MULTISTORE MODEL OF MEMORY Flashcards
who suggested the MSM?
- Atkinson and Shifrin (1968)
describe the MSM
- representation of how memory works
- consists of 3 memory stores
- links stores by processes that enable transfer of information
state 3 stores of MSM
- sensory register
- short term memory
- long term memory
describe stages of MSM
- receives information detected by sensory register
- if we pay attention, info transfers to STM
- to transfer info from STM to LTM, prolonged rehearsal is needed
- info can be accessed from LTM through retrieval
how do we keep information in the STM?
maintenance rehearsal
what happens if we don’t practice maintenance rehearsal?
information decays
what happens if you don’t pay attention to information from the sensory register?
- information will be lost
- info won’t be transferred to the STM
how do we transfer information from the STM to the LTM?
prolonged rehearsal
how does Peterson & Peterson’s studies support the MSM?
- found STM duration is 18 seconds
- showed that lack of rehearsal leads to loss of information
how did Bahrick’s study support the MSM?
- supported idea that LTM’s duration lasts a lifetime
- found that LTM is semantically encoded
(by using meaningful images)
how did Baddeley’s study support the MSM?
- supports idea of different compartments
- found STM is encoded acoustically
- found LTM is encoded semantically
how do Miller’s findings support the MSM?
- supports idea of there being a limited capacity to STM, 7+/-2 items
how did Glazner and Cunitz’s findings support the MSM?
- supports idea of there being different stores
- primary info recalled from LTM
- recent info recalled from STM
describe Glazner & Cunitz’s study
- “primacy and recency effect study”
- showed ppts list of changing words
- early words were put into LTM, due to primacy effect
- words later on went into STM, due to recency effect
- words in middle got lost, too long to be in STM, not long enough to be in LTM
describe the “primacy effect” and the “recency effect”
- primacy effect is when the participant has time to rehearse information, so is put into LTM
- recency effect is when information goes into the STM, which can hold 7 +/- 2 items
- therefore information is recalled from 2 separate stores
describe Sperlings study and explain how is supports the MSM
- flashed a grid of letters onto a screen for 1/20th of a second
- ppts recall for one row was higher than recall for the whole grid (75% vs 42%)
- this shows how fast info decays, showing the large capacity but short duration of the sensory register
- these findings support the MSM
how does the case of HM support the MSM?
- supports the idea of there being different memory stores
- after having his Hippocampus, he was unable to form new memories, yet could still recall memories from before his surgery
- suggests that different parts of the brain are responsible for making and storing memories, since he could recall from his LTM, however couldn’t transfer anything from his STM
how are Craik and Watkins’s findings limitations of the MSM?
- found that the type of rehearsal is more important than the amount of rehearsal, contradicting the MSM’s method of prolonged rehearsal
- discovered that elaborative rehearsal is a more efficient way of remembering information
- this is a limitation , as the MSM doesn’t account for how long term storage is fully achieved
define elaborative rehearsal
when you link new information to your existing knowledge, or you think about what it means/understand it
how is the case of KF a limitation of the MSM?
- had a memory disorder
- STM was poor when digits were read to him, but recall was better when he read them to himself
- this suggests there could be another short-term store that processes non-verbal sounds
- this limits the MSM, as it claims that there is just one STM store, which processes different types of information (visual, auditory etc)