Research & Evaluation of the MSM Flashcards
what evidence supports the capacity of the sensory register?
whole or partial report technique: participants were asked to recall the whole (or part) array such as a line. In tachistoscope.
what evidence supports the coding of STM?
Baddeley (1966) Participants were divided into groups and given different lists of words to learn then recall Acoustically Similar (mad, man, map) Acoustically Dissimilar (pen, few, day) Semantically Similar (great, big, large) Semantically Dissimilar (hot, old, late) Acoustically dissimilar words were recalled more accurately than acoustically similar, so there must be some acoustic confusion in the recall, which suggests that coding is acoustic. Other lists were recalled much better 60-80% accurate recall, the little difference in the semantic lists means that this is not the coding in STM
what evidence supports the capacity of STM?
The Magic number 7 (plus or minus two) provides evidence for the capacity of short term memory.
Most adults can store between 5 and 9 items in their short-term memory.
who put forward the ‘magic number 7’ theory?
Miller (1956)
What evidence supports the duration of STM?
Peterson and Peterson (1959)
Participants saw a trigram, then had an interference task, like counting backwards in 3s, to prevent repetition of the trigram.
Then asked to recall.
After 3 seconds 90% were recalled
After 18 seconds 5% were recalled
This suggests that STM lasts little longer than 18 seconds, but when people aren’t expecting to recall, other research suggests it lasts much less
What evidence supports the coding of LTM?
Baddeley (1966) Participants were divided into groups and given lists of words to learn then recall immediately Acoustically Similar (mad, man, map) Acoustically Dissimilar (pen, few, day) Semantically Similar (great, big, large) Semantically Dissimilar (hot, old, late) Semantically dissimilar words were recalled more accurately than semantically similar, so there must be some semantic confusion in recall, which suggests that coding is semantic. The little difference in the acoustic lists means that this is not the coding in LTM
what evidence supports the duration of LTM?
Bahrick et al (1975)
They aimed to investigate long term memory over decades. They asked 392 American ex-high school students aged 17-74 were studied. They were asked to free recall the names of their classmates, then were shown faces and names of classmates and asked if they recognised them.
90% accuracy in face and name after 34 years
80% name recognition after 48 years
40% face recognition after 48 years
Free recall were less accurate
60% after 15 years
30% after 48 years
Bahrick concluded that LTM can last a lifetime, even though they may weaken. Recognition is better than recall
what has research shown about the process of rehearsal?
Glanzer and Cunitz
Found that if participants were prevented from rehearsing a list of one syllable words for a short period by counting backwards in threes, they could remember the first words in the presentation, but not those presented in the middle or the end. If participants were allowed to recall immediately, they remembered both the words at the beginning and the end. This is known as the primacy-recency effect, which supports LTM
what has research shown about methods of rehearsal?
Participants were asked questions about stimulus words at different processing ‘levels’.
The words with questions that required a ‘shallow level’ of processing, for example “is the word printed in capital letters?”, were less likely to be recalled than words with questions that required a ‘deep level’ of processing, for example, “is the word a type of fruit?”. This suggests that other methods other than repetition have a role in passing information. This provides counter evidence to MSM
Which case study does MSM fail to explain?
Clive Wearing
He had very little long term memory for events, after a virus damaged his hippocampus. But he could still remember skills, such as playing the piano, which counter the suggestion that they were unitary stores
what is an application of MSM?
the model informs students that to pass information into a permanent store , they need to repeat the rehearsal of the information required. Just reading it once would not be considered effective rehearsal, according to the model
What are the 4 evaluation points for the msm?
- supporting evidence
- case studies
- long-term memory involves more than maintenance rehearsal
- how separate are STM and LTM?
what is the PEEL paragraph for the MSM evaluation point ‘supporting evidence’?
P- controlled lab studies on capacity, duration and coding support the existence of a separate short- and long-term store, which is the basis of the MSM
E- for instance, studies using brain scanning techniques have demonstrated that there is a difference between STM and LTM.
E- Beardsley (1997) found that the prefrontal cortex is active during STM but not LTM tasks.
L- this evidence therefore provides strong support for the MSM.
what is the PEEL paragraph for the MSM evaluation point ‘case studies’?
P - psychologists have shown that different areas of the brain are involved in STM and LTM from their study of individuals with brain damage.
E - for instance, Scoville and Milner examined a brain-damaged man called HM. His brain damage was caused by an operation to remove the hippocampus, from both sides of his brain, to reduce his severe epilepsy.
E - HM’s personality and intellect remained intact but he could not form new LTMs, although he could remember things from before the surgery.
L - this provides support for the MSM’s notion of separate stores, as HM was unable to transfer information from his STM to LTM, but was able to retrieve information from before his surgery (from his LTM).
what is the PEEL paragraph for the MSM evaluation point ‘long-term memory involves more than maintenance rehearsal’?
P - the MSM has been criticised for its emphasis on maintenance rehearsal.
Exp - Craik and Lockhart (1972) suggested that enduring memories are created by the processing that you do, rather than through maintenance rehearsal. Things that are processed more deeply are more memorable just because of the way they are processed.
E - Craik and Tulving (1975) gave participants a list of nouns (e.g. ‘shark’) and asked a question that involved shallow or deep processing - asked whether a word was printed in caps (shallow processing) or asked whether the word fitted in a sentence (deep processing). The participants ultimately remembered more words in the task involving deep processing rather than shallow processing.
L - this suggests that the process of rehearsal does not fully explain the process of creating long-term memories. ‘Deep’ or elaborative processing is also a key part of the process.
