Multi store model Flashcards
Sensory register
5 senses most will forget.
It is modality specific - related to different senses, e.g hearing and vision.
Information stays here for a few seconds, only a small part of it continues to short term memory store.
Short term memory store
Limited to around 7 items (more or less with 2), normally for 6-12 seconds.
Material is quickly lost if not given attention.
Primary effect - we remember first things
Recency effect - we remember last things.
By rehersing you place material into long term memory.
Long term memory store
Believed to have unlimited capacity and infinte duration - however pshycologists do not know exactly how much can be stored there.
The material is not an exact replica of events or facts.
Memories may be disorted when retrieved - we fill un the gaps to create meaningful memory (predicted by schema theory)
Multi store model of memory
sensory register, short term & long term memory.
Working memory model
Sugested by Baddeley and Hitch.
Challenged the view that STM was a single store.
Here, STM contains several components: central executive, episodic buffer, phonological loop and visuospatial sketchpad.
The central executive
It’s a controlling system which monitors and coordinates the operations of the other components, known as slave systems.
Most important part of the model.
It had limited capacity and is modality free: can process any sensory information.
Most important job of central executive is attentional control, which happens in two ways:
1. The automatic level is based on habit and controlled more or less automatically, by environment stimuli. Including routine procedures.
2. The supervisory attentional level deals with emergencies or creates new strategies for when old ones aren’t functional anymore.
The episodic buffer
When you conciously are trying to remember things such as the sound of a band / picture of a landscape, they will apear via the EB.
Its role is to act as a temporary and passive display store, until the information is needed.
The phonological loop
Divided into two components: articulatory control system and phonological store.
Articulatory control system is the inner voice, holding information in verbal form.
Phonological store is like an inner ear. It holds speech based material in phonological form.
Research shows that a memory trace can only last from 1.5 to 2 seconds if not refreshed by articulatory control system.
Can recieve information directly from sensory memory in from of auditory material, and from LTM in form of verbal information.
The visuospacial sketchpad
Also known as inner eye.
Deals with visuals and spatial information from either the sensory memory or LTM.
Schema theory
A cognitive theory about information processing.
Helps us organise information about the world.
Helps us predict future events based on what has happened before.
We have schemas - they will affect us when we interpret the world.
Stereotypes are schemas for people
Evidence for working memory
Experiments that use dual-task techniques, interference techniques, provide support for the model.
A participant is asked to carry out a cognitive task which uses up most of the capacity of working memory. At a same time they should perform another cognitive task. If the two tasks interfere, so that both or one are weakened, it is believed that both tasks use the same cognitive component in STM.
Evaluation of the model
Working memory provides a much more satisfactory explenation of storage and procesing than the STM component of multi-store model of memory.
Includes storage and processing, useful for understanding all sorts of cognitive tasks.
Multi-store model assumes that mental processes are passive.
Working memory model can explain why people can peform different cognitive tasks sucessfully - multi tasking.
