memory: multi store

Question 1

who proposed the multi-store model of memory?

Answer 1

Atkinson + Shiffrin 1968

Question 2

what does the msm consist of?

Answer 2

sensory register, short term memory and long term memory

Question 3

what is it meant by sensory experience?

Answer 3

something we have seen, heard, touched etc. first enters the sensory register/memory where it is held for a brief moment before it decays

Question 4

where is attempted information transferred to?

Answer 4

from the sensory register, it is transferred to stm, information is held for around 30 seconds before it decays, unless it is rehearsed to maintain the information for a longer period of time

Question 5

from the stm, where can information be transferred?

Answer 5

to long-term permanent storage in the ltm

Question 6

how has sensory register been researched?

Answer 6

visual sensory register has been research using a whole or partial report technique (Sperling 1960/63) in which a visual array of letters is presented via a tachistoscope (a device used to present information in a controlled way) for a brief moment and then a direction is given to recall the whole or a specific row of the array.
ppts recalled on average 4.32 letters of the whole array.
this shows that sensory register can hold only limited amount of information for only a few hundred milliseconds before it is lost

Question 7

what happens to the information that enters stm?

Answer 7

• it is held temporarily for 15-30 seconds and then decays unless it is maintained through rehearsal

Question 8

who investigated the duration of the stm? how was it done?

Answer 8

• Peterson + Peterson 1959
• used an interference task to prevent rehearsal. ppts required to remember single trigram of three consonants for intervals of 3, 6, 9, 12, 15 and 18 secs. trigram was read out and ppts then given number from which they had to count backwards in threes e.g. 679, 676, 673. correct recall of trigram was likely after short interval but performance **dropped rapidly after 15-18 secs.
• concluded that decay occurs in stm over period of 15 secs

Question 9

what is capacity? what is the capacity of stm?

Answer 9

• capacity: amount of information that can be stored by memory system
• Miller 1956 showed that stm is limited to around 7 items of information
• ’Magic number seven, plus or minus two’
• can view stm as series of between 7 to 9 slots in which information can be stored

Question 10

what is primacy- recency effect?

Answer 10

• Glanzer + Cunitz 1966 found support for msm in their study. using word lists they found that first words in the list were recalled well, as were the last words, but middle words were not remembered well. they said information learned first (primacy effect) is well remembered as it has gone into ltm through rehearsal loop
• information learned at the end (recency effect) is well remembered as it is still in the rehearsal loop and therefore available for immediate recall but information in middle is not well remembered as it did not go from rehearsal loop into ltm as it was displaced by new material coming into loop (therefore information was lost - forgotten)

Question 11

what is encoding? how is information encoded in stm?

Answer 11

• encoding: transforming sensory experience into form that can be held/used by memory system
• Atkinson + Shiffrin: memory trace in stm was held in auditory or verbal form because of phonological similarity effect: letters and words of similar sound presented to ppts are more difficult to recall than dissimilar sounding letters and words. similarity of sounds leads to confusion in stm suggesting encoding in this store is primarily acoustic (auditory or verbal)

Question 12

how is information retrieved from the stm?

Answer 12

• based on rapid scanning of stored information
• rehearsal important for maintaining information in stm, increasing strength of memory trace and ultimately building up memory trace in ltm
• digit span experiments suggest we are able to maintain between 5 and 9 times using rehearsal
• as more information is input into store, other information is knocked out (displaced) and quickly decays

Question 13

how is information transferred between stm and ltm?

Answer 13

• in order to transfer information, we must use ltm to make sense of information and assign it a verbal label.
• transfer of information from st to lt store can be as a result of rehearsal, although this would leave relatively weak memory trace
• stronger memory trace can be achieved by using mental operation, e.g. mnemonic to increase strength of transfer

Question 14

how can information be retrieved from ltm?

Answer 14

• Atkinson + Shiffrin believed ltms exist for all sensory modalities - memories of taste, sound, smells etc.
• said thatmultiple copies of memory were retained in ltm, not just single memory trace.
• Tip-of-the-tongue phenomenon by Brown + McNeill 1968 supports idea as they showed people were able to accurately predict that they could recognise correct answer even if they could not recall answer at time

Question 15

how is information encoded in ltm?

Answer 15

• encoding can depend on rehearsal process or some form of association between new and pre-existing knowledge
• if information is linked to pre-existing knowledge it makes search for information easier
• random search for such large store would be exhaustive
• encoding in ltm is semantic - encode the meaning

Question 16

what is the duration of ltm?

Answer 16

• potentially a lifetime
• Bahrick 1975 found identification of names and faces in ppts High School Yearbook was between 70%-80% accurate 48 years after leaving school

Question 17

what is the capacity of ltm?

Answer 17

• potentially infinite
• Brady 2008 showed ppts 2500 objects over course of 5.5 hours. later when ppts were shown original object paired with very different object, identification was 92% and if different object was similar identification was 88% - demonstrating thousands of images can be maintained successfully in ltm

Question 18

strengths: supporting theories

Answer 18

• evidence for case studies that offer physiological support for msm. Henry Molaison suffered amnesia following brain surgery for epilepsy, resulting in severe impairment to ltm but stm was largely intact (shown by digit-span test). case study shows that stm and ltm were differentially affected by brain damage caused, perhaps as they are located in different regions of brain. HM was unable to transfer information from stm to ltm. supports distinction proposed by msm
• Glanzer + Cunitz primacy - recency effect: scientific and offer support for msm as reliable - repeated often and being well controlled, are replicable
• difference between coding used by ltm and stm indicates they have separate stores. Baddeley 1966 conducted lab experiment on sequential recall of ten words in a lost either acoustically (sound similar) or semantically (have similar meaning). found that semantically related words were more difficult to recall from ltm compared to acoustically, suggesting encoding in stm and ltm was different. similar sounding letters and words are less well recalled than dissimilar sounds letters and words - suggesting there is acoustic coding in stm

Question 19

weaknesses: opposing evidence/other things

Answer 19

• case studies are unique and brain injury suffered is also unique, may be difficult to generalise findings based on individual cases alone
• msm too simplistic: e.g. Clive Wearing couldn’t recall past events in life but could remember how to play piano. suggests ltm is not a single store but we have different ltm stores for procedural memory of practised skills and abilities and other long term stores for factual information and autobiographical events
• msm criticised for emphasis given to rehearsal from stm to ltm. it is not essential for permanent learning to take place. using imagery is one such example of memory strategy that leaves strong ltm trace without need for rehearsal

Question 20

weaknesses: different theories

Answer 20

working memory model: Baddeley + Hitch 1974 proposed stm has 3 components central executive, phonological loop and visuospatial sketchpad and not just one system suggested by msm. can be argued working memory model is not ‘just’ model but continues to use neurophysiological evidence to evolve and refine model