PSY 270 Lecture 4 - Short Term Storage

Atkinson Model (outdated)

What is Sensory Memory?

A limited capacity store that holds basic sensory information for a very limited amount of time.

What is Iconic memory

Visual sensory memory

What is Echoic memory

audio sensory memory

Sperlings Sensory Store Investigation

Using a task where participants had to remember as many letters quickly shown they could only remember 3-4. Duration was at most 1 second and could only remember 76% of items.

Short Term Memory Limiting Factors

A limited capacity store that holds information for a relatively brief period. Without rehearsal the duration of STM is only a few seconds (10-20)

VIsual STM

Using a change detection paradigm it shows we can store 4 visual items in STM.

What is the working memory model

The WM allows us to both temporarily store and manipulate information. STM can be considered a larger WM system. WM is a limited capacity system.

Phonological loop / Visuo Spatial Sketchpad

Limited storage for acuostic/verbal (phonological) or visual (visuo sketchpad) information.

What does the central executive do?

THis is the control centre for the WM this is where processing goes on. Its often considered an attentional control mechanism. Its requried for initiating retrival,planning actions, and integrating information. It regulates relevant and irrelevant information.

Measuring WM Operation Span

Span tasks correlate with many everyday tasks including academic performance.

Baddeleys WM model The binding problem

Baddelys 3 component model doesn’t address the binding problem norother issues: how does chunking increase WM capacity (independently of attention).

Revised WM Model with Episodic Buffer

Episodic Buffer, used to integrate information from different modalities into a complete memory. Binds information from WM components and LTM, it is a limited capacity buffer controlled by the central executive.