multi store model of memory

Question 1

what is the multi store model of memory

Answer 1

an information processing model proposed by atkinson and shiffrin

Question 2

what does the MSM show

Answer 2

it shows memory as a flow of information through a system. this is linear so it flows in one direction and is passive so each store holds on to that information

Question 3

what are the three stores of the MSM

Answer 3

the sensory register
short term memory
long term memory

Question 4

what do the terms coding, capacity and duration refer to

Answer 4

coding = different ways to store information
capacity = how much information can be stored
duration = how long the information can be stored for

Question 5

what does the sensory register do

Answer 5

it collects info detected by sense neurons which is received by the brain

Question 6

what is the coding of the sensory register

Answer 6

it is modality specific which means it depends on each sense organ

Question 7

five different sense organs and its coding

Answer 7

iconic (visual)
haptic (touch)
gustatory (taste)
olfactory (smell)
echoic (sound)

Question 8

what is the capacity of the sensory register

Answer 8

it is unlimited. this is because it has to contain all sense impressions for all senses. it holds unprocessed information. the brain is constantly receiving sense impressions we are not aware of

Question 9

what is the duration of the sensory register

Answer 9

it is short (250 milliseconds). this is because so much info is held that it cannot be retained for so long

Question 10

what goes to short term memory

Answer 10

information from the sensory register that is paid attention to. any info not paid attention to is lost

Question 11

what is short term memory

Answer 11

information held here is used for immediate tasks. it is the information recieved by paying attention. repetition keeps information here

Question 12

what is the coding of STM

Answer 12

information arrives in original format and recoded in a form easy to deal with (visual acoustic and semantic) main coding is acoustic (sound) for e.g if you need to remember a list you may repeat it over again with inner voice

Question 13

what is the capacity of STM

Answer 13

7 items +/-2

Question 14

what is the duration of STM

Answer 14

18-30 seconds so if informations isnt mainatained by subvocal repetition it is lost from STM after that time has passed

Question 15

how does information go to LTM

Answer 15

by rehearsal

Question 16

what are the two types of rehearsal

Answer 16

maintenance and elaborative

Question 17

what is maintenance rehearsal

Answer 17

keeping info in STM by repeating it again and again till it goes to LTM. it is the repetition of info in its original, unaltered form

Question 18

what is elaborative rehearsal

Answer 18

linking new info to knowledge already in LTM. involves more meaningful analysis (images, thinking, associations)

Question 19

what happens if info from STM does not pass into LTM

Answer 19

it is lost via displacement or decay

Question 20

what is the difference between displacement and decay

Answer 20

displacement (new information replacing information already in STM) because of the small capacity of STM new information comes in and already replaces info in STM
decay (lost over time) if info is not rehearsed, it disappears over time

Question 21

what is long term memory

Answer 21

stores info for lengthy periods of time. it has different kinds of stores - some are eaiser to access than others

Question 22

what is the coding of LTM

Answer 22

semantic. memory is stored as [art of a set of meaningful connections to other stored info.

Question 23

what is the capacity of LTM

Answer 23

large, potentially unlimited. limit is not found. brains dont get completely full up with info and cant fit more. maybe we lose the ability to access some info. info can last for up to a lifetime but can be lost through decay and interference.

Question 24

what is the duration of LTM

Answer 24

unlimited. we can still recall certain childhood events

Question 25

summarise the different stores of the MSM in terms of coding, capacity and duration

Answer 25

sensory register -
coding = modality specific
capacity = unlimited
duration = 250milliseconds
short term memory -
coding = acoustic
capacity = 7+/-2 items
duration = 18-30 seconds
long term memory -
coding = semantic
capacity = large potentially unlimited
duration = unlimited

Question 26

what did glanzer and cunitz do

Answer 26

Glanzer and Cunitz asked participants to free recall word lists in any order. they noticed that recall was stronger for words at the start and end of the list. this was known as the serial position effect

Question 27

what is the serial position effect

Answer 27

it describes how our memory is affected by the position of information in a sequence

Question 28

what is the primacy and recency effect

Answer 28

words early on in the list were put into LTM because the person has more time to rehearse the words due to the primacy effect
words later on in the list went into STM due to the recency effect

Question 29

what did the glanzer/cunitz study show about STM and LTM

Answer 29

it showed that they were separate stores holding certain information at certain times

Question 30

what did sperling show about the capacity of the sensory register

Answer 30

students had a 3 by 4 grid of letters. when presented quickly, they recalled one row. they found that recall for one row was above 75%. this suggests that all rows were contained within capacity of the iconic store so sensory memory is large. with practice, participants became more accurate. this overall shows that STM has capacity of 5-9 items. To recall a whole row, sensory memory would hold all 12 letters. this suggests that the capacity of sensory register is larger than STM

Question 31

what did baddeley show about the coding of STM

Answer 31

he gave 4 types of word lists = acoustically similiar/dissimiliar and semantically similiar/disimilliar. they either recalled immediately testing STM or after 20 minutes testing LTM. after the immediate testing they found that the worst recall condition was for acoustically similar words. this shows the coding for STM is acoustic as the acoustic similarity of the words caused confusion making it harder to recall

Question 32

when can it be difficult to recall individual items

Answer 32

it storage system is coded in a similar way

Question 33

what did baddely show about the coding of LTM

Answer 33

using the same lists he tested the recall of the students after 20 minutes. the worse recall was for semantically similiar words as it caused confusion. this shows that coding for LTM is semantic

Question 34

what were the aims of the peterson and peterson case study in 1959

Answer 34

they wanted to know if retrieval was needed to transfer long term info from STM to LTM. they also wanted to investigate the duration of short term memory and provide empirical evidence for the multi store model of memory

Question 35

what was their experiment (P&P)

Answer 35

lab experiment in which 24 psychology students had to recall trigrams (meaningless 3 consonant syllables). to prevent rehearsal participants were asked to count backwards in threes or fours from specified random numbers till they saw a red light appear. when the red light appeared they would have to say the trigram. this would be in intervals of 3,6,9,12 or 15 or 18 seconds

Question 36

what were the findings of their experiments (P&P)

Answer 36

the longer the interval decay, the less trigrams recalled
participants could recall 80% of trigrams after 3 seconds delay. but after 18 seconds less than 10% of trigrams were recalled correctly

Question 37

what were the conclusions of the P&P experiment

Answer 37

STM has limited duration when rehearsal is prevented
information is lost from STM using trace decay
STM is different from LTM in terms of duration
this supports the MSM

Question 38

strengths of MSM

Answer 38

• it gives good understanding of structure and process of STM
• allows researchers to expand on the model
• can do experiments to improve the model and make it valid and to also prove what each individual store does
• model is influential as it generates lots of research into memory
• the large capacity and short duration of the sensory register matches expectations from evolutionary theory taking in as much information as possible but only processing the important information. too much processing slows down reaction speed.
• it may be the only way to clearly measure memory and test its limits

Question 39

weaknesses of MSM

Answer 39

• experiments testing MSM are highly artificial
• low ecological validity (the findings dont usually apply to envt for e.g the lab envt is unusual and doesnt reflect places we recall)
• not general. they lack mundane realism
• may not apply what we have found in memory in experimental conditions to situations out of experiment
• not able to directly observe
• too simplistic. it suggests that STM and LTM are unitary and passive (just one thing holding on to information)
• lacks face validity (we have LTM that are tastes and smells, capacity of STM isnt fixed, changes with practices)