MSMM Continued

Question 1

MSMM: What three things can happen to the information in the STM?

Answer 1

1) Maintenance rehearsal - keeps information in STM
2) Elaborative rehearsal - goes into LTM (and retrieved to STM)
3) Decay/ forgetting - information is not rehearsed

Question 2

What does it mean by the MSMM stores being UNITARY?

Answer 2

The memory stores have just one part

Question 3

Sensory Register capacity?

Answer 3

Very large store of information from each of the senses

Question 4

Sensory Register Duration?

Answer 4

Extremely brief (less than half a second)

Question 5

Sensory Register Coding?

Answer 5

Codes according to the sensory source -
ie. Information from the eyes is coded visually (iconic memory) and sound based information is coded acoustically (echoic memory)

Question 6

Short term memory Capacity?

Answer 6

Limited capacity (5 to 9 chunks) Miller’s magic number 7 +/- 2

Question 7

Short Term memory Duration?

Answer 7

Very short - about 18 seconds

Question 8

Short term memory Coding?

Answer 8

Thought to be mainly acoustic

Question 9

Long term memory Capacity?

Answer 9

Potentially unlimited capacity

Question 10

Long term memory Duration?

Answer 10

Potentially lasts almost a whole lifetime

Question 11

Long term memory Coding?

Answer 11

Thought to be mainly semantic

Question 12

What happens to information in the Sensory Register?

Answer 12

Either decays or requires attention to transfer to STM

Question 13

What can happen to information in the LTM? 4 things

Answer 13

Retrieval to STM
Interference
Decay
Retrieval failure

Question 14

Who studied the Sensory Register?

Answer 14

Sperling (1960)

Briefly displayed visual arrays (3 rows of 4 letters).
Could recall 4/5 letters (50 millisecond arrays) but reported awareness of more letters.

Further experiment - partial report procedure - trained to recognise 3 tones corresponding with 3 rows. Presented the series of displays for 50 milliseconds each and sounded a tone immediately afterwards to tell them which row of letters to write down.
Participants recalled on average 75% of letters in cued rows.
Suggests large capacity but rapid decay so short duration.

Question 15

Who studied Capacity for STM?

Answer 15

Jacobs Digit Span Test - Read out lists of digits, asked participants to repeat back. Increased digit number if correctly recalled.
Mean numbers = 9, Mean letters = 7.

Question 16

Who studied duration for STM?

Answer 16

Peterson and Peterson trigrams - participants briefly shown trigrams, and asked to recall it after 3,6,9,12,15,18 seconds. Procedure was repeated several times with each participant with different trigrams.
They were given an interference task to prevent rehearsal.
Found that as time between presentation and recall increased, successful recall decreased.
Suggests that without rehearsal, STM has a short duration, about 18 seconds max.

Question 17

Who studied Coding for both LTM and STM?

Answer 17

Baddeley.

Participants shown word lists and asked to recall in correct order. When tested immediately (STM), more mistakes came from mixing up acoustically similar words.
Suggests STM coding is mainly acoustic.

Question 18

Who studied LTM Capacity?

Answer 18

Hard to research, but believed to be unlimited.

Question 19

Who studied LTM duration?

Answer 19

Bahrick

Free recall classmate names-> 15 years after leaving 60% accuracy, 48 years 30% accuracy.

Photo recognition by sorting photos of in class and not in class -> 15 years 90%, 48 years 60%.

Suggests LTM memories held without distortion for a long time, but degeneration present over time (old age?)

Question 20

MSMM STRENGTH

Answer 20

1) Studies show that STM and LTM are different.
Eg. Baddeley found that we tend to mix up words that sound similar when using STM, but we mix up words that have similar meanings when using LTM.
2) KF suffered brain damage from a motor cycle accident. STM reduced to 2 digits but could still form new LTM memories. Supports a distinction between STM and LTM, consistent with MSMM.
3) Clive Wearing suffered brain damage as a result of a virus. He is unable to lay down new LTM but can hold a brief conversation and has some STM. Supports the model as it suggests separate STM and LTM stores.

Question 21

MSMM Weakness

Answer 21

1) Clive Wearing suffered brain damage from a virus. Clive Wearing had some LTM intact (eg. Piano) but couldn’t recognise photos of his college. Suggests a distinction in LTM between procedural and declarative memories. Not explained in MSMM.
2) KF could form new LTM without a normal STM, challenging the MSMM.