Multi-Store Model of Memory

Evaluate the supporting evidence of the Multi-store model of Memory

-research supports the separate stores in the model

-Murdock found if participants recalled list of one syllable words they could remember words from the beginning and the end but not the middle - known as primacy-recency effect

-supports MSM as words at the start are rehearsed and placed in LTM but middle words are displaced by rehearsing first words and the words at the end are fresh in STM and recalled

-this supports distinction between STM and LTM and role of rehearsal for passing info from STM to LTM

Evaluate transfer of info to LTM

- MSM fails to explain why fails to explain why day to day life info can be transferred to LTM without prolonged rehearsal

-Craik and Lockhart suggested enduring memories are created by depth of processing rather than rehearsal, deeply processed info is more memorable as more effort goes into creating the memory

-Craik and Tulving gave p's list if nouns and asked a question involving deep or shallow processing then asked whether words was in CAPS (shallow) or fitted in a sentence (deep) and p's remembered more words in deep processing

-contradicts original claim that memories need rehearsal before transferring into LTM so casts doubts over model's assumptions

Evaluate STM and LTM as memory store

-evidence suggests LTM and STM shouldn't be considered as unitary stores

- Blakemore case study after a virus caused damage to hippocampus Clive Wearing had little LTM of events in life but remembered skills like piano, reading music suggests LTM isn't unitary

-Shallice and Warrington case study KF damaged STM for info spoken to him but could retain info visually showed to him suggests STM isn't unitary

-demonstrates LTM may store+process episodic (memory for events), procedural (skills) differently and STM has separate 'visual' and 'acoustic' components so MSM unlikely to be accurate model

What is the research supporting capacity and duration of sensory register?

-Sperling presented p's with grids containing 3 rows of 4 letters for 1/20th of a second

-when asked to recall a while grid p's could only recall 4 or 5 letters but many claimed to have seen more and guessed total were 12 because all letters had entered SR but faded before they could be reported

-tested claim with ajother study where p's only recalled part of info like 1 of the rows

-recall was good 75-100% success and suggested iconic memory could hold 9-12 items but faded before they could be reported

- fast decay makes hard to test for SR

What is conclusion of research for SR?

suggests capacity of SR is much larger than 4/5 letters as p's didn't know which line they would be asked to recall but did better than og experiment suggests all letters were available in SR

-in first one memory decaysbefore you can report letters

-time taken to report letters in first row is quicker than whole grid so issue of fading is avoided so suggests while SR capacity is large it's duration is limited at 0.5 seconds

What is the research supporting capacity of STM?

- Jacobs (1887) pls were presented with sequence of digits and were supposed to repeat them back in order

- pace was controlled at half second intervals using metronome and procedure was vrepeated several times

- Jacobs found pls recalled more digits than letters and average span for digits was 9.3 but 7.3 for letters

- also found capacity increased with age steadily

- Female sample he found 8 yr olds had average of 6.6 whereas 19 yr olds had average of 8.6 digits

- capacity is 7 +/- 2 items

What is the research supporting the duration of STM?

- peterson and Peterson investigated how long simple info stays in STM without repetition

- each trial p's saw a 'trigram' which had 3 consonants and different trigram used for each trial

- were asked to recall after a delay of 3,6,9,12,15 or 18 seconds

- the longer the time delay the more the forgetting

- after 3 seconds 90% trigrams recalled 20% after 9 seconds after 18s only 2% recalled

- concluded that without repetition STM lasts for little longer than 18s

What is the research supporting the coding of STM?

- Baddeley divided p's into groups and gave them different lists of words to learn and either asked them to recall immediately or after 20 mins

-immediate recall for acoustically similar lists were remembered poorly with 10% recall while acoustically dissimilar list recalled best with 60-80% recall

-recall after 20 mins for semantically similar words were recalled poorly while semantically dissimilar words were recalled much better

-acoustically similar words were recalled less accurately suggests STM was getting muddled based on the sound of words because acoustic coding is the preferred way of recall in STM however dissimilar words were recalled well as they don't sound the same

-semantically similar words were muddled in the LTM suggests that LTM prefers semantic coding

What is research supporting capacity of LTM?

-longitudinal Study (same p's over a long time)

-Konkle showed p's pics of scenes at 3 seconds per scene and then a test of recognition -money and scenes belonged to a total of 128 different genres

-LTM for scenes was very good, p's told to sort out scenes presented with before and new ones there was 96% accuracy

-there isn't a limit to volume of info in LTM

What is the research supporting duration of LTM?

-Bahrick et al collected sample of 392 ex-high school American students aged 17-74 and asked to remember names of classmates and also shown faces and names and asked if they remember

-90% accuracy in face and name recognition for p's who had left 34 yrs ago, 48 yes ago had 80% name recognition and 40% for face recognition

-free recall less accurate 60% after 15 yrs and 30% after 48 yrs

-concludes that LTM can last lifetimes and recognition is better than free recall

What research supports coding of LTM?

-prev baddeley research but when recall was after 20 mins semantically similar words was poor while dissimilar words was better

-concludes that semantically similar words were muddled in LTM shows LTM prefers using semantic coding

Evaluate experimental method of MSM research

-uses lab experiments so extraneous variables are controlled

-eg in peterson peterson study of duration of STM distraction tasks were used to prevent p's from rehearsing trigram so duration is manipulated to establish cause and effect

-procedures are standardised = easily replicable = more reliability

-therefore study has good internal validity as high control of extraneous variable and isolation of IV

Evaluate artificial nature of tasks of MSM research

- highly artificial tasks are used in memory experiments compared to real life

-eg trying to memorise strings of digits doesn't reflect memory irl

-March et al showed if people weren't expecting to recall info their STM had maximum duration of 4 seconds

-poor mundane realism makes it lack ecological validity so difficult to generalise findings due to strict lab conditions

Evaluate practical applications of MSM research

-has positive real world benefits

- capacity of STM is useful to teachers and students as teachers can reduce new info in lessons when planning them and create tasks to transfer info from STM to LTM

-has helped improve limits of memory