multi-store model of memory

Question 1

outline two assumptions of the multi-store model of memory

Answer 1

1- there are three, independent and distinct stores which are unitary

2- information is passed sequentially through this linear model and to do this, there are different modes of transference.
==> sensory - STM = attention
==> STM - LTM = rehearsal

Question 2

what is the multi-store model of memory?

Answer 2

It is a cognitive model which gives a visual representation of memory
- STM and LTM are unitary
- flow of information sequentially through the linear model

Question 3

what are the stores within the MSM?

Answer 3

• sensory memory
• short term memory
• long term memory

Question 4

how does each store within the MSM differ?

Answer 4

• encoding
• capacity
• duration

Question 5

define coding, capacity, and duration

Answer 5

coding - refers to the way incoming information is received and transformed into a form that can be stored in memory

capacity - refers to the amount of information that each store can hold

duration - refers to the length of time information can be held in a store before it is forgotten

Question 6

what does it mean when the stores are described as independent, distinct, and unitary?

Answer 6

unitary - there is only one type of each store

independent - they function alone which means if one store was damaged, it wouldn’t effect the functionality of the others

distinct - each store has their differences in the way in which they encode, their duration, and their capacity

Question 7

how does the MSM suggest we encode in sensory memory?

Answer 7

through all five senses
==> consists of sensory modality which means it is specific to the sense receiving information. For example, acoustic store for sounds, iconic (visual) for pictures etc.

Question 8

what does the MSM suggest the duration of sensory memory is?

Answer 8

limited - very short
==> only long enough for stimuli to be recognised and then it is lost or passed through to STM if pay attention

Question 9

what does the MSM suggest the capacity of sensory memory is?

Answer 9

infinite
==> all information in surrounding and periphery is entering sensory register - sounds, light, scents etc

Question 10

how does the MSM suggest we encode in short term memory?

Answer 10

acoustically
==> Baddelely (1966) supports this

Question 11

what does the MSM suggest the duration of short term memory is?

Answer 11

18-30 seconds
==> Peterson and Peterson (1959) supports this

However, it was found that maintenance rehearsal improves this number

Question 12

what does the MSM suggest the capacity of short term memory?

Answer 12

5-9 items and Miller (1956) coined the phrase 7 +/- 2 items
==> jacobs (1887) supports this

However, if items are chunked together for example, grouping together items so they are processed as single items so capacity is considerably increased

Question 13

how does the MSM suggest we encode in long term memory?

Answer 13

semantically
==> Baddeley (1966) supports this

Question 14

what does the MSM suggest the duration of long term memory is?

Answer 14

infinite / lasts a lifetime
==> Bahrick et al. (1975) supports

Question 15

what does the MSM suggest the capacity of long term memory is?

Answer 15

unlimited
- no research to date has proved otherwise

Question 16

how does information enter short term memory from sensory memory

Answer 16

paying attention
==> Peterson and Peterson supports this

Question 17

how does information enter long term memory from short term?

Answer 17

rehearsal

Question 18

how is information forgotten in sensory memory?

Answer 18

not paying attention

Question 19

how is information forgotten in short term memory?

Answer 19

decay or displacement

Question 20

how is information forgotten in long term memory?

Answer 20

failure to retrieve information from short term memory

lack of consolidation from STM
==> HM hippocampus damage supports this

Question 21

what did Jacob’s research into?

Answer 21

the capacity of short term memory

Question 22

what technique did Jacob’s devise and why?

Answer 22

the serial digit span technique
- this is so an accurate measure of STM can be obtained

Question 23

what is the procedure of Jacob’s (1887) study?

Answer 23

• lab experiment using his digit span technique
• participants presented with a sequence of letters or digits followed by serial recall
• the pace of each item presented was controlled using a metronome to half second intervals
• the sequence began at three items and it increased by one item at a time until they failed to recall correctly
• this was then repeated to establish their digit or letter span
• the researcher decided the STM span was the longest sequence they were able to recall accurately on at least half of the trials that were conducted

Question 24

what were the findings go Jacobs (1887) study?

Answer 24

the average STM span was between 5-9 terms
==> digits recalled better at 9.3 items
==> letters recalled worse at 7.3 item
found that STM span increased with age
==> one sample found 6.6 average for 8 y/o compared to 8.6 average for 19 y/o

Question 25

what did Jacobs (1887) conclude?

Answer 25

-STM is a limited storage store with a capacity of 5-9 items
- capacity isn’t determined by the nature of the information so to be stored, it doesn’t require semantics
- capacity is determined by the size of items
- STM span increased with age which may be due to increasing brain capacity or improved memory techniques like chunking

Question 26

Evaluate Jacobs’ (1887) study

Answer 26

Strength: using digit span technique
- scientific methodology so objective measures
- therefore, the findings can be generalised

Strength: high temporal validity
- easily replicable study which does transgress over time
(original study from 1887 and still applicable)

Limitation: lab experiment so controlled environment cause low mundane realism / ecological validity
- letters and digits recall aren’t realistic to every day tasks so poses a question of whether they are generalisable as the results may not be a true representation

Question 27

what did Peterson and Peterson (1959) research into?

Answer 27

the duration of short term memory

Question 28

what technique did Peterson and Peterson (1959) devise?

Answer 28

Brown Peterson technique

Question 29

what was the aim of Peterson and Peterson (1959)

Answer 29

to show that information is only held in STM for about 20 seconds, after that it disappears if no rehearsal

Question 30

what was the procedure of Peterson and Peterson (1959)?

Answer 30

• lab experiment
• participant’s presented with sets of trigrams which are random constants in sets of threes
• they then recalled them in serial order after an increasing delay of 3 seconds up to 18 seconds
• during this delay, they were presented with an interference task of counting backwards in threes from a three digit number preventing rehearsal
• the trigram had to be recalled with 100% accuracy to be considered correct

Question 31

what were the findings of Peterson and Peterson (1959)

Answer 31

the longer the interval between trigram and recalling the trigram, the less accurate the recall
- 3 seconds = 80%
- 6 seconds = 50%
- 9 seconds = 30%
- 12 seconds = 25%
- 15 seconds = 15%
- 18 seconds = 10%

Question 32

what did Peterson and Peterson (1959) conclude?

Answer 32

if rehearsal is prevented as shown by using an interference task, information rapidly vanishes from STM

Question 33

what did Baddeley (1966) investigate?

Answer 33

how we encode within STM and LTM

Question 34

what is the procedure of Baddeley (1966)

Answer 34

A lab experiment using four types of word lists testing four different conditions
1. acoustically similar
2. acoustically dissimilar (control)
3. semantically similar
4. semantically dissimilar (control)

the participants had to recall the words within each group in the same order either immediately to test STM or after a delay for LTM

Question 35

what were the findings of Baddeley (1966)?

Answer 35

STM:
- acoustically similar words had the worst recall
- no difference in semantically similar and dissimilar word recall

LTM:
- semantically similar words had the worst recall and getting them in the correct order was incredibly difficult as they all meant the same thing
- there was no difference for acoustically similar / dissimilar words

Question 36

what did Baddeley (1966) conclude?

Answer 36

STM relied on acoustic coding to process information

LTM relied on semantic coding to process information

Question 37

Evaluate Baddeley (1966) study

Answer 37

strength: lab experiment
- means highly controlled so the extraneous variables are taken care of and do not interfere with study

strength: standardised procedure
- objective measure so reliable findings obtained

limitation: highly controlled environment
- lacks ecological validity as tasks aren’t representative to every day tasks so questions whether results can be generalised

limitation: words used
- the words used have little to no meaning so were harder to recall and in reality the information we have to recall have more meaning and significance which would make recall easier

Question 38

what could be improved in Baddeley’s (1966) study to improve accuracy or findings?

Answer 38

using a stop watch to ensure that the same amount of time is given to each condition, increasing validity of results

Question 39

what part of life do people generally find unable to recall and what is it called?

Answer 39

early childhood - cannot recall episodes of their life before the age of typically 2
==> this is known as childhood or infantile amnesia

Question 40

what did Bahrick (1975) investigate?

Answer 40

the duration of very long term memory - VLTM
- wanted to show that memories could last over several decades in order to support the assumption that the duration of LTM is lifelong

Question 41

what is the procedure of Bahrick’s (1975) study

Answer 41

• an opportunity sample of 392 American ex-high-school students was formed
• there were four different conditions which were used:
  
  1. free recall of the names of as many
  2. photo recognition test - identify in a set of 50, only some who were classmates
  3. name recognition
  4. name and photo matching

the time since the participants left high school was in a range up to 47 years and therefore testing VLTM
- results were compared to yearbooks containing photos and names of all the students

Question 42

what were the findings of Bahrick et al. (1975) study

Answer 42

face and name recognition:
after 48 years, face recognition was accurate for 80% and name recognition was accurate for 40%

Free recall:
(considerably less accurate)
after 15 years it was 60% accurate and after 48 years it was 30% accurate

SUMMARY:
- free recall of name recognition had the worst recall as there were no cues given
- name and photo match had the best recall as there were the most cues given

Question 43

what did Bahrick et al (1975) conclude

Answer 43

Suggests that LTM does last a lifetime as such strong recall after 47 years therefore unlikely for it to fade too much further
- rarely forgotten once recognition cues have been given

support the claim that recognition is better than recall

Question 44

evaluate Bahrick (1975) study

Answer 44

Strength: high ecological validity
-the procedure is related to real life ==> looking at old photographs and recalling names is typically done irl

Limitation: opportunity sample
- some people may have had better recall as they were still in the same area or still in contact with people in the yearbook
- others may have had worse recall as they never really knew the names of people due to them being less social

limitation: VLTM for one particular type of memory
- cannot be concluded that VLTM exists for all types of LTM as only one of the three types has been tested
- can these results be generalised?? no

Limitation: why has recall become worse over time/
- study doesn’t explain why this is, whether this is a side effect of old age or is there some limit to duration which impacts the memories as we get older and continue to make more memories??

Question 45

what is an opportunity sample?
- what’s a strength and limitation of using this

Answer 45

an opportunity sample includes individuals that are readily available at the time of the study
==> strength - can get the sample quickly
==> limitation - may end up with a non-representative sample

Question 46

who is patient H.M. investigated by (Milner et al. 1978) and what happened to him?

Answer 46

A man who suffered from epilepsy which led to doctors to remove part of his temporal lobe containing his hippocampus. His seizures significantly reduced but this caused him to become an anterograde amnesiac

Question 47

what were the outcomes of patient H.M’s surgery? (Milner et al 1978)

Answer 47

HM’s short term memory store remained the same but he couldn’t transfer it to LTM, retrieve it and seemed incapable of remembering any new fact or event

Declarative memory was severely damaged (memory of specific facts and events)
Procedural memory was unaffected (learning new skills)

Question 48

how does HM case study support MSM?

Answer 48

Proves there is an existence of two separate stores which are independent and distinct
- STM was impaired but had no effect on the functionality of LTM

Question 49

who is the main case study for the multi-store model of memory?

Answer 49

Clive Wearing (Wilson, 1985)
- also supporting evidence for patient H.M

Question 50

who is Clive Wearing and what illness does he suffer from?

Answer 50

Clive suffers from anterograde amnesia which means that he cannot create new memories as well as retrograde amnesia meaning he’s lost many of his memories.

==> this was brought about from a herpes virus which attacked his hippocampus and caused this amnesia to develop

Question 51

What is Clive Wearing’s memory like?

Answer 51

• unable to transfer information from his STM to LTM which explains why it feels as though he is ‘waking up’ constantly throughout the day.
• can store information for about 7-30 seconds before it is displaced
  ==> eg he always greets his wife with vigour because he genuinely believes he hasn’t seen her in years even if she left but a moment ago
• he can however remember how to play piano perfectly but if you asked him if he could play the piano he would answer no as he cannot remember the act of learning to play
  ==> evidence for types of LTM (procedural memory was not affected but his declarative memory is)

Question 52

Evaluate Clive Wearing AND patient HM case study (GRAVE) ==> the same points can be made as both a case study

Answer 52

Generalisability: not generalisable at all as it is a case study meaning it only affected him and data was only collected surrounding him. Whilst there may be similar case studies, the chances of the exact same events occurring in the wider population are very unlikely

Reliability: not reliable as the study cannot be repeated
==> cannot give someone brain damage for the sake of an experiment

Application: can be applied as evidence for the MSM model

Validity: incredibly valid as we get rich information from this study, allowing us to explore in depth about Wearing’s situation

Ethics: N/A