MULTI STORE MEMORY MODEL (MSM)

Question 1

Who created the MSM and what year?

Answer 1

Atkinson and Shiffrin (1968)

Question 2

What does the MSM claim?

Answer 2

Memory is processed and retained in 3 distinct stores: The sensory register, The STM store + The LTM store

Question 3

Sensory Register
- Entry, Capacity, Duration, Encoding, Transfer, Decay

Answer 3

• Information enters through our 5 senses
• Capacity = 3-5 items
• Duration = 0.5 seconds
• Encoding = modality specific
• Transferred to the STM when attention is paid
• Info can decay and will be forgotten if attention is not paid

Question 4

STM Store
- Entry, Capacity, Duration, Encoding, Transfer, Decay

Answer 4

• Information enters this store from the SR when attention is paid
• Capacity = 5-9 items
• Duration = 18-30 seconds
• Encoding = acoustic
• Transferred to the LTM when info is rehearsed
• Old info can be displaced by new info causing it to decay

Question 5

LTM Store
- Entry, Capacity, Duration, Encoding, maintenance, Decay

Answer 5

• Information enters this store from the STM when info is rehearsed
• Capacity = potentially unlimited
• Duration = potentially indefinite
• Encoding = mainly semantic
• Info in maintained by regular retrieval
• New info can interfere with old info which may cause it to decay over time

Question 6

Who founded the sensory register? How?

Answer 6

SPERLING (1960) - Showed pps a visual array for 0.5 seconds and asked to recall the letters. When asked to recall a specific row pps recalled 75% in the cued row compared to 33% when asked to recall them all. (Fewer digit were easier to recall - low capacity)

Question 7

Who founded STM? How?
3 people (Capacity, Duration, Encoding)

Answer 7

• MILLER (1957) - He tested pps recall and found that we remember in groups of 7s (capacity 5-9)
• PETERSON & PETERSON (1959) - Showed pps trigrams, then got them to recall them after interference tasks. He found their correct recalled answers dropped after 18-30 seconds (duration)
• BADDELEY (1966) - Acoustic encoding

Question 8

Who founded LTM? How?
3 people (Duration, Encoding, Capacity)

Answer 8

• BAHRICH ET AL (1975) - Identification of names from high school remained accurate for up to 48 years (LTM stores info indefinitely)
• BADDELEY (1966) - Mainly semantic encoding
• BRADY ET AL (2008) - Pps shown 2500 objects over 5.5 hours. Later show each object paired with a very different unseen object, and pps were able to identify which one they had seen before (LTM has a huge capacity)

Question 9

Strengths of the MSM

Answer 9

• EVIDENCE FROM HM CASE STUDY - He could still use STM but could not transfer info into LTM (separate stores)
• EVIDENCE FROM CLIVE WEARING CASE STUDY - His STM was still intact, however he could not remember his past nor make new memories - he lived in moments (separate stores)
• BRAIN SCANS - memory tasks while conducting PET scans of pps. He found that the Hippocampus is more active during LTM tasks and the prefrontal cortex is more active during STM tasks
• PRIMARY/REGENCY EFFECT - When asked to recall a list of words we tend to remember primacy words due us rehearsing the words (demand characteristic) and so enters LTM and recency words at the end of the list are still in our STM when we are asked to recall the list. Middle words are forgotten due to the capacity of our STM
• BADDELEY - Highly scientifically credible and reliable results

Question 10

Weaknesses of the MSM

Answer 10

• EVIDENCE FROM HM CASE STUDY - HM could still learn new skills, just couldn’t remember learning them (LTM store is more complex)
• EVIDENCE FROM CLIVE WEARING CASE STUDY - He could still play music just not remember learning it
• REDUCTIONIST - MSM views human memory as a system of info processing that is oversimplified into 3 stores
• ZEIGARNIK - found that pps had better recall of simple incomplete tasks then complete tasks as we generally forget what we no longer need to know e.g- a waiter
• BADDELEY & HITCH - Argues that STM can encode acoustically, visually and spatially - suggesting STM has 2 separate slave systems that process visual and verbal information (more complex then STM store in MSM)
• How can LTM be triggered by smells and noises, such as the smell of petrol or the siren of a police car?

Question 11

HM Case Study

Answer 11

At 27 HM suffered severe anterograde amnesia (inability to form new long term memories) as a result of a very unethical brain surgery to treat his epilepsy. The surgery removed part of his brain called the hippocampus.
His STM was intact (30ish seconds) but he could not transfer that info into LTM and so had no new knowledge since before his operation. HM was studied extensively for over 50 years until he died at 82.

Question 12

Clive Wearing Case Study

Answer 12

In 1985, he contracted a rare form of herpes virus that caused him brain damage, including the hippocampus and some tissue around it. Clive developed intrograde amnesia (inability to form new long term memories) and aspects of retrograde amnesia. Every 20 or so seconds, he had the perception of waking up in a coma - “restarting” his memory and consciousness. Clive’s STM is intact however he can not transfer that info LTM. Clive can still play music even though he can’t remember learning it