The Multistore Model of Memory (Memory) Flashcards
What is coding?
The way information is transformed into a format that can be stored and retrieved from memory.
What is capacity?
The amount of information that can be held in a memory store.
What is duration?
The length of time information can be held in memory before decaying/disappearing.
What is long term memory?
- Your memory of events that have happened in the past.
- This lasts anywhere from 1 minute to 100 years.
- LTM has potentially unlimited duration and capacity and tends to be coded sensitively.
What is short term memory?
- An unitary system
- Your memory for immediate events, measured in seconds and minutes rather than hours and days.
- They disappear until rehearsed.
- STM also has limited capacity of about four items or chunks, and it tends to be coded acoustically.
- It holds limited amounts of information for short periods of time with little processing.
- Sometimes referred to as working memory.
What is the capacity of short term memory?
Short term memory capacity —> 7+ or -2
What is short term memory duration?
Short term memory duration —> 18-20 seconds
How is short term memory coded/encoded
Short term memory coding/encoding —> acoustic - sounds
What is the capacity of long term memory?
Long term memory capacity —> infinite / limitless
What is long term memory duration?
Long term memory duration —> up to a lifetime
How is long term memory coded/encoded?
Long term memory coding/encoding —> semantically - meaning of words
What does the multi-store model look like?
- The SENSORY MEMORY gives attention to the SHORT TERM MEMORY.
- The SHORT TERM MEMORY constantly rehearses the information.
- The SHORT TERM MEMORY transfers the information into the LONG TERM MEMORY.
- The LONG TERM MEMORY takes part in retrieval where the information is passed back to SUORT TERM MEMORY.
Who came up with the multistore memory model?
Atkinson and Shriffin (1968)
What is a model of memory?
- A representation of our memory.
- It helps us to understand how our memory sounds and what it ‘looks like’.
What was the study conducted on the coding of short term memory?
Baddeley (1966):
- Participants divided into 4 groups —> acoustically similar words, acoustically dissimilar words, semantically similar words, and semantically dissimilar words.
- Each group was given five words based on their category.
- After hearing the five words, they were asked asked to recall them in the correct order.
- Acoustically similar words were harder to recall.
What is strengths of Baddeleys study on the coding of short term memory?
- Showed a clear difference between two memory stores (STM and LTM)
What is weaknesses on Baddeleys study on the coding of long term memory?
- This does not represent how we use our STM in every day life, so it lacks ecological validity.
What is the study on the capacity of short term memory?
- Miller reviewed psychological research into the capacity of STM and found that people can remember about 7 items, plus or minus 2.
- The span of immediate memory is 7+ or -2.
What is the strengths of Millers study against the capacity of short term memory?
- High in validity —> the study has been replicated
What is the weakness against Millers study of short term memory?
- The capacity of STM may increase with age and this is not taken into account. (Jacobs)
What is the study conducted for the duration of short term memory?
Peterson and Peterson (1959):
- Participants were shown a constant trigram (three letters) and were asked to count backwards in threes to stop them rehearsing the letters —> known as an ‘interference task’.
- At regular intervals, they were asked to recall the trigrams.
- Participants could recall 80% of trigrams after 3 seconds.
- After 18 seconds, less than 10% of trigrams were recalled.
What are the strengths of Peterson and Peterson study of the duration of short term memory?
- High internal validity —> set out to test what they wanted to test.
- Standardised —> everyone exposed to trigrams and distraction - which showed that as it progressed less, participants could remember trigrams.
What are the weaknesses of Peterson and Peterson study of the duration of short term memory?
- Artificial setting —> doesn’t reflect real life, therefore lacking validity.
What is the study conducted on the coding of long term memory?
Baddeley (1966):
- Participants were divided into four groups —> acoustically similar words, acoustically dissimilar words, semantically similar words, semantically dissimilar words.
- After an interval of 20 minutes, participants were asked to recall words in the correct order.
- Recall was much worse for semantically similar words (55% accuracy) than for semantically dissimilar words (85% accuracy) so LTM mainly was semantic coding because it was easier for people to recall words which had different meanings.
What is the strengths of Baddeleys study of the coding of long term memory?
- Showed a clear difference between the two memory stores (STM and LTM).
What is the weaknesses of Baddeleys study on long term memory?
- Internal validity —> LTM was tested by waiting 20 minutes —> it is questionable,whether this is really testing LTM.
What is the study conducted for the duration of long term memory?
Bahrick et al (1975):
- 392 graduates were shown photographs from their high school yearbook.
—> Recognition group: participants had to match the name to the photograph.
—> Recall group: participants were asked to recall the names of the people when shown a photograph.
- In the recognition group, accuracy was 60% after 47 years and in the recall group, the participants were less than 20% accurate after 47 years.
- This shows that certain information types can be remembered over a lifetime and LTM tends to be better when measured by recognition.
What is the strengths of Bahrick et al’s study on the duration of long term memory?
- High in external validity as the researchers were investigating meaningful memories.
What is the weaknesses of Bahrick et al’s study on the duration of long term memory?
- Extraneous variables —> some participants may have still been in contact with their peers or seen them recently.
What is a model of memory?
- A representation of our memory
- It helps us to understand how our memory sounds and what it ‘looks like’.
What are the strengths of the multistore model?
- Controlled lab studies on capacity, duration and coding support the existence of a separate short term memory and long term memory, which is the basis of MSM.
- Studies using brain scanning techniques have also demonstrated that there is a difference between STM and LTM. Beardsley (1997) found that the prefrontal cortex is active during STM but not LTM tasks.
- Psychologists have also shown that different areas of the brain are involved in STM and LTM from the studies of individuals with brain damage.
- HM’s personality and intellect remained intact but he couldn’t form new LTM’s, however he could remember things from before the surgery.
What are the weaknesses of the MSM model?
- Too simplistic —> suggests that the STM and LTM are single ‘unitary’ stores. However, research does not support this. Research suggests that the working memory (STM) actually is divided into a number of qualitatively relative stores, the same is said of LTM.
- LTM involved more than maintenance rehearsal. Craig and Tulvric (1975) gave participants a list of nouns and asked questions that involved deep or shallow processing.
What did Craig and Tulvic (1975) do which is used as a weakness against the MSM, as it suggests the LTM involves more than maintenance rehearsal?
- Craig and Tulvic gave participants a list of nouns and asked questions that involved deep or shallow processing —> asked whether the word was printed in capital letters (shallow processing) or asked whether the word was fitted in a sentence (deep processing).
- The participants remembered more words in the task involving deep processing rather than shallow processing.
- The ‘deep’ or elaborate processing is a key process in creating long term memories.
Who is patient KF?
Shallice and Warrington, 1966:
- Patient KF was injured in a motorcycle accident.
- He was able to remember recalled information from his LTM but not STM.
- He was able to remember his visual images, including faces, but he was unable to remember sounds (acoustic information).
