Multi-Store Memory Model Flashcards
What is memory?
A system of retaining information from our daily experiences
What does the MSM say about the Sensory Register?
Coding: Information is coded differently depending on which sense detected the stimulus
Duration: Limited duration from 2s to as low as 0.5s
Capacity: Very large
Information will be forgotten if no attention is paid to it
What does the MSM say about the Short Term Memory store?
Coding: Mainly acoustic (sound) therefore similar sounds can lead to confusion
Duration: Limited duration of 18-30s
Capacity: Limited capacity of 5-9 items (AKA Miller’s 7+/- 2)
Information is retained or transferred to long term memory through rehearsal
Information is forgotten due to displacement or lack of rehearsal
Chunking is a way to improve the capacity of the STM - collating info into groups to reduce the number of overall items into 5-9
What does the MSM say about the long term memory store?
Coding: Information is coded semantically (by meaning)
Duration: From a few minutes to a lifetime
Capacity: Unlimited capacity
Forgetting is due to interference and or retrieval failure
How does Jacobs support the MSM?
- One strength of the MSM is that there’s research for the capacity of the STM
- E.g. Jacobs tested PPs with a digit span task. They were given a sequence of numbers to remember and if they could recall them in the correct order a new number was added until they could no longer recall the sequence correctly
- The average digit span for letters was 7.3 items and 9.3 for numbers
- This is a strength as the MSM proposes the capacity of the STM is 5-9 items; Jacobs’ findings fit in this range
- This validates the MSM
How does Bharick support the MSM?
- One strength of the MSM is that there’s research to support the duration of the LTM
- E.g. Bharick tested PPs on their ability to recognise students from their highschool year group amongst 50 photos (some of which depicted people who were not in their cohort)
- PPs tested within 15 years of their graduation shows around 90% recognition accuracy
- PPs tested 48 years after graduation still had an accuracy of around 70%
- This is a strength because the evidence shows that people can retain long term memory for up to a lifetime (48 years) as in line with the MSM
- This validates the MSM
How does Baddeley support the MSM?
- One strength of the MSM is that there is research support for the coding of the STM and LTM
- E.g. Baddeley gave a group of PPs a group of acoustically similar or different words or semantically similar or different words.
- When asked to immediately recall words PPs struggled to recall acoustically similar words
- After a 20min delay PPs struggled to recall semantically similar words
- This is a strength because Baddeley’s study shows that as the MSM proposes the STM does code acoustically as similar sounds were recalled poorly
- It also shows that the LTM codes semantically as after the delay words with similar meanings were recalled poorly
- This validates the MSM
What is a weakness of the MSM?
- One weakness of the MSM is that the LTM is not a unitary story as it claims
- For example Clive Wearing got brain damage which resulted in him losing his long term declarative memory e.g. his wedding day but retained his long term procedural memory e.g. piano playing
- This is a weakness because Wearing’s case shows that the long term memory can be broken down into different types such as declarative and procedural and is therefore not unitary
- This decreases the validity of the MSM
What is the primacy and recency effect?
Primacy - tendency to remember items at the start of the list rather than the middle
Recency - tendency to remember items at the end of the list rather than the middle
What is the logic behind the primacy and recency effect?
- Items at the start are subconsciously rehearsed and transferred to the long term memory store
- Items in the middle are displaced by items at the end
- Items as the end are still within the capacity of the short term memory store
- This shows that the STM and LTM are separate memory stores
