will pass into the STM.

STM has a limited capacity and duration. But if it’s processed further (rehearsed) then it can be transferred to LTM. In theory, the info can then remain there forever.

Question 2

Evaluation of the MSM?

Answer 2

(+) Research support
- including the primacy effect, the recency effect, people with Korsakoff’s Syndrome, or Milner et al (1957)’s case study on HM’s hippocampus removal
(Take your pick!)

(-) In real life, rehearsal is not always needed for info to be stored and some items can’t be rehearsed (e.g. smells), however in the model information is transferred from the STM to LTM via rehearsal.

(-) Oversimplified — assumes there’s only one long-term store and one short-term store. This has been disproved by evidence from brain-damaged patients, suggesting different STM stores, and other evidence suggesting different long-term stores.

Question 3

Outline the Working Memory Model (WMM).

Answer 3

Proposed that the STM, rather than being a single store, is an active processor which contains several different stores.

The central executive is a key component, and can be described as attention.
It has a limited capacity and controls ‘slave’ systems that also have a limited capacity:

• the phonological loop holds speech-based info, and is made up of the phonological store (inner ear) and an articulatory process (the inner voice, which rehearses info by repeating it)
• the visuo-spatial sketchpad deals with he temporary storage of visual and spatial information
• the episodic buffer, which was added in 2000, briefly stores info from the other subsystems and integrates it together, along with info from LTM, to make complete scenes or ‘episodes’

Question 4

Strengths of the WMM?

Answer 4

(+) Supported by KF case study (Shallice and Warrington, 1974):
KF was a brain-damaged patient who had an impaired STM. He had problems immediately recalling words presented verbally, but not with visual info. Suggests he had an impaired articulatory loop but an intact visuo-spatial sketchpad, providing evidence they’re different things.

(+) WMM has less emphasis on rehearsal than MSM — rather than being the key process, rehearsal is just once possible process in the WMM. This can therefore help to explain why, in real life, some things end up in our LTM even though we haven’t rehearsed them.

Question 5

Weaknesses of the WMM?

Answer 5

(-) Some psychologists thing Baddeley and Hitch’s idea of a central executive is simplistic and vague. Their model doesn’t really explain exactly what the central executive is, apart form being involved in attention. However, it’s difficult to design tasks to test the central executive (so it’s not very falsifiable).

(-) The model only explains how info is dealt with in STM. It doesn’t explain how info is transferred to LTM.

(-) Much of the research supporting the WMM has been lab studies — this reduces the ecological validity of evidence, as highly controlled studies might not be representative of what happens in the real world.