Multi Store Memory Model Flashcards
What is MSM?
This is a linear model of memory with a particular focus on separate Short term and long term stores.
Description
Information enters the sensory memory form 5 senses it is held here for no longer than a second or 2.
If you pay attention to it it enters the STM which can hold 7+-2 items (Miller) in capacity for 30s (Peterson and Peterson) duration. This store encodes acoustically (Baddeley). It can be held here via maintenance rehearsal.
If rehearsed enough it will transfer to the LTM where it can be stored for a life time and has an unlimited capacity. Coding here is mainly semantic (Baddeley). Info can be retrevived when needed.
+supported by glanzer and cunitz
found words at the beginning and words at the end of the list were remembered best by participants. Shows how there are two separate stores, primacy effect is that the first words are rehearsed and therefore transferred to STM whereas the last are still in the STM as they’ve just been seen.
+supported byy clive wearing
shows how there are two separate stores because his STM is functioning in the absence of his damaged LTM. This is why he can only hold information for 30sec but cannot transfer anything new.
+usefulness
Helps our understanding of education and Eye witness testemony EWT.
-other theories: clive wearing
MSM doesn’t explain why CW can retrieve some things not others. E.g. his wife but not his children. This suggests that the MSM is an over simplified version of how our memories really work. I.e. Reductionist.
-other theories: episodic and semantic
They suggest that there may be two different types of LTM episodic and semantic.
-other theories: baddeleys WMM
It is also too simple with reference to the STM which Baddeley’s WMM suggested contains different capacities for auditory and visual information. He found this with his dual tasks studies.
-individual difference
This theory fails to explain why some people may have better memories than others. Deterministic.
-lack of usefulness
This theory doesn’t have a lot of real life application and most of the studies which it is based on are artificial and lab based. E.g. Glanzer and Cunitz.
Who?
Atkinson and shiffrin
