Memory - MSM & WMM Flashcards
Explain the MSM
How information flows through the memory system.
- Stimulus through the environment goes to the sensory register
- If paid attention to it transfers to the STM which with prolonged rehearsal will transfer to the LTM
- Maintenance rehearsal is the loop used to remember information in your STM
- Retrieval is used to retrieve info from the LTM into the STM
- A response / remembering is then given from the STM
What is the capacity coding and duration of the 3 stores in the MSM
Sensory register - Ionic store = visually, echoic store = auditory, C = very large, D = less than 1/2 second
STM - Co = acoustically, Ca = 5-9 items, D = 18-30 seconds
LTM - Co = semantically, Ca & D = unlimited
Evaluate the MSM
✅ Supporting evidence for different memory stores. Baddley found that we mix up acoustically similar words in the STM and semantically similar in the LTM which supports the MSM’s views that the STM and LTM are separate
❌ Baddeley and Hitch developed the WMM as an explanation of the complexity of the STM. And a way of explaining some of the research findings that could not be accounted for by the MSM e.g parallel processing (multi tasking)
❌ Nomothetic vs Idiographic approach - The MSM is nomothetic as it is trying to create a universal model to explain the process of human memory. An idiographic approach uses examples of real life remembering which may result in a more complex & accurate picture of memory
Explain the WMM
Explains how the STM is organised
- The central executive drives the whole system & allocates data to slave systems
- The phonological loop has 2 sub stores the phonological store which stores what you hear and the Articulatory process which allows maintenance rehearsal to occur.
- The visuo-spatial sketchpad has 2 sub stores the inner scribe which records the arrangement of objects in the visual field and the visual cache which stores visual data
Explain the episodic buffer
Baddeley added this in 2000 as he felt the model was incomplete, it has a 4 chunk capacity and integrates visual, spacial and verbal info into episodes.
Evaluate the WMM
✅ Empirical evidence by Baddeley & Hitch - The dual task technique was used to investigate if ppts can use different parts of the WM at the same time. Required to do a digit span task and a verbal reasoning task e.g true or false questions. Findings = able to do both at once which supports the WMM
✅ Clinical evidence - case study of KF as he suffered brain damage from a motorcycle accident that damaged his STM. His impairment was mainly for verbal info as his visual info was largely unaffected. Shows that there are separate components to the WMM (VSS = visual and phonological = verbal)
❌Lieberman criticises the WMM as the VSS implies that all spacial evidence was first visual. However, blind people have excellent spatial awareness although they have never received any visual information. Argued that the VSS should be seperated into two components
