memory - multi store model

Question 1

who created the multi store model of memory

Answer 1

atkinson and shiffrin

Question 2

what are the features of the msm

Answer 2

• linear model as information flows in one direction
• passive stores which hold onto to information before being passed on or lost

Question 3

what are the three stores in the msm

Answer 3

• sensory register
• short term memory
• long term memory

Question 4

what are the features of each store in the msm

Answer 4

• encoding
• capacity
• duration

Question 5

what is meant by encoding

Answer 5

the different information formats the brain uses to store memory

Question 6

what is meant by capacity

Answer 6

how much information can be held in a store

Question 7

what is meant by duration

Answer 7

how long information is held in the store before it is lost

Question 8

what happens at the sensory register

Answer 8

information comes in from the senses and is passed onto the stm by paying attention

Question 9

what is the encoding of the sensory register

Answer 9

the store depends on the sense organ the information comes from so it is modality specific

Question 10

what is the capacity of the sensory register

Answer 10

it is very large because it has to contain all sense impressions

Question 11

what is the duration of the sensory register

Answer 11

very short as low as 250 milliseconds

Question 11

what happens at the short term memory

Answer 11

information is passed on to the ltm by rehearsal. this can either be maintenance which is repeating information or elaborative which is linking to info already in the ltm

Question 12

what is the encoding of the short term memory

Answer 12

info is stored acoustically

Question 13

what is the capacity of the short term memory

Answer 13

miller - suggested this is 7 plus or minus 2 however it can be improved by chunking to reduce the number of items overall

Question 14

what is the duration of the short term memory

Answer 14

short ( 18-30 seconds ) however can be extended by verbal rehearsal

Question 15

what happens in the long term memory

Answer 15

information is passed back to the stm via retrieval however the info can be lost via displacement ( replaced with new info ) or decay ( lost over time )

Question 16

what is the encoding of the long term memory

Answer 16

info is stored semantically

Question 17

what is the capacity of the long term memory

Answer 17

no limit has been found

Question 18

what is the duration of the long term memory

Answer 18

potentially unlimited as recall of child hood events is normal even for old people

Question 19

what was glanzer and cuntizs research into stm and ltm

Answer 19

asked participants to free recall a word list in any order

Question 20

what were the findings of glanzer and cunitzs research into stm and ltm

Answer 20

recall was much stronger for words that were at the start and end of the list

Question 21

what do glanzer and cunitz findings suggest about stm and ltm

Answer 21

that they are separate stores as the words at the start of the list have entered the LTM and the words and the end have entered the STM

Question 22

what is sperlings research into the capacity of the sensory register

Answer 22

participants were presented with a 3x4 grid of twelve letters for 1/20th of a second and then had to recall one row

Question 23

what were sperlings findings on the capacity of the sensory register

Answer 23

recall for a row was over 75%

Question 24

what do sperlings findings on the capacity of the sensory register suggest

Answer 24

sensory register is large due to all rows being contained within the capacity of the ionic store

Question 25

what was sperlings further research into the the duration of the sensory register

Answer 25

when participants were asked to recall all the letters, they could only recall the first 4-5 suggesting that the other letters had faded from the sensory register before they could be paid attention to and passed onto to the stm suggesting that duration is less than a second

Question 26

what was baddleys research into the coding of stm and ltm

Answer 26

gave 4 10 word lists to participants:
A - acoustically similar
B - acoustically dissimilar
C - semantically similar
D - semantically dissimilar

Question 27

what were the findings of baddleys research into the coding of stm and ltm

Answer 27

immediate recall was worst for list A and recall after 20 mins was worst for list C

Question 28

what do baddleys findings into the coding of stm and ltm suggest

Answer 28

stm - coding is acoustic as recall for list A was the worst since the similar sounds were confusing
ltm - coding is semantic as recall for list C was the worst due to similar meanings confusing recall

Question 29

what was jacobs research into the capacity of the STM

Answer 29

participants were presented with lists of letters of numbers which they then had to recall

Question 30

what were jacobs findings on capacity of the stm

Answer 30

the capacity for letters was on average 7 items and 9 for numbers

Question 31

what do jacobs findings on capacity of stm suggest

Answer 31

the capacity of stm is very limited

Question 32

what was peterson and petersons research into the duration of the stm

Answer 32

showed participants 3 letter trigrams, they then had an interference task to count backwards for a few seconds to stop maintenance rehearsal and then recall

Question 33

what were peterson and petersons findings on duration of stm

Answer 33

after 18 seconds recall was less then 10%

Question 34

what do peterson and petersons findings suggest about duration of stm

Answer 34

that unless maintained info is only held in the stm for a few seconds before it dissappears

Question 35

what was wagenars research into the capacity of ltm

Answer 35

created a diary of over 2400 events over a 6 year period which he had to recall

Question 36

what were wagenars findings on capacity of ltm

Answer 36

he had 75% recall after 1 year and 45% recall after 5 years

Question 37

what do wagenars findings on capacity of ltm suggest

Answer 37

the capacity of ltm is very large and potentially limitless

Question 38

what was bahricks research into duration of ltm

Answer 38

392 participants aged 17-74 were tested on old photographs and names of school friends

Question 39

what were bahricks findings on duration of LTM

Answer 39

recall in matching names to face 90% after 15 years still 80% after 48 years

Question 40

what do bahricks findings on duration of ltm suggest

Answer 40

duration of ltm is very large and potentially limitless

Question 41

what are the strengths of the msm

Answer 41

• the artificial nature designs of the studies may be the only way of clearly measuring memory and testing its limits
• the large capacity and short duration of the sensory register matches what would be expected of evolutionary theory which is that as much info as possible is gathered from the environment but only what is important is processed

Question 42

what are the weaknesses of the msm

Answer 42

• experiments are often highly artificial which lack in external validity. there is low ecological validity as results collected in a lab may not be generalisable to more naturalistic environments therefore lacking mundane realism as the tasks in study are unlike how people use memory in real life scenarios
• models of the memory cannot be directly observed so researchers have to make inferences based on the behaviour observed during experiments. these are effectively educated guesses which could be incorrect
• later research has demonstrated that neither stm or ltm are unitary stores since there are multiple types of ltm and stm is better described by the wmm