Multistore Model of Memory

Question 1

MSM
(Info from environment, sensory memory, short-term, long term)

Answer 1

• Information from the environment enters your senses (hearing, seeing, etc)
• When you pay attention to those senses it goes to your STM which is your current awareness
• STM has a capacity of 5-9 items and can be held for 30 seconds and is stored acoustically, however, it can be retained via maintenance rehearsal but when this stops the memory will be replaced and this is called displacement
• Through elaborative rehearsal information can be transferred into the LTM where it has unlimited capacity and duration is unlimited and information is encoded semantically
• However, information can be forgetting if there is retrieval failure, where you can an inability to access the stored memory or interference, where the memory is disrupted by another memory

Question 2

Strengths of MSM

Answer 2

Strengths :
- There is evidence to support the separation of the STM and LTM proposed by the MSM
- Glanzer and Cunitz found that when given a 20-word list the participants recalled the words at the beginning and the words at the end the best.
-This is suggested to be an effect of the two stores being used separately. The words at the beginning were recalled well due to the rehearsal entering the LTM and the words at the end occupied the STM

Question 3

Weakness of MSM

Answer 3

Weakness :
- A weakness of the MSM is that it cannot explain memories that are formed without rehearsal
- Brown and Kulik found that for emotionally high intense, surprising and high consequence memories can be recalled in high amounts of detail without rehearsal