Multi store model of memory Flashcards
Who proposed the multi store model of memory?
Atkinson and Shiffrin
What is the sensory register?
Experience our would through the five senses, and it is believed that we have a sensory register for each of these sensory modalities
Can only hold a limited amount of information for only a few hundred milliseconds before it is lost.
Attended information can then be transferred to the short term store
What is short term memory?
- Attended information enters the STM store from the sensory register and is held for 18-30 seconds and then is assumed to decay completely unless maintained through maintenance rehearsal
Miller (1956)
Stated that the capacity of STM is around 5-9 items of information. As more information is input into the store, older information or information with a weaker memory trace is knocked out and quickly decays. A more durable memory trace can be achieved by using a mental operation, such as mnemonic, to increase strength of transfer
Atkinson and Shiffrin believe about Short Term Memory?
Believed that a memory trace in the STM store was held in an auditory or verbal form because of the phonological effect; letters and words of a similar sound presented to ppts are more difficult to recall than dissimilar sounding letters and words. The similarity of sounds leads to confusion in the STM suggesting that the encoding in the store is mainly acoustic
Atkinson and Shiffrin believe about Long Term Memory?
Believed that long term memories existed for all sensory modalities; we have memories for taste, sound, smells, etc. Encoding information into the long term store can depend upon the rehearsal process or some form of association between the new and pre-existing knowledge stored there.
What is the duration of Long Term Memory?
Potentially a lifetime
What is the capacity of Long Term Memory?
Potentially infinite
What is Long Term Memory?
Long-term memory is the capacity to recall memories from a longer time ago
Evidence to support the distinction, particularly between short term memory and long term memory, comes from case studies of brain damaged patients…
Henry Molaison suffered amnesia following a brain surgery for epilepsy, resulting in sever impairment to his long term memory but his short term memory was largely intact. This case study demonstrates that the short term memory and long term memory stores are differentially affected, perhaps because they are located in different regions of the brain
The difference in the type of coding used by short term and long term memory also indicates that we have two separate memory stores…
Baddeley (1966Bb) found that semantically related words were more difficult to recall from long term memory compared to acoustically related words suggesting that short term memory and long term stores are different
Case studies of brain damaged patients that are used to support the multi store model of memory can also be used to highlight the overly simplistic view of long term memory…
Clive Wearing, musician and chorus master, could not recall past events of his life, but could remember how to play the piano and conduct an orchestra , this can’t be explained by the model
The multi store model relies on the supporting evidence of experiments that uses lab experiments…
Lab experiments involve artificial tasks and are highly controlled environments. This means that the findings to memory lack ecological validity as they cannot be applied to real life situations where memory is used. This limits the usefulness of the model
The model fails to address the dynamic nature of short term memory and our performance on dual task experiments…
Dual task experiments show that we perform poorly when trying to deal with similar tasks, but perform well when trying to do two tasks of a different nature. This performance cannot explain by the short term store. A different explanation might be better
