Multi store Model

Question 1

Summarise sensory register within the MSM.

Answer 1

Capacity- Very large capacity
Sperling.

Duration -From ¼ to 2 seconds (depending on the sense it is processed in)

Coding- Modality (Sense) specific

Question 2

Summarise short term memory within the MSM

Answer 2

Capacity- 5 – 9 items
Jacobs

Duration- 18 – 30 seconds
Peterson and Peterson

Coding- Acoustic
(Sounds)
Baddeley

Question 3

Summarise long term memory within the MSM

Answer 3

Capacity - unlimited

Duration- Potentially a lifetime
Bahrick

Coding- semantics (meanings)
Baddeley

Question 4

Summarise Atkinson’s MSM

Answer 4

The MSM was developed by Atkinson and Shiffrin and includes three separate stores, Sensory Register (SR), Short Term Memory (STM) and Long Term Memory (LTM). These stores are unitary (i.e. no sub-sections). The MSM believes that information flows through the three separate stores in a FIXED linear order and each store has different roles in the memory process.

Question 5

What is the role of the sensory register?

Answer 5

• Sensory Register (SR) gathers information from our sense organs (eyes, nose, mouth, ears, touch) and each sense is coded differently. SR has a limited duration from ¼ of a second to 2 seconds depending on the sense it is processed in however it has a very large capacity. If we pay ATTENTION to sensory information then it will pass to Short Term Memory (STM). Forgetting occurs due to rapid decay if no attention is given to it.

Question 6

What is the role of short term memory ?

Answer 6

• Short Term Memory (STM) has a limited capacity of 5 – 9 items and a limited duration of 30 seconds. The coding in STM is based mainly on acoustic information. MAINTENANCE REHEARSAL (constant rote repeating) allows information to be held in STM. ELABORATIVE REHEARSAL transfers information from STM to LTM by processing the information semantically. Forgetting occurs from STM due to Displacement and Decay.

Question 7

What is the role of long term memory ?

Answer 7

• Long Term Memory (LTM) has an unlimited capacity and the duration of a few minutes to a lifetime. LTM seems to code information semantically (meaning). Forgetting occurs because of interference (proactive and retroactive) and retrieval failure (Cue-Dependant forgetting).

Question 8

What are clinical studies to support the MSM?

Answer 8

Evidence to support the distinction between STM & LTM include clinical studies of patients with Korsakoff’s Syndrome. Chronic alcoholics sometimes develop Korsakoff’s syndrome because of damage to parts of the brain. There is little effect on STM but LTM is severely impaired. For example, it is possible to carry out a conversation with people with Korsakoff’s syndrome however, because the transfer of information to LTM is impaired, they will not be able to remember they had the conversation.

Further clinical evidence comes from case studies, for example KF suffered brain damage as a result of a motor cycle accident; it had no effect on LTM but led to poor performance on many STM tasks, thus suggesting that STM and LTM are completely separate stores in memory. Cases such as these (KF and Korsakoff’s) support Atkinson and Shiffrin’s model in that they point to a clear distinction between LTM and STM that each store is separate.

Question 9

What is the issue with the MSM

Answer 9

One issue is the MSM proposes that LTM is a single, unitary store however, evidence suggests that LTM is made up of several components. Tulving proposed that the LTM is made up of episodic, semantic and procedural memory. The case of Clive Wearing supports separate LTM stores. Clive suffered extensive brain damage due to contracting a virus. He lost his episodic memory (e.g. he has no memory of his wedding) but still has use of his procedural memory (he can still play piano). This evidence suggests that there are at least two separate systems of LTM therefore criticising the multi-store model as it’s view on LTM is far too simplistic.

Question 10

What experimental support is there?

Answer 10

Glazner & Cunitz’s study on Primacy and Recency Effects shows that when participants are asked to recall a list of words they are more likely to remember the first few (the primacy effect) and the last few words (the recency effect), and are more likely to forget those in the middle of the list. This can be explained as the first few words have been transferred to LTM through rehearsal (or repeating the words) while end words are still in short term memory. This supports the idea that STM and LTM are separate memory stores as the Multi-store Model suggests.

Question 11

Why is too much emphasis on rehearsal an issue?

Answer 11

MSM suggests rehearsal is the only method of transferring from STM to LTM. It can be argued that the model lacks face validity as it is clear that we do not always need to rehearse information to remember it. There are other things that impact on how information is transferred, for example, some things are easier to recall because they are funny, distinctive or significant. Also, what is distinctive or significant to one person may not be to another person. Therefore, these individual differences in human memory influence how information is transferred to LTM and is not accounted for by the MSM.

Question 12

Research into capacity for sensory register

Answer 12

Sperling
Procedure: Sperling flashed a 3x4 grid of letters onto a screen for one twentieth of a second and asked participants to recall the letters from one of the rows. To decide which row to recall Sperling would sound a different tone (e.g. high pitched tone would mean participants should recall the first row).
Findings: Recall of the indicated row was high, which suggests that all the information was originally there, suggesting that the capacity of SR is quite large.

Question 13

Research into duration for sensory register

Answer 13

Treisman
Procedure: Participants were presented with identical auditory messages to both ears, with a slight delay between the presentations.
Findings: Participants noticed the messages were identical if the delay was 2 seconds or less. This suggests that SR has a limited duration of 2 seconds.

Question 14

Research into coding for sensory register

Answer 14

Crowder
Findings: Crowder found that the SR only retains information presented visually for a few milliseconds, but if the information is presented in an auditory form, then it can be retained for 2-3 seconds. This supports the idea that information coded in the SR is coded in different formats.

Question 15

Research into capacity for STM

Answer 15

Jacobs
Procedure - Participants were presented with a series of letters or digits, which they had to repeat back immediately to the experimenter in the same order they were presented (serial recall). The list increased by a single item until participants consistently made mistakes.
Findings – The average STM span was between 5-9 items. Digits (9.3) were recalled better than letters (7.3). STM span increased with age e.g. 8 year olds (6.6) and 19 year old (8.6)
Experimental design:
Repeated Measures design

Question 16

Research into duration for STM

Answer 16

Peterson and Peterson
Procedure – They presented nonsense trigrams (i.e. VGT, PXR) to participants, and asked them to recall the trigrams after either 3,6,9,12,15 or 18 seconds. They were prevented from rehearsing the trigrams by being asked to count backwards in 3’s from 999. The % of trigrams correctly recalled was recorded for each time interval.
Findings – Peterson and Peterson found that if rehearsal is prevented then recall is negatively affected with the maximum duration being around 18-30 seconds.
Experimental design:
Repeated Measures design

Question 17

Research into coding for STM

Answer 17

Baddeley
Procedure – Participants were presented with one of two word lists: List A; acoustically similar words (e.g. ‘cat’, ‘mat’, ‘sat’) and List B; acoustically dissimilar words (e.g. ‘pit’, ‘day’, ‘cow’). To test coding, participants were given the list in the wrong order. Their task was to rearrange the words in the correct order.
Findings – Participants given List A (acoustically similar) performed worse, with a recall of only 10%. They confused similar-sounding words, e.g. recalling ‘cap’ instead of ‘cat’, suggesting that STM is coded on an acoustic basis.
Experimental design:
Repeated Measures design

Question 18

Why is there no research for capacity in LTM ?

Answer 18

The capacity of the LTM is assumed to be limitless, as research has not been able to determine a finite capacity.

Question 19

Research into duration in LTM

Answer 19

Bahrick
Procedure - a longitudinal study, 400 participants aged between 17–74. They were shown photographs and names of old high school classmates and asked to identify their old school friends
Findings – They found 90% of people could remember classmates’ names and faces after 15 years.
They also found that 80% of people could remember classmates’ names and 70% of faces after 48 years suggesting that meaningful memories are long lasting.

Question 20

Research into coding for LTM

Answer 20

Baddeley
Procedure – Participants were presented with one of two word lists: List C; semantically similar words (e.g. ‘big’, ‘huge’, ‘tall’) and List D; semantically dissimilar words (e.g. ‘hot’, ‘safe’, ‘foul’). To test coding, 20 minutes after looking at the words, participants were given the list in the wrong order. Their task was to rearrange the words in the correct order.
Findings – Participants given List C (semantically similar) performed worse, with a recall of only 55%. They confused semantically similar words, e.g. recalling ‘big’ instead of ‘huge’, suggesting that LTM is coded on a semantic basis.