The multi-store model of memory

Question 1

What 3 stores does the MSM consist of?

Answer 1

Sensory Register, short term memory and long term memory

Question 2

How are the stores described?

Answer 2

As unitary, separate stores

Question 3

How does information pass through each store?

Answer 3

In a linear way

Question 4

What is coding?

Answer 4

the format in which the information is kept

Question 5

What is capacity?

Answer 5

the quantity of information that can be stored

Question 6

What is duration?

Answer 6

how long it can be stored for

Question 7

Describe what the sensory register does

Answer 7

Takes info from the environment via one of the sense organs and holds it in that same form store. There is a store for each of the senses.

Question 8

What is the key process of the SR

Answer 8

Attention - if we pay attention the information passes onto STM store.

Question 9

How is the sensory register coded?

Answer 9

Sense specific

e.g. iconic store codes visual information and the echoic store codes auditory information

Question 10

What is the capacity of the Sensory Register

Answer 10

Very high/large

Question 11

What is the duration of the Sensory Register?

Answer 11

Less than half a second

Question 12

What is the main process of STM?

Answer 12

Maintenance Rehearsal - when we repeat info over and over to ourselves. If we rehearse it for long enough (prolonged rehearsal) the information passes from STM to LTM. Information can decay if there is no maintenance rehearsal.

Question 13

How is STM coded?

Answer 13

Acoustically (Baddeley’s research)

Question 14

What is the capacity of STM?

Answer 14

Small capacity of 7+/- 2 items (Jacob’s and Miller’s research)

Question 15

What is the duration of STM?

Answer 15

lasts less than 18-30 seconds unless it is rehearsed (Peterson and Peterson’s research)

Question 16

Describe the LTM store

Answer 16

This is where information is stored if it is properly rehearsed in the STM.

Question 17

What is the main process of LTM?

Answer 17

Retrieval - information can be recalled back from LTM to use in STM.

Forgetting is due to interference, retrieval failure or decay.

Question 18

Who did research on coding and what store?

Answer 18

Baddeley (1966) STM and LTM

Question 19

Describe Baddeley’s study

Answer 19

Participants were given 4 sets of words to recall in order

1) Acoustically similar (sound the same) e.g. cat, mat
2) Acoustically different (sound different) e.g. dog, bin, cup, pen
3) Semantically similar (similar meaning) e.g. big, large, huge
4) Semantically dissimilar (different meaning) e.g. huge, good, light, blue

Question 20

What did Baddeley find about STM coding?

Answer 20

When participants were asked to recall the words in order immediately, they made significantly more mistakes on words that sounded alike.

Question 21

What did Baddeley conclude about coding in the STM?

Answer 21

STM information is coded acoustically so when we recall information from STM similar sounding words get confused.

Question 22

What did Baddeley find about LTM coding (participants)

Answer 22

Participants were asked to recall after 20 minutes. They were far more likely to confuse semantically similar words (have a similar meaning) than semantically dissimilar words.

Question 23

What did Baddeley conclude about coding in the LTM?

Answer 23

LTM is coded semantically (by its meaning). So when we recall information from LTM, similar meaning words get confused.

Question 24

Who researched capacity and in what store?

Answer 24

Jacobs (1887) and STM

Question 25

What happened in Jacobs’ study?

Answer 25

Measured digit span. Read out digits/letters to participants. Increased the length of these digits by one each time until the participant could only accurately recall the information in the correct order.

Question 26

What did Jacobs find?

Answer 26

The mean span for digits was 9.3 and for letters was 7.3

Question 27

What did Miller find?

Answer 27

STM has a capacity of between 5 and 9 items.

7+-2

Question 28

Who did research on duration and what store?

Answer 28

Peterson and Peterson (1959) of STM

Question 29

Describe Peterson and Peterson’s study

Answer 29

Participants were presented with trigrams (three consonants). Vowels were avoided so words couldn’t be constructed. Participants were then asked to count backwards in 3s from a 3 digit number. They were then asked to stop after varying periods of time e.g. 3,6,9,12,15&18 seconds (the retention interval) and recall the trigrams.

Question 30

What did Peterson and Peterson find?

Answer 30

after 3 seconds, average recall was 80%, and after 18 seconds it was about 3%

Question 31

What did Peterson and Peterson conclude?

Answer 31

Duration of STM is 18-30 seconds.

Question 32

Who did research on duration of LTM?

Answer 32

Bahrick et al (1975)

Question 33

What were the aims of Bahrick’s study?

Answer 33

• To investigate the duration of Very-Long-Term-Memory (VLTM).
• To see if memories can last several decades.

Question 34

Describe the procedure of Bahrick’s study

Answer 34

• An opportunity sample of 392 American ex-High-School students aged between 17 and 74 was used. The time since leaving High School was up to 48 years. The participants were tested in four ways:
- Free recall of the names of as many of their ex-classmates as possible.
- A photo recognition test. The participants were asked to identify their former classmates from a set of 50 photos.
- A name recognition test.
- A name and photo matching test.
• Very Long Term Memory was assessed by comparing the participants’ responses with yearbooks of all the students in that year.

Question 35

What did Bahrick find?

Answer 35

photo recognition - 90% accuracy within 15 years of graduation and after 48 years it declined to 70%
free recall - 60% accurate after 15 years and only 30% accurate after 48 years

Question 36

What did Bahrick conclude?

Answer 36

This demonstrates that people have very-long-term memories

The findings also support the claim that recognition is better than free recall.