the multi-store model of memory

Question 1

summary of the multi-store model

Answer 1

1. stimulus from the environment
2. sensory register (iconic, echoic etc.) —> attention to STM
3. short-term memory store —> prolonged rehearsal to LTM, maintenance rehearsal with rehearsal loop, response = remembering
4. long-term memory store —> retrieval to STM

Question 2

who developed the MSM and what is it?

Answer 2

• atkinson and shriffin (1968, 1971)
• describes how information flows through the memory system
• the model suggests that memory is made up of three stores linked by processing

Question 3

what are the three stores?

Answer 3

1. sensory register
2. short-term memory
3. long-term memory

Question 4

what are some key features of the sensory register?

Answer 4

• all stimuli from environment pass into sensory register
• the SR comprises of several registers (sensory memory stores), one for each of the five senses
• coding for each is modality specific (ie. it depends on the sense)
• information passes further into the memory system only if you pay attention to it, so attention is the key process

Question 5

modality specific coding examples

Answer 5

• visual information = iconic memory
• acoustic information = echoic memory
• there are other sensory stores for touch, taste and smell information

Question 6

what is the duration and capacity of material in the sensory register?

Answer 6

• less than half a second
• SRs have a very high capacity eg. there are over 100 million cells in one eye, each storing data

Question 7

what is the coding and duration of information in the short-term memory?

Answer 7

• information is mainly coded acoustically
• it lasts about 18 seconds unless it is rehearsed, so STM is more of a temporary store

Question 8

what is the capacity of the short-term memory?

Answer 8

• limited ie. it can only contain a certain number of things before forgetting occurs
• capacity is between five and nine items of information
• but cowan’s research suggests it might be more like five than nine

Question 9

what is maintenance rehearsal?

Answer 9

• occurs when we repeat (rehearse) material to ourselves over and over again
• we can keep the information in our STMs as long as we rehearse it
• if we rehearse it long enough, it passes into long-term memory

Question 10

what is the coding, capacity and duration of the LTM?

Answer 10

• LTMs are coded mostly semantically (ie. in terms of meaning)
• psychologists believe its duration may be up to a lifetime
• capacity is thought to be practically unlimited
• this is a potentially permanent memory store for information that has been rehearsed for a prolonged time

Question 11

how is information transferred back into STM from the LTM?

Answer 11

according to the MSM, when we want to recall information from LTM, it has to be transferred back into STM by a process called retrieval

Question 12

evaluation: research support from studies showing the STM and LTM are different

Answer 12

• baddeley (1966) found that we tend to mix up words that sound similar when we are using our STMs but we mix up words that have similar meanings when we use our LTMs
• further support also comes from studies of capacity and duration which distinguish between STM and LTM as separate and independent memory stores, as claimed by the MSM

Question 13

evaluation: MSM is not applicable to everyday life

Answer 13

• in everyday life we form memories related to useful things eg. people’s faces, their names, facts, places etc.
• many of the studies that support the MSM do not use these materials
• instead they used digits, letters (jacobs), words (baddeley) or consonant syllables which have no meaning (peterson and peterson)
• this means that MSM may not be a valid model of how memory works in our everyday lives where we have to remember much more meaningful information

Question 14

evaluation: evidence of more than one STM store

Answer 14

• shallice and warrington (1970) studied client KF who had amnesia
• KF’s STM for digits was very poor when they were read out loud to him but much better when he read the digits to himself
• further studies of KF and others showed that there could even be another short-term store for non-verbal sounds eg. noises
• this evidence suggests that the MSM is wrong in claiming that there is just one STM store processing different types of information (eg. visual, auditory etc.)

Question 15

evaluation: prolonged rehearsal is not needed for transfer to LTM

Answer 15

• according to the MSM, what matters about rehearsal is the amount of it ie. the more you rehearse something, the more likely it is to transfer to LTM
  > this is prolonged rehearsal
• craik and watkins (1973) found that the type of rehearsal is more important than the amount
• elaborative rehearsal is need for long-term storage
• this is when you link the information to your existing knowledge, or you think about what it means
• this means that information can be transferred to LTM without prolonged rehearsal
• this suggests that the MSM does not fully explain how long-term storage is achieved

Question 16

evaluation: research evidence that LTM is also not a single memory store

Answer 16

• we have one long-term store for our memories of facts about the world and we have a different one for our memories of how to ride a bicycle
• combined with research showing there is ore than one type of STM and more than one type of rehearsal, the MSM can be seen as an oversimplified model of memory

Question 17

evaluation: evidence to support the limited duration of the sensory registers (sperling 1960)

Answer 17

• participants saw a grid of digits and letters for 50 milliseconds
• they were either asked to write down all 12 items or just the top, middle or bottom row
• when asked to recall the whole thing, their recall was poorer (5 items recalled, about 42%) than when asked to give one row only (3 items recalled, 75%)
• this suggests the the SR has a very limited duration