MSM model

Question 1

Who proposed the msm?

Answer 1

Atkinson & Shiffrin 1968

Question 2

What does the msm suggest?

Answer 2

Memory is made up of 3 components: sensory register,short-term memory & long-term memory. Memories are formed sequentially and information passes from one component to another

Question 3

What is coding?

Answer 3

The way information is changed and stored in memory.

Question 4

What is duration?

Answer 4

How long information is held in the memory store.

Question 5

What is capacity?

Answer 5

The amount of information that can be stored.

Question 6

Describe information passing in the MSM

Answer 6

• raw, unprocessed information enters the sensory register via our five senses.
• information that is attended to is passed to the STM.
• thereafter, rehearsed information is transferred to LTM

Question 7

What is the coding, capacity & duration of the sensory register?

Answer 7

Capacity - unknown but very large

Duration - very limited (250ms)

Coding - raw/unprocessed info from all senses

Question 8

What is the coding, capacity & duration of the STM?

Answer 8

Capacity - Limited, 7+/-2 chunks of information

Duration - Limited,( 20s)

Coding - Acoustic (sound)

Question 9

What is the coding, capacity & duration of the LTM?

Answer 9

Capacity - Unlimited

Duration - Lifetime/Years

Coding - Semantic (Meaning)

Question 10

Which research investigated the capacity of STM?

Answer 10

Miller 1956
Aim: Investigate the capacity of STM

Method: They reviewed published investigations into perception and STM from the 1930s to 1950s

Results: Existing research suggested that organising information into a series of chunks enabled STM to cope with about 7 chunks of information. This is why more than seven digits of words or musical notes could not be remembered.

Conclusion: Organisation (encoding) can extend the capacity of STM and enable more information to be stored.

Question 11

Evaluate Miller

Answer 11

• Miller did not specify how large each chunk of information could be which means we cannot conclude the exact capacity of information.
• Miller did not take into account other factors that could affect capacity eg. age

Question 12

Which research investigated the duration of STM and how short intervals containing an interference task can affect the recall of items presented verbally.

Answer 12

Peterson & Peterson 1959
Aim: To investigate how the duration of STM and how short intervals containing an interference task can affect the recall of items presented verbally.

Method: 24 male & female university students were given 48 three-consonant nonsense syllables (JBW PDX) called trigrams. There were also cards containing 3 digit numbers. The researcher spelled the syllable out and immediately says a 3 digit number. Participants had to count down backwards in either 3s or 4s to prevent repetition of the trigram. At the end, they had to recall the trigrams from intervals of 3 and 18 seconds.

Results: The longer the interval, the less accurate the recall. 80% of trigrams were correctly recalled at 3 seconds, 10% were correctly recalled at 18seconds

Conclusion: STM has a limited duration of approx. 18s. If we are unable to rehearse information, it will not pass to the LTM (support for MSM)

Question 13

Evaluate Peterson & Peterson

Answer 13

• they used psychology students who could have showed demand characteristics since they may have previously encountered the MSM model. psychology students may have studied strategies for memory improvement so we are unable to generalise the results
• study had low levels of ecological validity, recalling trigrams is not something people memorise in their everyday life .
• study was highly controlled and took place in a laboratory which means their study is easy to replicate to test for reliability.

Question 14

Which research investigates the duration of LTM?

Answer 14

Bahrick 1975
Aim: Investigate the duration of LTM

Method: 392 American university graduates were shown photographs from their high school yearbook and were asked to match the names they were given to the photographs

Results: 90% of participants correctly matched the names and faces 14 years after graduating. 60% of participants correctly matched the names and faces 47 years after graduating.

Conclusion: Results support the idea that LTM has a lifetime duration and is semantically coded. He also concluded people remember semantically coded information for almost a lifetime (names, faces ect.)

Question 15

Evaluate Bahrick

Answer 15

• his research does not explain whether LTM worsens over time because of a limited duration or simply gets worse with age. therefore psychologists are unable to determine wether the LTM has an unlimited duration (as the MSM supports) or a limited duration.
• his study has high levels of ecological validity as the study used real life memories which reflect real life events and can be applied to everyday human memory.

Question 16

MSM: Issues & Debates

Answer 16

• The MSM takes a nomothetic approach, trying to create a universal model to explain the process of human memory. An idiographic approach that uses examples of real life remembering may result in a more complex and maybe accurate picture of memory.
• Research examining MSM is an example of experimental recuctionism because it attempts to explain a complex behaviour by relying on variables in a laboratory experiment. Memory is a complex phenomenon and therefore reducing memory to isolated variables undermines the complexity of human memory.